Lifelong Warrior McChrystal Felled by His Own Words

June 23, 2010— -- They are the words that mark the undoing of respected warrior, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a leader defined by his discipline and now punished for the few moments he wavered from it.

When interviewed by ABC News earlier this year, McChrystal said that he always wanted to be the kind of soldier that his dad was.

"If people trust me not to always get it right but to always try to get it right," McChrystal said, "if they had that faith ... then I think that I would have lived up to the way I view my father."

McChrystal graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1976 in a climate clouded by Vietnam. The men shaped by those times later would shape the general's team, men handpicked by McChrystal to join him in Afghanistan, men that he went to school with like Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell.

Classmates and Comrades

McChrystal reflected on his time as a student at West Point with Rodriguez.

"We were not only classmates, but we were ranger company commanders together," he said.

Caldwell is another McChrystal friend of 37 years. They were in Iraq together. McChrystal famously would appear in the dark of night, joining his subordinates on nighttime raids in Iraq.

The first time much of America heard about McChrystal was after the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003. President George W. Bush mentioned the general in his speech. Contrary to what one might think, that wasn't the proudest moment of his career.

"The pride that I have always taken is when you build a team," he said.

Blistering Remarks

Now his team is left working the battlefield he is leaving behind, so shaped by their seemingly superhuman commander.

Caldwell once reflected on the moment his former college classmate, McChrystal, asked him in August 2008 to join him in Afghanistan.

"I was thrilled to go because I believe in him," Caldwell said in an interview earlier this year.