This was another year of the vanishing center in America. Despite the election of a president who promised to govern across party and racial lines, partisan division seemed to engulf nearly every important institution and topic -- with one notable exception, and that was the U.S. military. So at year's end, I want to examine the person who came to symbolize the military's apolitical unity, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A year from now, I'd love to be able to say there are more Mullens in our national life and fewer Rush Limbaughs.
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In a speech several months ago in New York, Mullen described himself as the military version of Rodney Dangerfield. He noted that when a woman at a dinner party asked what he did at the Pentagon, he told her that he was the president's top military adviser: " 'Oh my goodness, General Petraeus, I'm so sorry,' she blurted. 'I did not recognize you.'"
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Mullen got the chairman's job because he had developed a reputation as an unselfish leader -- something that isn't always true in a Pentagon where each service struggles to protect its turf. When Mullen was chief of naval operations in 2007, a top aide to Defense Secretary Bob Gates asked Mullen what worried him most. His generous answer -- "the U.S. Army" -- is said to have convinced Gates that he was the right person for the chairman's job.
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... Meeting with troops this month in Afghanistan, Mullen offered some advice that revealed a lot about his own leadership style -- modeled on his hero, Gen. George C. Marshall. "Lead quietly," he told them, "lead listening." That's a sentiment that wasn't heard often enough in 2009 in a noisy Washington.
<much more at the link below>
From the Washington Post
