Influence Alley

NJ's military impresario Kevin Baron's got your look at military moves: 

--Retired Marine Corps Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright has emerged from post-military seclusion to join the board of directors of defense industry giant Raytheon. Cartwright was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Adm. Mike Mullen. But President Obama's favorite general is best known in Washington circles for being passed over to succeed Mullen as next chairman. 

--Lt. Gen. John Kelly has been nominated to receive his fourth star and be given command of Southern Command, the military's regional watch over the area from Miami to South America and one of the 13 spots at the top of the chain of command. Kelly has been the "senior military adviser" to Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. He gained some notoriety after his son, Robert, a Marine, was killed in Afghanistan. Gates visited Robert Kelly's unit and John Kelly brought a copy of a touching Washington Post feature on Robert to share with his son's unit buddies. 

Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti has been bumped up to Washington as the new director of the Joint Staff, a prominent position in the power elite of the Pentagon's E-Ring offices. Think of it as the equivalent of a COO, working under the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. Scaparrotti currently is the No. 2-ranking officer in Afghanistan as the deputy to war commander Gen. John Allen.