Former JCS chairman Crowe dies at 82

[NativeTexan]

<p>What a gentleman.</p>

<p>We need more leaders like him…</p>

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Those performances and others led the New York Times to call him “the most powerful peacetime military officer in American history.”

One of the few Joint chiefs who had never led his own branch of service, Adm. Crowe was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He declined a request from President George H.W. Bush to serve a second four-year term. But unlike the MacArthurian generals who quietly fade away, Adm. Crowe made his retirement years strikingly public.
He condemned the military’s anti-gay bias and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the first officer of his stature to do so. He criticized the buildup to the first Gulf War, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton when others questioned his lack of military credentials, served as chairman of two boards charged with investigating the bombings of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, then warned about insecure U.S. embassies a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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“My father used to say, ‘Your mind is like a parachute. If it won’t open when you need it, it is not much good.’ I have an open mind,” he said at his confirmation hearing. “My minister said that the difference between a eulogy and a testimonial is that in the case of the testimonial there is one man in the audience who believes it.”

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Since 1999, Adm. Crowe had taught a class in security decision-making at Annapolis. He told the midshipmen last year that although he didn’t know how to get out of Iraq, he could help them learn how to avoid the next Iraq.
“Bending another culture to your will can’t be done on the cheap,” he told the class. “Our resources are not unlimited and we should not be led to believe otherwise.” Every administration “underestimates the cost in time, money and casualties,” he said. “Voters should be die-hard cynics when evaluating such predictions.”

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<p>Hope the Midshipmen are allowed to attend. He should be honored by the Brigade.</p>