Former Army chief of staff to be a guest at GS graduation
In an email sent out earlier this afternoon, GS Assistant Director of Communications Anna O’Sullivan told GS graduates that former Army chief of staff General George W. Casey will be attending the May 13 graduation. In addition to his chief of staff position, Casey also served as commander of coalition forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2007.
The email goes into the details of General Casey’s career:
A career soldier, General Casey was commissioned through the Georgetown University Army ROTC following his graduation in 1970. At the start of his career, he served in the Mechanized Infantry and moved up the ranks where he commanded the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and served as an assistant division commander in the 1st Armored Division in Germany and Croatia. From 1996-1997, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina and in 1999 he took command for two years of the 1st Armored Division in Germany and Kosovo.
After relinquishing his command in Croatia, Casey returned to Washington, D.C. in October 2001, where he served as the director of strategic plans and policy and the director of the joint staff at the Pentagon, which eventually led to his nomination as the vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army.
In 2004, Casey began serving as the senior coalition commander in Iraq. He relinquished his command in 2007 when he was nominated as the U.S. Army’s chief of staff, where he led more than 1.1 million people and managed a $200 billion budget. He not only accelerated the growth of the Army, but also instituted retention bonuses for officers, increased funding of soldier and family programs, improved care for wounded soldiers and leadership training for officers, and instituted a rotational deployment program similar to the Marine Corps.
Casey will say a few words at the ceremony, in addition to Valedictorian Maxwell Bertolero, Salutatorian Kathryn Minogue-Nachison, and speaker Thomas Reardon.
Enter the Marxist protesters….
Oh. My. definitely-not-God-because-I-am-an-atheio-gnostic. I cannot believe Columbia would stoop to this level. Here I was thinking that the university was a bastion of enlightened Marxist-anarcho-syndicalist-feminist thought, but now they’re inviting a paragon of the military-industrial KILLplex to speak at graduation? With guests like these, you almost think that alumni of Columbia had started the CIA. What a world we live in.
:-D
Great. Now GS is going to have to take security precautions which will bump Barnard’s class day….
Makes sense, given the many Army and other military veterans attending GS (by far the most in the Ivy League and probably more than most universities, period), and that many of those GSers served in Iraq.
Everyone prepare for direct action by wearing all blue w/ blue pointy edged hats and tassels. Await instructions near end of ceremonies to engage in carpet bombing audience w/ pointy edged hats in hopes of taking out said target and demonstrating symbolic anti-militarism. Victory will be ours!