Matt Gallagher, author of the well-done Iraq War civic lesson/memoir "Kaboom," has an insightful review of Michael Hastings' The Operators.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/17/the-operators-by-michael-hastings-review.html
Gallagher makes a especially accurate observation:
“The guilt that many felt for not serving was covered up by an uncritical attitude toward those who did,” writes Hastings, both about the disconnect at the highest levels of power and what he coins the media-military industrial complex. As embarrassing as some scenes are for McChrystal and his subordinates, it’s really some of Hastings’s comrades in journalism (I couldn’t help but think of Thomas Friedman’s infamous “Suck on this” clip) whom he most takes to task, lambasting their lack of critical thinking and hard questions in exchange for continued access to the movers and shakers of the war effort.
While Gallagher can't speak for all officers or soldiers, he's a representative voice of the younger generation of military leaders - too many of which have chosen to return to the civilian life that often doesn't understand them or care to, and leaving the military bereft of a lot of hard-won experience.
(The Thomas Friedman video clip is one of the most deluded, proven-wrong-by-history, screeds I've seen in quite some time).
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