Is Eric K Shinseki the Next Great AA Leader? | Asian American Issues

ost who know of the brave sacrifices made by Japanese American fighting men during World War II -- while so many of their relatives had been interned as enemy aliens -- are surprised and moved to learn that today a JA occupies the U.S. Army's top job. General Eric K. Shinseki, West Point grad and thrice-wounded veteran of the Vietnam War, became the Army's 34th Chief of Staff on June 22, 1999.

Nor has Shinseki's rise to the top been at the expense of his heritage. As much a literate wordsmith as a decorated warrior, he was careful to infuse his arrival ceremony speech with an eloquent homage to the sacrifices that laid the foundation for his own ascension:

In this family are members who served with Senator Inouye in the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Though they never thought about it in this way, they and the other men of the 442nd, the 100th Battalion, the Military Intelligence Service, and the 1399th Engineers, bought for me and my generation our birthrights as American citizens. Because of what they, and others of their generation, did on those distant battlefields so many years ago, I have lived my life without suspicion, without limitation, with the full rights and privileges of citizenship, and with the opportunity to compete.

Three years into his four-year term, Shinseki has distinguished himself as a history-making Chief of Staff. Predecessors have generally kept a low profile while waging intra-service turf wars for budgets and weapons systems. Despite a measured, almost scholarly, personal style, Shinseki was quickly thrust into a high-profile role because of his ambitions for his beloved Army. His very first speech outlined his commitment to transforming the Army into a mobile fighting force configured to respond swiftly to farflung crises:

Today, our heavy forces are too heavy and our light forces lack staying power. We will address those mismatches. Heavy forces must be more strategically deployable and more agile with a smaller logistical footprint, and light forces must be more lethal, survivable, and tactically mobile.

     This objective put Shinseki on a collision course with the defense establishment which has seen the Army's primary role as staying ready to fight two simultaneous land wars using tanks and artillery pieces. This doctrine is a holdover from the Cold War when military planners worried about heavily armored communist-block armies overrunning central Europe and the Corean peninsula.

     But with the Soviet collapse a decade behind us, the U.S. military will more likely face threats from terrorists, criminal organizations, fratricidal upheavals and natural disasters, Shinseki has argued. He has pushed tirelessly to create momentum for an epochal transformation. His passionate and articulate testimony has prodded Congress to pass the appropriations needed to begin realizing the vision of a light but lethal elite army. Billions have been budgeted for exotic technologies like strength-enhancing body armor, exotic ammunitions and light-deflecting camouflage suits. More billions are being used to upgrade the capabilities of ordinary soldiers on a par with special forces.

     As a token of that goal, in October of 2000 Shinseki ordered morale-boosting black berets to replace the old standard-issue overseas caps and fatigue caps. That raised the hackles of the Army Rangers for whom black berets had become a symbol of their elite capabilities. It also triggered a congressional review of the uniform change. Shinseki solved that impasse by having the Rangers switch to tan berets only to be broadsided by a mass media expose that 16% of the Army's order of 4.8 million berets had gone to a British firm that would have them sewn in China in violation of a procurement law requiring military garments to be made in the U.S. The black berets and Shinseki's crusade for transformation of the Army weathered the fiasco. A sense of urgency was added to his vision by the horrendous events of 9/11 and its aftermath .

     Eric K. Shinseki was born November 28, 1942 in Lihue, Kauai. As a boy he was inspired by the stories of uncles who had fought in Europe with the 442nd and the 100th. He did well enough in high school to win admission to West Point. Within a few months of his graduation in 1965 he was a second lieutenant on his way to Vietnam to serve as an artillery forward observer. On a second combat tour he commanded a tank squadron. During those Vietnam tours he was wounded three times and displayed enough courage and leadership to earn the devotion of his men. His sergeant Les Cotton (now the sheriff of Navarro County, Texas) called him "the finest person and the best officer I have ever served with". On one occasion Shinseki's injuries were so severe that Cotton assumed he would die in the hospital . Only 30 years later did he learn that Shinseki had survived.

CONTINUED BELOW

     Shinseki's valorous displays of leadership under fire won him two Distinguished Service Medals, the Bronze Star and several Purple Hearts -- and put him on the Army's fast track. As preparation for the climb to the top, he attended National War College and Duke University where he got a masters in English literature. That degree would give him the opportunity, among various assignments around the country, to teach at West Point. As he rose into the general ranks, Shinseki served 10 years at various commands in Europe.

     In 1994 Major General (two-star) Shinseki returned to take command of the illustrious 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. In July 1996, along with a promotion to lieutenant (three-star) general, he was brought into the Pentagon to serve as a deputy chief of staff of the Army -- equivalent to an executive V.P. at the headquarters of a major corporation. A year later he was given a fourth star and returned to Germany to assume command of the U.S. Army in Europe, then command of NATO land forces in Central Europe. In mid 1997 came a 15-month assignment that may have inspired his Army transformation crusade -- command of NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia.

     Around Thanksgiving of 1998 Shinseki was recalled to the Pentagon as Vice Chief of Staff, the penultimate step before winning the Army's top office in June, 1999.

     Eric Shinseki is married to the former Patricia K. Yoshinobu, a J.A. from Hanapepe, Kauai. They have two children, Lori and Ken.

     On his appointment to Chief of Staff, the media pegged Shinseki as a savvy political player who knows how to marshall support inside and outside the Army. That assessment has been borne out by the remarkable progress Shinseki has made in kicking off the large-scale transformation of a once hidebound Army. The big question is what Shinseki will do when his term as Chief of Staff expires in June, 2003. One possibility is to enter politics and seek the seat of elderly Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), himself a war hero who had lost an arm taking a hill in Italy during WW II.

     Is Eric K. Shinseki the likely successor to Daniel Inouye? Or will he go even further to attain the national ledership role that has eluded Inouye?

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WHAT YOU SAY

[This page is closed to new input. Vote and continue this and related discussions at the new Interactive Area. --Ed.]

Americans love ex-generals turned politicians! I think Shinseki should go for it. He'd be a most exciting addition to the Senate were he to replace Inouye, whatever party he chose to run with. Republicans would find it difficult to attack a four-star general who was wounded in Vietnam, and Democrats would find it difficult to get their base (Japanese-American voters) not to vote for a Republican Shinseki candidacy. I don't know that he's ready for a national candidacy, but the Senate would be a great springboard for one.
JJP
Sunday, May 05, 2002 at 18:39:59 (PDT)

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