Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Some guys just have appropriate names

From a Pentagon press release on Monday: "Col. David R. Stilwell, who has been selected for the rank of brigadier general, special assistant to the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for international affairs, Washington, D.C., to defense attaché, Beijing, China, U.S. Pacific Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, Beijing, China." Did you also know there ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
556968_ricks1_2110.jpg
556968_ricks1_2110.jpg

From a Pentagon press release on Monday: "Col. David R. Stilwell, who has been selected for the rank of brigadier general, special assistant to the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for international affairs, Washington, D.C., to defense attaché, Beijing, China, U.S. Pacific Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, Beijing, China."

From a Pentagon press release on Monday: "Col. David R. Stilwell, who has been selected for the rank of brigadier general, special assistant to the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for international affairs, Washington, D.C., to defense attaché, Beijing, China, U.S. Pacific Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, Beijing, China."

Did you also know there is a Navy admiral named Julius Caesar? I say we give him the Mediterranean fleet and instructions to concentrate off the Tripolis/Leptis Magna area. I’d forgotten that Septimius Severus, who among other things pushed the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire to the Tigris River, was born in what is now Libya.

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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