Backtalk: George Marshalls wanted

[unhappycamper]

George Marshalls wanted
By Chris J. Krisinger

On these pages some weeks ago, several prominent retired Air Force generals offered views on what should guide the Air Force’s choice of a replacement for the KC-135 tanker aircraft. Similar op-ed pieces have appeared in other newspapers around the country.

In “point-counterpoint” format, one side offered an implicit endorsement of one competing aircraft, while the other side explicitly recommended the other.

But the retired officers shared one thing in common. Their thumbnail biographies made clear that they work as consultants for the respective companies involved in the competition — retired Gens. Charles Horner, Michael Ryan and Michael Short for Northrop Grumman, and retired Maj. Gen. Jay Barry for Boeing.

While the idea of retired senior officers working for defense contractors is not new, these opinions — no matter how persuasive — raise a fundamental question. What is their counsel and what is a commercial? The objectivity of their advice becomes suspect, and their messages convey like infomercials. For today’s audiences, the generals lose some measure of the public’s high regard for them as retired military generals when they act more like Peyton Manning shilling for MasterCard.

The whole idea of retired senior officers using the weight of their distinguished public service for gain in the private sector brings to mind a quote by Gen. George C. Marshall. When offered a large sum of money to write his memoirs after World War II, Marshall famously replied, “The taxpayer has already paid for my memoirs.”


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_generals_030308/