U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Deborah Mullen and Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding general, 3rd Infantry Division, visit Warriors Walk, a garden on Fort Stewart, Ga., June 11, 2008. The garden is in memory of 3rd ID soldiers killed in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
Mullen Visits 3rd Infantry Division to Express Thanks, Gauge Concerns
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
FORT STEWART, Ga., June 12, 2008 – The nation’s top military officer yesterday praised recently redeployed soldiers here who made up part of the troop surge in Iraq for “changing the calculus in Iraq and giving us possibilities that clearly a year ago we didn’t have.”
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spent a whirlwind day moving from one session to the next to deliver personal thanks to groups from the 3rd Infantry Division: junior soldiers, noncommissioned officers and junior officers, captains, wounded warriors and spouses.
He also assured them their leaders are working to increase “dwell time” at home stations between future deployments, improve quality of life for soldiers and their families, and move as quickly as possible to end to the unpopular “stop loss” program, which keeps some soldiers in the Army beyond the enlistment contract they signed.
Mullen told about 500 junior soldiers who assembled in the new post chapel that they accomplished “what many people didn’t think possible” during their 15-month deployment: they brought hope to the Iraqi people, the chairman said.
He noted that they served at a time that was “incredibly dangerous, incredibly violent and incredibly critical for the future security, not just of our country, but of many places in the world.”
The surge, part of a new strategy in Iraq, represented a dramatic shift in previous ways of doing business, but with powerful results, Mullen said.
“You set the stage for potentially succeeding in Iraq, and up until that point, that certainly was in question,” he said.
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