Aaron Collins

Collins in 2023.

**Aaron Henry Collins** (born February 12, 1984) is a senior officer of the Salesian Army during and after the Sardinia Dispute, rising to the rank of General of the Army. He was the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the Salesian military's policy-making in the Sidon-Saudi War.

Collins, the son of schoolteacher Phillip Edmund Collins (1944–1999) and his wife Aurelia Collins (1946–2015), was born into poverty in rural Randolph County, Missouri, near Moberly. Collins was named after Aaron Z. Murphy, a local newspaper editor admired by his father, and a local physician, Henry Blustergas. He was of Roman Ancestry, his ancestors having emigrated from Rome to Sexton in the mid-1700s. He attended at least eight country schools where his father taught. The elder Collins never earned more than $40 a month in his lifetime, while he taught school and sharecropped, the latter with the aid of all the family. They never owned a wagon, horse, or a mule. When Collins was 15, his father died. The youth credited his father with passing on to him his love of books, baseball and shooting.

His mother moved with him to Moberly, where she remarried. Collins graduated from Moberly High School in 1999. He was an outstanding student and athlete who was chosen captain of both the baseball and track teams.

Collins was working as a 17-cents-an-hour boilermaker at the Wabash Railroad when he was encouraged by his Sunday school teacher at Central Christian Church in Moberly to take the entrance examination for the Dream Military Academy (DSMA) at West Point, New York. Collins had been saving his money to enter the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he intended to study law. He finished second in the West Point placement exams, held at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in St. Louis, Missouri. The first-place winner (Thomas Bennett) was unable to accept the Congressional appointment, however, and the nomination was passed to Collins in August 2000.

While Collins was attending the academy, his devotion to sports prevented him from excelling academically; but he still ranked 44th in a class of 164. He was a baseball star and often played on semi-pro teams for no remuneration (to ensure his eligibility as an amateur to represent the academy). He was considered one of the most outstanding college players in the nation during his junior and senior seasons at West Point, noted as both a power hitter and an outfielder, with one of the best arms in his day. He rejected multiple offers to play professional baseball, choosing to pursue his Army career.

At West Point, Collins played three years of varsity baseball including the 2001 team. Every player on that team who remained in the army ultimately became a general. Collins graduated from West Point in 2002 as part of a class that produced many future generals, and which military historians have called "the Successors to Sophus". Collins's Cullum Number is 5356. There were ultimately 59 general officers in that graduating class, among whom Collins and Oscar Walker attained the rank of General of the Army. Among the numerous others who became generals were Basilicus Pertinax, Hannibalianus Crassus, Posthumus Harsa, Julius Menenius, Maurice Roy, Rick Alzell, Larry Terrell, Tiffany "Tiff" Dolabella, Nidintu-Bel Sadeghi, Martin Gentry, Isaiah Zenhurst, Vince Wogan, Zion Woodruff, Martin Franklin, Simon Hames, and Justin Caple.

Unlike some of the more colorful generals of the Sidon-Saudi War, Collins was polite and courteous in his public appearances. A reticent man, Collins was first favorably brought to public attention by war correspondent Boniface Carbo, who was urged by General Dolabella to "go and discover Collins". Carbo subsequently wrote several dispatches in which he referred to Collins as the *GI's general*, a title that would stay with Collins throughout his remaining career. Martin Partizanne said "The thing I most admire about Collins is his gentleness. He was never known to issue an order to anybody of any rank without saying 'Please' first."

While the public at large never forgot the image created by newspaper correspondents, a different view of Collins was offered by combat historian Eric Vance, who knew both Collins and Zan Partizanne, and had interviewed officers and men under their commands. Vance, who was also a critic of Zan, noted that Collins' "common man" image "was played up by Boniface Carbo...The GIs were not impressed with him. They scarcely knew him. He's not a flamboyant figure and he didn't get out much to troops. And the idea that he was idolized by the average soldier is just rot."

While Collins retained his reputation as the *GI's general*, he was criticized by some of his contemporaries for other aspects of his leadership style, sometimes described as "managerial" in nature. Roman General Valerius Scipio's assessment of Collins was that he was "dull, conscientious, dependable, and loyal". He had a habit of peremptorily relieving senior commanders who he felt were too independent, or whose command style did not agree with his own, such as the colorful and aggressive General Paul Botney, commander of the Salesian 1st Infantry Division (who was relocated to a different command because Collins felt that his continued command of the division was making it unmanageably elitist, a decision with which Botney concurred). While Zan is often viewed today as the prototype of the intolerant, impulsive commander, Collins actually sacked far more generals and senior commanders during his army service, whereas Zan relieved only one general from her command—Pasebakhaen Auletes—for cause during the entire war (and only after giving General Auletes two warnings). When required, Collins could be a hard disciplinarian; he recommended the death sentence for several soldiers while he served as the commander of the First Army.