Tag Archives: DOD

Current Events

The Corps Part V

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LOL. This one is funny even if it is a tragedy. I can see it coming. Cpl  Finicnick reports to his company commander that his Lt is an asshole and uses drugs. It matters not that Cpl Finicknick was a Sgt six months ago. OMG This reminds me of the HQMC imposed HumRel classes in 1970  that required us to sit in groups of officers and enlisted and everyone was allowed to say whatever they wanted. LOL, That did not happen in our battalion thanks to Major John I. Hopkins (MajGen, USMC (Ret) Deceased). God Bless him.  But I heard absolute horror stories from my peers from other units.

The Marine Corps wants junior Marines to have a say in who their leaders are

“Beginning in 2022, we will institute 360-degree feedback for leaders, on a pilot basis” says Commandant Berger.

BY  | PUBLISHED NOV 24, 2021 8:51 AM

Junior Marines could help determine whether officers and senior enlisted leaders are selected for promotion as part of the Marine Corps’ efforts to revamp its evaluation process.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger is calling for promotion boards to incorporate “360-degree feedback” into their decisions about which leaders will be selected to advance to the next rank.

Berger’s direction on using 360-degree feedback is part of his Talent Management plan, which was released on Nov. 3. The plan also requires the Marine Corps to retain more first-term Marines and creates the possibility that civilians with critical skills could bypass boot camp to join the service.   This will be Part VI, so stay tuned.

Currently, promotion boards largely base those decisions on Marines’ fitness reports, which only include notes on their performance from two of their supervisors, Berger wrote. In some cases, those supervisors do not serve in the same location as the Marines they are evaluating or don’t interact with them often.

“[Three hundred and sixty]-degree feedback, by contrast, includes the perspectives of a larger number of seniors, peers, and juniors and can include unflattering feedback that is prohibited from inclusion in a Marine’s FITREP,” Berger wrote.

This type of evaluation is already in use elsewhere in the Defense Department and it has shown to be effective in “identifying traits of toxic leadership” and helping to reduce the chances that toxic leaders will be promoted, according to Berger’s plan.

“Beginning in 2022, we will institute 360-degree feedback for leaders, on a pilot basis,” Berger wrote. “This feedback will be made available to the Marine and their reporting senior, with the aim of encouraging leadership growth. No later than 2024, we will incorporate 360-degree feedback into the selection board and assignments processes to ensure that this important input is properly considered by those selecting and assigning our future leaders.”

The Marine Corps has looked for lessons from business leaders as well as other military branches as it developed the pilot program for the 360-degree reviews, said Yvonne Reed-Carlock, a spokeswoman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

“The purpose of implementing 360-degree leadership reviews is to equip Marine leaders with real, honest feedback to identify their hidden strengths and unidentified weaknesses and to provide them with professional coaching to further develop and advance the capabilities of our force,” Reed-Carlock said. “To accomplish this, the pilot will solicit input from a Marine’s seniors, peers and subordinates to fully inform the picture provided to the Marine.”

The pilot program early next year is expected to include about 200 people to fine-tune the questions leaders are asked and to make sure that the right type of feedback is collected, said Lt. Col. Jim Armstrong, who works for the Marine Corps’ Manpower Management Division.

The Marines taking part in the pilot program will be field grade officers – majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels – as well as senior enlisted leaders such as master sergeants and sergeants major, said Armstrong, who serves as the operations officer for the officer assignments branch.

Based on the pilot program’s results, Marines at other ranks and leadership positions could also receive 360-degree feedback, Armstrong said.

A 360-degree evaluation system is meant to prevent the promotion of senior leaders who may later be deemed unfit to command, such as one colonel who asked a former captain if she had been drinking before she was raped rather than referring her to trained staff for help. More robust performance evaluations may have also identified a brigadier general as a toxic leader before his subordinates reported him to the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office, which determined that he had “disparaged, bullied, humiliated them, and devalued women.” 

For years, proponents have been calling for the Marine Corps to adopt a 360-degree evaluation system, but other military branches such as the Navy and the Air Force have used this type of feedback sparingly and for certain leaders and civilian executives.

After the Fiscal 2014 National Defense Authorization Act required the defense secretary to look into using this sort of feedback in evaluations, a study from the RAND Corporation recommended against doing so. Wow, sanity from the RAND Corporation for a change.
A sergeant instructor, evaluates officer candidates during close order drill at Marine Corps Officer Candidates School aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, June 21, 2019. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Phuchung Nguyen)

Many of the people whom RAND interviewed for the study, including experts within the Department of Defense, said they did not feel that 360-degree feedback was the best tool to combat toxic leadership, especially in cases where toxic leaders had no desire to change their ways.

“Participants again pointed to other ways of finding these people that would be much more cost-effective (such as through anonymous reporting channels, climate surveys, informal discussion, or inspector general complaints),” the study says.

While federal agencies have used 360-degree feedback as part of coaching and mentoring, the government as a whole – including the Defense Department – has been reluctant to include this type of feedback for promotions, said Katie Kuzminski, a senior fellow and director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.

“There was a fear that if the [360-degree feedback] were used for promotions or true evaluations as opposed to personal development that there could be some challenges with that – particularly if your peers in your unit are also your competition: There would be a way to skew the outcomes to make yourself look good by making someone else look bad,” Kuzminski said.

Berger is going much further than the rest of the military by looking at how the Marine Corps can use this type of feedback for promotions, she said.

