Army Chief Still Not Dead

Your military bureaucracy, hard at work.

Among the orders of business at Tuesday’s retirement ceremony for
Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker: confirming that he isn’t dead.

“I
understand that when Pete came out of retirement [to take over the Army post] his status was changed somehow from retired to deceased,”
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. “It took General Schoomaker, the highest-ranking officer in the Army, a full six months to iron out the paperwork. Leave it to the Pentagon bureaucracy to prove that you can in fact be brought back from the dead.”

That’s not all, added
Schoomaker as he took the podium. He said, “You know, on that letter that I received from finance … when I got called back, the interesting thing was they — it was a form letter, and they had my name in there three times, and each time it was misspelled.” (emphasis mine)

Meanwhile, U.S. News has "some friendly advice for those called to testify before the House Armed Services Committee: Don't get surly with Chairman Ike Skelton."

The gentlemanly and seemingly mild-mannered Missouri Democrat is a tae kwon do aficionado who can break three boards with one side kick.

(High five: ML, Haninah)