With JFCOM closure, what then for Odierno? - Stripes Central - Stripes: "With JFCOM walking to the executioner’s gallows, Iraq war commander Gen. Ray Odierno will have about one year in Norfolk before the military needs to find him a new one.
You know what other jobs will need filling around this time next year? The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Army’s chief of staff.
And so the parlor game begins. Gen. Ray Odierno has given a lot of years in Iraq, far away from home, away from his family, and many expected he would get a plum job when he returned to the States. U.S. Joint Forces Command was that cushy assignment; a much lower-stressed post in beautiful coastal Virginia, not that far from Washington, DC.
Now it seems Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will keep Odierno even closer to heel.
“I expect that it will take about a year to carry out this change, and I've told Ray that his assignment at JFCOM is essentially the same...as his assignment in Iraq, and that is to work himself out of a job,' said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on Monday. 'And then I'll find a new and better one for him.”"
