Soccer Dad

What i did last summer

Jules Crittnden gives Katie Couric credit for at least trying to learn about the war in Iraq. He calls her the anti-Cronkite for perhaps building support for the war in Iraq just as her predecessor (three times removed) saw his job as undermining support for the war in Vietnam.

The Anchoress, though, sees Couric's visit as simply burnishing her "serious" credentials. (Scroll down to "In Politics.")

But perky Katie isn't the only getting an education from Gen. Petraeus. So to is Wesley Morgan, a sophomore at Princeton.

Morgan, a sophomore at Princeton, spent his summer vacation in Iraq on a personal invitation from Petraeus. He met with the visiting then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, and had access to multiple classified briefings. He helped patrol streets in Baghdad. His identification card read "journalist," because he keeps a blog about his experiences, but he was treated more like one of the members of Congress or other VIPs who have passed through Iraq.

The trip was the chance of a lifetime for Morgan, an ROTC cadet who said he first became interested in military history and counterinsurgency at age 6.

Why would the general take such an interest in the young man?

Petraeus's willingness to be a mentor stems from a desire to position himself as the man who rebuilt the Army, people who have worked with him in Iraq and elsewhere say. He has been open about his desire to shape the officer corps into a group of highly educated thinkers and has surrounded himself with Rhodes Scholars and PhDs, a group that has come to be known as his brain trust.

This is interesting

Through his research, Morgan began following Petraeus's career 10 years before most Americans had ever heard his name. He read Petraeus's highly regarded guide to counterinsurgency and started to think that someday he could be one of Petraeus's "designated thinkers," as the general calls his circle of advisers with advanced degrees and combat experience.

And General Petraeus doesn't see his mentoring as a waste of time either.

"This is someone who is knowledgeable enough to be an officer here right now," he says. "We need all the brilliant young people we can get. I'll just have to wait three years or so for this one."

Wesley Morgan's blog is here.

general petraeus, Iraq,