LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Acknowledgments
This volume was a great team effort that enabled us to accomplish a
2-year project in only 10 months. The first acknowledgment goes to
the nearly one dozen people who wrote chapters and annexes. Next
we thank Lieutenant General Thomas D. Waldhauser, USMC, Director for
Joint Force Development, Joint Staff J7, and Major General Frederick Padilla,
USMC, President of the National Defense University (NDU). They were a critical
sounding board and gave great advice to the team.
Many others helped us and gave unselfishly of their time and effort. A
number of senior officers and civilians gave hours of their time to provide
interviews (or written responses) for this project. Among them were General
Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Honorable Stephen
J. Hadley, former National Security Advisor; General Lloyd J. Austin III,
USA, Commander, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM); General David
Petraeus, USA (Ret.), former Commander, USCENTCOM, and commander
in Iraq and Afghanistan; General James N. Mattis, USMC (Ret.), former
Commander, USCENTCOM; Admiral James G. Stavridis, USN (Ret.), former
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe; General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA
(Ret.), former commander in Afghanistan; General John R. Allen, USMC
(Ret.), former commander in Afghanistan; Lieutenant General Douglas E.
Lute, USA (Ret.), former Deputy National Security Advisor and now U.S. Ambassador
to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; the Honorable Michèle
Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Dr. Michael Mazaar
of RAND, a former member of the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff ’s Commander’s
Action Group; and John Wood, a long-serving member of the National
Security Council Staff.
The authors also had access to over 100 additional senior officer interviews
conducted by organizations such as the Center for Military History (CMH),
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