Word: cohenable
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That crackling sound you heard last week was the U.S. military shedding more of its cold war carapace. When Bill Clinton and Defense Secretary William Cohen announced that Army General H. Hugh Shelton would become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they were in effect introducing the country to the prototype of the new American soldier...
...Cohen agrees, but that's just one of the reasons he chose Shelton to succeed the current Chairman, Army General John Shalikashvili, who retires in October. Another is Shelton's squeaky-clean demeanor, which became a prerequisite after the Defense Secretary was forced to abandon his first choice for the job, Air Force General Joseph Ralston, because of the disclosure that the general had had an affair more than a decade ago. This time Cohen knew he needed a winner. After just six months as the lone Republican in Clinton's Cabinet, Cohen was already being typed as too timid...
...didn't know each other well; they first met when Shelton sought then Senator Cohen's vote for the Special Ops post last year. But they hit it off immediately. "They're both low key and soft spoken," says a top Cohen aide. "Shelton is a man of few words, and the Secretary knows they count...
...Cohen is famously high-minded, a writer of poetry and fiction, and the general has his courtly side as well. Shelton, 55, grew up on a farm near the North Carolina hamlet of Speed (pop. 100), where he met his wife Carolyn in the fifth grade; their home life is said to be "rock solid...
...that time, Shelton had moved into his job as Special Ops commander, the fruit of Senator Cohen's 1986 push to take all the military's commandos and put them under a single boss to reduce interservice wrangling. The move succeeded. Now, by putting this unconventional warrior in charge of all four branches, Cohen may be signaling that the retooling of the military can finally begin in earnest...