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| Terry Walker: The chief warrant officer is bullish on the war. 'It's about vision,' he says. Gordon Lubold |
In Iraq, a veteran Marine gunner sees a war to be won
Chief warrant officer says that the US mission in Iraq will be 'revolutionary' for the Middle East.
from the October 16, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
"Are you telling me that after five years, we would cut the fish loose as soon as we got him to the boat?" he asks.
On a recent day, after several Iraqis finished shooting at paper targets at a rifle range, Walker darted to one of the targets after someone had shot a particularly tight "grouping" of rounds, ripping it from its wooden stand to make a point. "As marksmen, they're equals," he says.
An ideologue and soldier
Walker joined the Marines in 1974, after the military fundamentally changed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War from a draft-based institution to one made up only of volunteers. As a warrant officer, essentially a rank that is a hybrid between an enlisted man and an officer, Walker inhabits a class much his own and expresses his perspective more freely than his Marine brethren. And as a chief warrant officer-5, Walker is one of the Corps' most senior experts in marksmanship.
Walker counts as his heroes Ronald Reagan, the free-market economist Milton Friedman, and Theodore Roosevelt. He's currently reading the selected writing of Mr. Roosevelt, Rudolf Steiner's "The Freedom Philosophy," and a collection of essays published by the free-market group, The Foundation for Economic Education.
Walker typically summons his heroes as he interrogates visitors in a Socratic style in hopes that they will come around to his way of thinking. And he's forthright in a military where political opinions expressed publicly can be poisonous. A proud subscriber to the conservative National Review magazine for 26 years, Walker freely owns up to his "red-state" views.
"I believe that a stable, secure Iraq at peace with itself and its neighbors is critical to the security of America.... Iraqi freedom, democracy, and self-government may not necessarily look like America, but it will prove revolutionary in the Middle East," he said in an e-mail.
To hear Walker tell it, every job he's had in the Marines over the years seems to have been in preparation for the one he holds now. "I've never been in a position where I thought I was having a bigger impact."
Americans who have trained Iraqis will say that to be effective requires patience and a steady hand to overcome the vast cultural differences between Arab and Western cultures. Walker has the ability to walk that bridge, say senior military leaders, who have come to rely on his expertise over the years.
He is "a man for all seasons in the heave and ho of modern conflict who can out-improvise the enemy," wrote Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led the 1st Marine Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in an e-mailed response to questions about Walker.
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