General Mundy in his obituary deserved more than the back of the Post's hand

By Col. Butch Bracknell, USMC (Ret.)


Best Defense guest columnist

The Washington Post's obituary following the passing of General Carl E. Mundy, Jr., the 30th commandant
of the Marine Corps, could have benefited from some balance, perspective, and a
dose of journalistic ethics. The Post
can even make an obituary sensational. Writer Matt Schudel replows old dirt by
resurfacing controversies surrounding certain of General Mundy's public
statements. General Mundy, as a public figure, was of course not immune from
criticism, and this writer would even wager that, if asked, General Mundy would
want a do-over for certain public stances he took as commandant. Even so,
Schudel's research appears to have been Wikipedia deep, as a mere cursory
examination of the historical record might have led him also to note monumental
successes on General Mundy's watch.

Rather than dance on
the grave of an American icon, Schudel might have considered writing a more balanced
account of this gentleman-patriot's life. Over the history of the Corps, some commandants
have been divisive figures, but General Mundy is held in virtually universal
high regard. A warrior who fought in Vietnam at Khe Sanh and Con Thien, with a
gentleman's manner, General Mundy was revered by enlisted Marines, officers,
and his general officers. This author remembers seeing him at Camp Lejeune in
June 2012 at 0530 in the morning as he visited the base to attend the high
school graduation of one of his granddaughters (everyone knows when a
commandant is aboard your base) -- as trim as when on active duty, impeccably
dressed in pressed khakis, a collared golf shirt, clean-shaven with his hair
perfectly combed, returning from a vigorous morning walk. This was
quintessential Mundy -- the epitome of the image that Marine officers work to
project through appearance, carriage, and demeanor.

Schudel's portrait
of this deeply respected Marine leader was inappropriately one-sided. It
painted him with tones of bigotry, reciting his out-of-context comments
regarding African-American Marines's military skills without noting the
enormous progress in the Corps recruiting and retaining minority officers
during his watch. He recited in detail the controversy surrounding his comments
on proposing to limit Marines's right to marry until reaching the rank of sergeant
and women in combat, hinting at an anachronism, out of touch with modern times.
Schudel failed to touch General Mundy's deft guiding of the Corps through force
reductions that saw the Corps emerge from Desert Storm relatively healthier
than the other forces.

Foreseeing the
transition of conflict from state-on-state battles to irregular warfare against
shape-changing, unknown, and unpredictable state and non-state actors, often in
the global littorals, General Mundy steered the Corps in a direction that would
pay dividends for years to come. His tenure as a three- and four-star general
included manning, training, and equipping Marines to fight as a member of the
joint team that demolished the Iraqi Army in Desert Storm, provided
desperately-needed humanitarian relief in Somalia, accomplished the
perfectly-executed rescue of Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady in Bosnia, and
saved thousands of Kurdish lives in Operation Provide Comfort. As America
sought to reap an elusive "peace dividend" with shrinking defense budgets and
uncertain force structure, he guided the Corps through a period of
reorganization with a premium on adequate force levels and readiness that would
yield dividends in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

General Mundy was
the perfect commandant to follow General Al Gray. General Gray successfully
refocused the Marine Corps on its warrior ethos, and General Mundy carried the
baton forward to even greater levels of maturity, dignity, and professionalism.
Finally, General Mundy's dedication to the men and women of the armed forces transcended
his tenure as commandant, as he presided over the USO and the Marine Corps
University Foundation in retirement. Schudel could have learned all these facts
about General Mundy's successes as a general officer and as the 30th commandant
by picking up a phone and calling Headquarters, Marine Corps, or any Marine
over the age of 35. Instead, in America's paper of record, he elected to rely
on a handful of tired old saws about this fine American, with nary a nod toward
his true excellence in the art of generalship.

Articles like this
deepen the rift between America's warrior class and the self-styled Washington
elite. Marines are a tribe, one that endures valid, even-handed criticism with
a cheerful heart, so long as it is fair and objective. Attacking an icon like
General Mundy by surfacing the controversies of his tenure without placing them
in the context of his enormous strategic successes, on the other hand, raises
our hackles and reinforces the perhaps unwise and unhealthy perception of a
"we/they" split . "We" are the band of brothers, a fraternity forged in the
fire of combat, sacrifice, and service. "They" are Washington's comfortable
privileged class -- on Capitol Hill, in the administration, in the ivory tower
of the academy, and in the media. Most students of wholesome civil-military
relations know well that the split should not, and cannot, be so stark, and
that healthy civil-military relations require outreach and genuine
understandings from both sides. Yet offensive articles such as Schudel's
confirm some Marines's worst suspicions: Rather than take the time to author a
fair retrospective of General Mundy, including his monumental successes and
highly-visible gaffes, the Washington media would rather simply focus on the
latter, at the expense of a fair representation of his achievements.

The Corps does not
expect the media the handle its legacy with kid gloves. We expect to be held
accountable to the American people through several mechanisms -- civilian
control by the president and secretary of defense, congressional oversight, and
the occasionally harsh light of public scrutiny. We only demand that it be
fair, and that any institutional and individual failures be placed in proper
context. Matt Schudel felt no such need to be fair to General Mundy's legacy. This
author cannot speak for all Marines, but this Marine will never forget it.

Butch Bracknell
is a retired career Marine officer and member of the Truman National Security
Project's Defense Council.