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I’m Back (Again)
Been awhile since I commented. I figured Ricochet needs all the help it can get, so here we are…
*Ahem*
I’ll leave it to management to lose their minds over whatever Trump is doing at the moment and give you a little insight into what, personally, makes my head explode:
Saw this post on Instapundit: Military Discipline Is a Thing and promptly semi-lost my mind, to which I added this comment to the above-mentioned post:
I served for 26 years on active duty, retired as an O-6 (Colonel) and I simply cannot wrap my head around this phenomenon. It is unique in our history and is a direct result of the anti-American Left’s “long march through the institutions”. I served under Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and G W Bush and never once thought the Presidents listed were anything other than Commander in Chief.
These are dangerous times indeed when you have to question the loyalty and professionalism of the officer corps. Milley is an especially grievous case and were I advising the SecDef I would be tempted to urge him to recall Gen. Milley to active duty to stand courts martial for dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming and whatever else they could throw at him. I think treason is reserved for actual declared war but what he said was treasonous in all but name.
My sense is that virtually all flag officers of 3 stars or better and currently on active duty today were given their first star in the Obama years and therein lies the problem. Or one of them at least. Many no doubt share the former president’s visceral contempt for the nation when Obama occasionally let the mask slip.
Time is not on our side and we need to clean house fast.
Whatever you think about the current Administration, the damage done to the American military since the election of Barack Obama and subsequently the disaster of the Biden Administration has been, well, I won’t say “catastrophic,” but it’s damn close and the rot is deep, from the Service Academies to the E-Ring of the Pentagon. If this isn’t fixed, and fast, not only will it be damn difficult to trust the institution but the practical results can be summed up in one word: “fatal.”
Published in Military
Your aim for the target is still good!
Amen.
(sarcasm on)
Clearly it is worthwhile to sacrifice our entire Constitutional Republic in order to dispose of one man whose fat-fingered vulgarisms violate my delicate sensitivities. The fact that he is clearly more competent than the cabal of Republican butt-clowns who immediately preceded him cannot be seriously considered. The offense to my wittle feewings is what really matters!
(sarcasm off)
In my era we were taught officers do not discuss 3 subjects, Sex, Politics and Religion. (Two out of 3 ain’t bad, we were soldiers and young.)
When we complained about Jimmy Carter, it wasn’t his politics. It was his policies. Though to be fair, he did give us an almost catching up with inflation pay raise in 1980.
When we praised Reagan, it wasn’t his politics. It was his policy of “we win they lose” and the vehicles parked in the track park with the “new tank smell”.
Shouldn’t someone in/from the military know it’s martial, not marshal?
Auto correct can make a fool of any man.
Excellent. That is one reason I liked the Hegseth pick, I had read his book. Trump seems to have served notice by cleaning out the JCS.
Fair cop! Thanks.
Fixed. Thanks again.
Don’t we want leaders who can quote Kendi X or Robin DiAngelo? Can a unit really function as a team if an obese trans soldier feels left out and if there is never a pause to listen to the feelings of all?
What good is a Navy that is not fighting climate change?
Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and other patriarchal anachronisms offer zero advice on inclusiveness. And uber-MAGA SecDef Hegseth is denying an entitlement to promotion and replacing it with arbitrary cis-male notions of “competence” and “performance.” It is enough to make one weep, though in Trump’s Pentagon a good cry would probably be a no-no.
Consistent spelling is a fairly new phenomenon.
Debated Calvinism a lot, did you? I well remember the Calvinism discussions of my college years.