Eideard

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was relieved of command in Afghanistan after a magazine profile quoted his subordinates as disparaging senior civilian leaders, has been invited back to public service by the Obama administration to help oversee a high-profile initiative in support of military families, White House officials said Sunday.

General McChrystal will lead the three-member advisory board for the initiative, called Joining Forces, whose aim is to encourage companies, schools, philanthropic and religious groups and local communities to recognize the unusual stress that is endured by families of active-duty personnel, reservists and veterans, and to strive to meet their needs.

The appointment of General McChrystal, who commanded elite Special Operations units before taking over the mission in Afghanistan, can be seen as an effort to mend any perception of a civilian-military breach following his forced retirement.

Recognizing as well – perhaps – that a lot of folks here in the States felt the criticisms were legit.

More broadly, the new program is an acknowledgment by the administration that while the United States has been described as “a nation at war,” the burden of combat is carried by less than 1 percent of the population. The military has been fighting for almost a decade — since a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — the longest sustained era of conflict in the nation’s history. And unlike previous wars, these have been carried out by an all-volunteer force…

General McChrystal, in a telephone interview on Sunday, noted that a decade of combat carried out by a relatively small military force “has required a lot of sacrifice by families.”

“This program will be a chance to focus people’s attention on ways they can help, and on the importance of helping, and provide opportunities for people to find practical things to do to support military families,” he said…

Since leaving the military, he has been teaching at Yale University and making the rounds on the lecture circuit. He said Sunday that the Obama administration’s invitation to return to public service should be seen as proof to those in uniform, and to the American public, that there were no hard feelings on either side of the civilian-military divide.

Poisonally, I think one of the triggers that presaged this decision by the Obama White House was Stan McChrystal’s recent appearance at the TED conference. His talk about leadership certainly conveyed to me a growth in understanding about the separation of responsibilities between civilian and military divisions in our government.

Certainly sharper than any understanding among most in Congress.