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Navy Admiral: ‘The Forces of Darkness Are Among Us’
“Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away”
— Buffalo Springfield “For What It’s Worth”
This morning as I was browsing my morning newsfeed from Military.Com, an item from the Navy side of the house caught my eye. Under the headline of “Navy says ‘liking’ or sharing extremists’ posts on social media can get you in trouble,” the Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Admiral John Nowell, was quoted: “You may not personally know any shipmates with extremist beliefs, but I assure you that those forces of darkness are among us.”
I actually pushed my notepad back from me and tried to contemplate what I was reading. “Forces of Darkness?” What in the h*ll was he talking about? Are members of our Armed Forces somehow being possessed by supernatural powers? Will some of them have heads that spin 360 degrees? (Which, come to think of it, might come in handy while standing watch.)
Perhaps the good Admiral was thinking along the lines of something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which previously squared-away sailors are now being replaced by beings from giant seed pods. Could the Admiral possibly be suffering from Capgras Delusion?
Perhaps I’m being a bit facetious, but when I see senior officers (those with stars on their shoulders) making outlandish statements such as this, I have to wonder (as I have in previous posts), if common sense has departed the military. In addition, I find myself thinking the unthinkable; Have they forgotten who our enemies truly are?
But, as the TV commercials say; wait, there’s more. On the SecDef’s mandated “stand-down” day, all Navy personnel will have to repeat their oath of enlistment (or office) and “discuss what actions betray that promise.” (I suspect that all branches of the military will follow suit.)
For those of you who haven’t been in the military, the oath of enlistment is a fairly serious deal that occurs only during the initial enlistment and subsequent reenlistments. It’s not meant to be trotted out as a bit of cheap theater, but, in today’s military, nothing is off-limits. The traditions that we knew (across all the services) are now empty shells; anachronisms from another era that do not belong in today’s “woke” military.
When I was still on active duty, I recall an Air Force general who said, “I have lived my life and led my career with the abiding belief that when each of us who wear this uniform or choose to defend this nation are called, we will do the right thing.” Now, we have military “leaders” who do not even trust those in the ranks; by their own actions, sow discord throughout their commands. These “leaders” are no longer capable of knowing what the “right thing” entails. Sadly, they do not belong in our military.
Published in General
Unless the people who did the charging had a specific agenda – in which case it would still be interesting, but in a different way.
I know that ‘renewing our vows’ is popular among married people, and I don’t want to spit in the milk of decent people.
That said, compelling someone to re-do an oath is tantamount to claiming that they didn’t mean it the first time. That is both a deeply offensive claim and corrosive to the value of anyone making the oath for the first time.
Excellent observation. I’ve always thought that the Marine ethos of “Every Man is a Rifleman” was a philosophy that the other services should have emulated. At one time the Army followed that philosophy but, after Vietnam, I think that fell by the wayside. (Anyone remember that stirring ad campaign of the 70s; “Today’s Army Wants to Join You?”
The Air Force (out of necessity) is more oriented toward the technical fields; still, I always believed that each member should be going to the rifle or pistol range every month, even though they perform aircraft maintenance. If they have the time to be forced to attend mandatory “diversity” training, then they should have the time to be proficient in small arms.
As for the Navy, I’ll let other Naval vets here at Ricochet chime in if they so desire.
Yeah, that was an absolute classic. Those folks did themselves proud.
Excellent comments. I still remember, early in 2016, when the Iranians captured two Navy riverine command boats without a shot being fired. Then, after a number of humiliating videos were made of the captured sailors, they were released (minus a couple of laptop computers containing classified info). I’m not sure what disturbed me the most; the lack of seamanship or the crew’s cowardly reactions when they were captured.
Excellent observation. Do the brass believe that some of our sailors had their fingers crossed, behind them, when they took their initial oaths? Crazy stuff.
I remember that too – and then we moved on… and that was a bad day for Solemani
Copy that. Nothing says “I CARE” like a Hellfire Missile.
Now, we get to turn our defense policy 180 degrees. We’ve had three different missile strikes on US-linked bases during the month of February and the Biden administration is still “assessing” who is responsible. (When just about everyone and their dog know it was the Iranians.)
As usual, the Dimocrats have made an art out of taking cowardice and calling it diplomacy.
This kind of crap really makes me want to fold some Rear Admirals in half with a thundering back kick.
So, by definition, I am now….The Enemy.
It could be worse. I could be….The Enema.
If a nation wants to hock their future to the tender mercies of Red China, be my guest.
Having been on active duty in the Navy for the past 34 years (still serving), enlisted and officer, I have lived through several attempts to politicize the military. My classical liberal antennae are hyper-sensitive to anything that even looks like political influence, from whatever direction. While there has been some “corruption,” the level reflects what has happened to our society as a whole and is nowhere near the rot in academia, Hollywood, etc. Flag and general officers have always been political to a degree. Thankfully, they have mostly also been competent. I believe that is still the case. When Vice Admiral Nowell mentions forces of darkness, he is referring to knuckleheads who draw swastikas on bulkheads, or hang nooses in a passageway. We have our crazies and these things happen sometimes. They are utterly unacceptable.
I am not a member of the Flag ranks (thank the Lord), but I’ve observed Navy leadership at the highest levels at various points in my career. The senior officers we like to poke are generally working 70 hours a week and have done so for decades. They are the winners of a brutally competitive process spanning 30-plus years. They have spent vast amounts of their adult lives deployed away from their families. Many of those in the unrestricted line, the majority of all senior officers, have made decisions that led to the deaths of people under their charge. Their path was not easy. Over the past 25 years at least two senior Admirals have taken their own lives while on active duty (and not due to a pending scandal).
