Pentagon Cancels Big Holiday Gala
WASHINGTON – Adm. Mike Mullen has taken the unusual step of canceling the large holiday reception held annually by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, citing “these trying financial times.”
Instead, the admiral and his wife will host a smaller gathering for wounded service members, their families and survivors of military personnel killed in action.
An invitation list of more than 1,500 – including members of the diplomatic corps, foreign and American military officers, and luminaries from Washington’s national security establishment — were to have been invited to the annual holiday event.
About 1,000 invitations already were distributed, and a second note was sent telling recipients of the change of plans.
“The Chairman and Mrs. Mullen felt it would be more appropriate to focus their time this year on the wounded, and on families of the wounded and of those who have fallen in battle, rather than to entertain so many other people,” said Captain John Kirby, the spokesman for Admiral Mullen.
The event for armed services personnel and military families will include about 200 people.
In the strict hierarchy that orders relationships in the American military – and orders its social life, as well — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the nation’s most senior officer, has for years played host for the most-sought-after holiday reception sponsored by the American military in Washington.
Admiral Mullen’s decision can be expected to send a strong signal across the armed services, and to Congress, about the military’s desire to carefully watch its resources during this time of financial crisis amid two wars.
The annual event has often attracted the occasional entertainment figure, usually a musician or actor who has traveled to combat zones with the chairman on a USO tour. That has always given the chairman’s reception a certain cache.
That — and the fact that it was during the reception in December 2003, that the former chairman, Gen. Richard B. Myers, received the call on his classified telephone that American military forces had captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He kept the secret throughout the reception, awaiting the official announcement in Baghdad.
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It may not really be that much money but this is real leadership, if you watch the pennies, the dollars will save themselves. Job Well done Admiral Mullens.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Pentagon Cancels Big Holiday Gala
