| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Home Front: Politix | |
| From the Campaign to the Battlefront | |
| 2007-09-26 | |
After a long day training to be deployed to Iraq, Navy reservist Mark Lippert unlaces his desert boots and pulls out a BlackBerry email device from his dusty backpack. Checking his messages, he spots an email from the presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama: "I miss you, brother." Mr. Lippert, a lieutenant junior grade sporting a buzz-cut and desert camouflage, is training here before being shipped out to Iraq, where he will serve as an intelligence officer for the Navy SEALs. In his civilian life, he is the chief foreign-policy adviser for Sen. Obama -- the Democrat whose most well-known foreign-policy stance is his opposition to the Iraq War Lt. Lippert is about to join. Sen. Obama not only opposes the war, he has tried to distinguish himself in the Democratic field by stressing that he alone among the major candidates opposed it from the outset. And Lt. Lippert, 34 years old, has helped hone those views, particularly on a pullout of American troops, even as he prepared to go to war. Since being called up for active duty and going on the Navy payroll, Lt. Lippert won't talk about his views on the war. "Now isn't the time for me to debate Iraq policy," Lt. Lippert says in an interview. "My job is to serve my country and to execute the decision of the commander-in-chief." However, friends say that Lt. Lippert, from a family with a long military history, joined the Navy Reserve in 2005 even though he knew the deteriorating situation in Iraq meant the odds of fighting in the war were high. "Mark knew that he probably would be called to active duty," says his fiancée, Robyn Schmidek. "It's not the war he would have scripted, but he felt a higher calling to support the troops." | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 Junior naval line-officers tend to get responsibilities early. I suspect that if he's going to a SEAL unit, he's either going to be an intel detachment OIC (officer in charge) or the second-in-command. I don't think he'll be a screw-up. Too much risk of damaging his c.v. when he gets RFAD. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-09-26 21:05 |
| #6 I had a chance to spend a couple hours back in 2004 with an Army special forces O3 with a lot of things pinned to the chest of his Class As when he wore them (which was as seldom as he could manage). From his description of the planning for an operation, if SEALs do things similarly this LtJG will have a direct role in mission planning and debriefs, at a minimum. But I suspect others here at the Burg have more direct experience and expertise than that 2nd hand, other-service information. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-26 16:07 |
| #5 Never worked the ground side of a war (Air Force 20 years) how much does a LtJg do with respect to intell in SpecOps? Does he brief/debrief? Count coffee ups? Order dry erase markers? In the USAF the lions share of the true intel work is done by enlisted people not officers. Our officers were there to conduct dog/pony, take heat if things went wrong, and plan lunch breaks. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2007-09-26 15:48 |
| #4 He'd better, or the SEALS will probbably set him straight pretty damn quick... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-09-26 15:01 |
| #3 Disagree. I'm going to assume that Lt. Lippert is an honorable man who will do his job as directed, and do it well. That he believes the war is wrong means that he and I have a difference of opinion. But I trust him to do his job. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2007-09-26 14:59 |
| #2 Ah, if I was only 40 years younger... |
| Posted by: John Fn Kerry 2007-09-26 13:21 |
| #1 I dunno...if I was one of the SEAL operators in the unit LTJG Lippert's going to, I'd be at least a little uncomfortable at the idea of someone who was advising a politician determined to undermine my mission. suddenly becoming my intel officer. LTJG Lippert might be a perfectly nice guy and a commendable naval officer, but isn't there a Seabee unit in Kuwait that needs a laundry officer or something? |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2007-09-26 13:15 |