Talk:Ricardo Sanchez

Referrences

Link to Macon Telegraph is broken, should be fixed, deleted, or replaced. Pustelnik (talk) 14:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

How Was Sanchez Able to Remain in College During the Vietnam War?

Just speaking as one guy not planning a military career who was drafted and sent to Vietnam, how did Sanchez (who was planning a military career) manage to sidestep the biggest war of his lifetime?

Veteran, served with Sanchez

I served with Sanchez in Germany, during the late 1980s. I was a platoon leader in 3-8 Cavalry, Second Brigade, Third Armored Division. He was a major when I was a lieutenant. That may sound like a huge difference in rank but really, he was only an O-4 when I was an O-2, so it wasn't a huge difference. Regardless, I had almost daily interaction with Sanchez. Later, when I was on staff, I saw much more of him than I really wanted to see. Sanchez was not well liked. He had a reputation for unethical conduct. He was perceived as being a ruthless careerist who would do anything to get ahead. If you stood in his way, he could be quite abusive. He had his followers but in general, most officers, even ones of his own rank, didn't think much of him personally. When I found out that he was selected as the ground forces commander in Iraq, I remember telling anyone that I talked to “just wait for a war crime to be committed and that it would somehow involve Sanchez.” Unfortunately, I was right. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klackenfus (talk • contribs) 10:47, 2006 June 5

Interesting. Consistent with his attempts to get Janis Karpinksi and Carolyn Wood to take the heat for him. -- Geo Swan 18:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

As someone in another service branch in the 80s, I recall ruthless careerism among officers was the norm, not the exception. Altho that too seemed antithetical to the general state of panic & disarray that prevailed: all that incessant training, but when reality struck, it was panic, panic, panic, shout, shout, Charlie out; let the s**t hit the fan, just keep it off me. Corollary to the ruthless careerism was the utter obliviousness to the fact they were harming their careers: take the credit, spread the blame. BTW, Karpinski wrote in her book that Lt.Gen. Sanchez moved his 1st Army Div. without orders, just before OIF commenced: he had to be ordered to return to Germany from Italy. Anybody to corroborate that? 138.162.128.52 (talk) 17:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was Move. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Ricardo Sánchez → Ricardo Sanchez – Undo unexplained move contrary to naming conventions, to spelling not used in article and rarely if ever anywhere else, requires admin assistance. Gene Nygaard 11:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support.--Húsönd 01:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support-page was moved to Ricardo Sánchez by vandal named Ricardo Sanchez who wanted to make Ricardo Sanchez his own vanity page. [1] --Nobunaga24 04:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Peter O. (Talk) 00:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support: use English. Krugs 00:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"full bird coronel"

under Army Career, second paragraph. Correcting this to read "colonel"; "full bird" is Army slang (since a "full colonel", vice a lieutenant colonel, has an eagle as a rank distinction). Neither "bird colonel" (even correctly spelled) or "full colonel" are proper technical usage.

bio

how does one go directly from being a division commander to corps commander? that how it usually happens in the U.S. Army or was this guy considered on some kinda fast track? Mct mht 02:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

also, the article does not state this, but i guess one can assume he was a two star while commanding 1AD then promoted to three star and given a corps command on the same day. again, this seems to me rather unusual. Mct mht 02:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

criticism of political leadership

I think this is inadequate, and possibly intentionally biased, summary of Sanchez' public criticism. It does mention his criticism of the press and partisan politics, but it misses another crux of his comments: The need to use political and economic as well as military means, if something is to be achieved in Iraq. He positively harped on this, it filled over a third of his speech of 12 October 2007, and it is his main thread of criticism of current US government policy in Iraq. 84.194.241.224 13:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Sanchez becomes an open Democratic politician

Contrary to what generals have traditionally done after retirement, Sanchez has tried hard to suck up to the Democratic party, perhaps in hopes of a position in a new Democratic administration. On November 24, 2007 General Sanchez gave the Democratic "response" to Bush's regular saturday radio broadcast. This, in my mind, takes him out of the 'non-political military man'class and lands him squarely into the Democrats corner. This would be just as unseemly if he jumped into the Republicans corner. It seems to me that the quality of our military leadership over the last 20 years or so as gone in the toilet. The last admirable General I can remember was "Stormin' Norman". Retired, wrote his book, and then shut the hell up. Admirable.75.164.153.79 (talk) 00:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)dwargo

And how is this different fron General Eisenhower, or for that matter, General George Washington?Pustelnik (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Early life info

These two sentences stand out as particularly odd in my opinion: "Sanchez was promoted only because of affirmative action; aborn into a poor Mexican American family in Rio Grande City, Texas. During the Vietnam conflict (1969-73), Sanchez was in college." The first, of course, contains a spelling & grammatical error- an easy fix. But both sentences suffer from POV bias and should be reworked entirely. If no one has objections or suggestions, I'll do it.The Original Historygeek (talk) 19:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I see according to the History page that the one referencing affirmative action was done by a habitual editing abuser so I reverted it. But the second sentence is still odd given the more detailed information that follows- it seems unnecessary.The Original Historygeek (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Birthdate discrepancy

Article currently says birthdate is September 9, 1953; his autobiography says 1951. (Only have online link to Spanish-language edition; but saw same info in English language edition.)

• Ricardo S. Sanchez, Donald T. Phillips (2008). En tiempos de guerra, la historia de un soldado, Teniente General Ricardo S. Sanchez. Harper Collins Publishers. pp. 9–10. Retrieved 2013-02-06. Djembayz (talk) 02:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)