There is some measure of partisanship and wokeness in the Department of Defense, as there is in every institution, and its presence is disheartening. There is also cronyism, and too-close relationships with industry, and self-dealing, sloth, gluttony, etc. There is also racism and misogyny (much less than when I came in, thankfully).
As for repeating the oath during this stand-down, it always makes me proud to see Americans, mostly young men and women, at attention and swearing to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear truth faith and allegiance to the same…” Where I serve, the commanding Admiral just today admonished the entire command to re-read the Constitution to which we are sworn, as well as the Declaration of Independence. I like that!
Do not despair yet. There is still a lot of good wood in the military.
Well, as long as I’m one of the good racists then everything is copacetic. Look, I don’t like writing off people or institutions based on a single misstep, but I’m also not going to treat mouthing woke pieties as acceptable behavior either. You can’t have cancel culture without this kind of ritual self flagellation, and I view cancel culture as a hundred times the threat “extremist beliefs” have ever been in my lifetime.
HankRhody, I agree with you about the relative danger of cancel culture and extremist beliefs. And we should be highly protective of the military’s non-partisanship and focus on delivering steel on target. What hasn’t been established to my satisfaction is that cancel culture is running amok in the military. Where is the evidence? There is nothing in the copious stand-down materials that reflects woke objectives. Is “forces of darkness” a hallmark of woke language? I’m probably naive, but that seems like a generic phrase describing corrosive, malevolent behavior (swastikas and nooses qualify in my book). There have been brief eruptions of wokeness in DoD (“White Fragility” etc.) that are disturbing but it is not mainstream in the Navy. From what I can tell, anyway.
You know, I’ve never seen that phrase as characteristic of woke language. I seem to think he’s using it to refer to racism, and I think most of the names on this thread agree with me. By calling out racism he’s encouraging paranoia against a mythological white supremacist menace while completely ignoring the dangers associated with encouraging that kind of paranoia.
I haven’t been watching the military to see if wokeness has become endemic. It certainly has in the broader culture.
That’s an excellent point. Could not agree more for society writ large, but the services may be a special case. We have core values like honor, courage, and commitment. We fall under the uniform code of military justice, which authorizes punishment for conduct unbecoming, adultery, and other vague offenses tied to good order and discipline. We’re used to training on respect for others, and how lack of mutual respect is corrosive to military effectiveness. The Navy has worked with some success to counter racism in the ranks for decades–through moral suasion, not quotas–and that history shaped the perspective of today’s leaders. Admirals are still overwhelmingly white and male and graying (just like me). The service is about 30% minority enlisted and 7% minority admirals. There are many possible explanations besides intentional racism for that disparity, but the numbers are hard for the 93% of admirals who are white to ignore. With that history and those facts, “Don’t just do something, stand there!” doesn’t feel like an option for leadership when nooses and swastikas make an appearance. Will we get it right? Probably not quite. Better than ignoring the problem? Probably yes.
Given recent actions and statements, I somehow suspect owning Confederate flags or ‘liking’ Pepe memes on the internet are likewise included in that ‘Forces of Darkness’ statement, not to mention expressing horror towards BLM or support for law-abiding citizen-militias.
Woke nonsense ate an entire day of military effectiveness which cost over a billion dollars – just to shame soldiers who have done nothing wrong.
That’s an expensive and destructive way to deal with ‘a few knuckleheads’.
You have listed quite a few problems. And none of them can be said to have been ignored.
Indeed, a far more effective way to deal with a noose problem is to find the guy who did it, and prosecute/remove him. Add’ly, the immediate commander can summon the people on his base/ship/other organizational unit and explain how this [redact] doesn’t fly, without communicating to the entire world that the US military can be stopped in its tracks by a symbol scrawled on a wall.
This is an overreaction that gives more, not less, power to the swastika and noose.
Exactly. When “knucklehead” behavior is detected, you deal with that specific knucklehead. I bow to the experience and expertise of @sailor1986 (not to mention respecting him for it) but Admiral Nowell’s remarks were similiar to those of the Commandant of the Air Force Academy (in my post of last week) in which he appeared to be blasting the entire student population for the actions of one person (a situation that turned out to be a complete hoax). To me, both the Commandant’s and Nowell’s words amounted to cheap acts of virtual signaling that did little more than offend the 99.9% of the military who do their jobs in an exemplary fashion. Do either one of these individuals believe that any “extremists” in the ranks give a flip about what they say?
As for repeating the oath during these ill-advised “stand-downs”, I stand by my position that it amounted to cheap theatrics. (Although, I do agree that reading the Constitution along with the Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers would be a good thing to do, on a yearly basis, for ranks E-1 through O-10.)
Fellows – thanks for the discussion. I’m no SJW and no doubt we agree on 99% of things military. May the politicians leave well enough alone!
Copy that!!!
Forces of Darkness? That’s the kind of language I expect to hear from my parish priest, not my commanding officer.
In a sense, these guys are part of the “Priesthood of Woke Theology”; a bit similar to those in academia and politics. We always like to think that our Military is immune to this garbage but, sadly, this is no longer the case.
My first smart ass thought was, “this guy is reading too much Harry Potter”. Or Tolkien.
Only if a Classic Comics version comes out….