“I do think that if any service can take the lead on this front, I think it would be the Marine Corps,” Kuzminski said. “Just from a cultural perspective, I think the real value that they place on taking care of fleet really matters – and certainly for more senior positions, there’s this saying that you hear from senior folks: If you had a helicopter full of 10 general officers in the Marine Corps crash today, you would have equally high competitive talent remaining to replace them.” Really? In today’s Corps? Hell that may even help save us. Let’s make it a C-130 with 50 on board. LOL Just kidding, of course.
I trust everyone caught the name of this new plan; the “Talent Management Plan..” That says it all; when was the last time you heard anything coming out in the Corps dealing with “management.” In my day that word was toxic to Marines. Oh well, just another day in the “New” Corps. When will it end? Surely this action will help recruiting; just knowing they can have an effect on their mean Gunny should help. 

Originally posted 2021-11-28 08:33:35.

Current Events

Joe Dumbkirk

7 Comments

Tomorrow is a day that as Churchill stated many more years ago, “A day that live in infamy.’ For those who who were alive and coherent enough to remember that day, it was the most tragic incident of my lifetime. I was a mere year old when Pearl Harbour happened; therefore, this one is significant for me. I know, as I am sure you do as well, exactly where I was and what I was doing when it happened. I was mending fences on my ranch in Montana when my wife came streaming looking for me May we never forget that day and WHO it was that caused it.

Here’s another good one from my frequent contributor and friend Greg Maresca, a noted historian who only write facts!

By Greg Maresca

It was theatrical in its design and a Shakespearean tragedy in its unfolding. As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approached, President Biden desperately desired a historical and symbolic end to the nation’s longest war.

Biden’s vision turned out to be nothing short of a ‘70s era U.S. military and intelligence debacle taken to an unprecedented scale paid for in American blood, fortitude and treasure.

Where are the resignations of all the generals and admirals who argued against capitulation?

Robert Gates, the respected former secretary of defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, wrote in his memoir that Biden had been wrong on “nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Some things never change.

Biden’s foreign policy rewards our enemies and punishes our allies.

It was in June as the Taliban began their march to Kabul that all U.S. embassies throughout the world celebrated sodomy via “Gay Pride Month,” as part of the Biden’s Administration’s foreign policy.

American exceptionalism was replaced with American perversion.

As Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain is remembered for appeasement in the Nazi takeover of Sudetenland, Biden will be remembered for leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban, while abandoning thousands of America’s allies and rebooting Islamist fundamentalists the world over.

Allowing the Taliban to dictate the terms of withdrawal was reprehensible and irresponsible. As such, it raised the threat of terrorism to levels it had not witnessed in years.

Biden is a shoo-in for the Nobel Appeasement Prize for his military retreat – Dumbkirk.

Biden bequeathed the Taliban a reported $85 billion in military hardware that will allow them to wage war and terror for years. Moreover, Bagram Air Base is now China’s de facto world class central Asian integrated air headquarters courtesy of the American taxpayer. Likewise, Afghanistan is rich in rare earth minerals that China will certainly exploit and profit from.

Biden’s surrender plays daily throughout our fruited plain. Portland, Oregon is lawless permitting Antifa, and the Proud Boys to wage battle without consequences. In Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco homeless bivouacs and unbridled crime have turned these cities into dystopian, democrat nightmares. In Chicago, gang warfare runs rampant with shootings far worse than what our military experienced in Afghanistan especially over the last 18 months going without casualties.

What Biden has succeeded in doing is uniting nearly two-thirds of Americans — all of whom believe his flight from Afghanistan was a colossal disaster.  It is the one-third who believe Biden is actually doing a good job that is most concerning.

In a successful military and intelligence campaign in Afghanistan, we had 2,500 troops with a strategic presence in central Asia’s foremost terrorist breeding grounds. Continued funding certainly could have been found in the series of COVID relief packages passed by Congress, of which less than half went to anything remotely COVID.

For over 70 years, we have maintained thousands of troops in South Korea, and since the end of World War II we have had troops in Japan and Germany. Maintaining a contingent of troops in Afghanistan that have been successful in deterring terrorism at home you think would be a given.

The Russians, Chinese, Iranians and the North Koreans will certainly test our defenses especially in cyberspace.

Come 9/11 our enemies will be dancing in the streets as our southern border is wide open and we are lectured about how vaccinations, global warming, and systemic racism are the most pressing problems facing the nation.

Perhaps Biden should send an army of social workers and psychologists into Afghanistan who could reason with the Taliban and show them the errors of their ways. Instructing them how they were wrongfully utilizing microaggression, ignorant of Facebook’s 58 genders, and the wonders and marvels of applied critical race theory.

Such a pathetic ending in Afghanistan was most unworthy of this 20-year epic struggle.

It was not a departure but an abandonment.

Could there have been any less planning and foresight?

Whatever possessed Biden to believe that the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was the right time for such a pullout?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ensuing chaos at Kabul’s airport with people falling to their deaths from American Air Force planes is seared into the Biden legacy.

Postscript: This will be my last post for a little over a week. My bride and I will depart on the 11th, Saturday, on a LONG overdue Honeymoon (35 years). We never had one as I was in the middle of SOC workups , then deployed for six months. She understood completely as all Marine wives do. So we are going to some faraway place and hideout for a week. No, I won’t tell you until we return. No phones, no internet, and no TV. Swim, snorkel, scuba dive, sail board, relax, refresh, drink umbrella drinks under a canopy on the beach, and have a specially prepared dinner for us on our day — 13 September — on the beach under the same personal umbrella. 

I wish you all the best, stay safe, keep up the pressure on you know who and all the holders of his many puppet strings. I hope he hasn’t destroyed America so we have a place to which to return. Semper Fi; Jim and my bride of thirty-five years.

 

 

Originally posted 2021-09-10 13:38:27.

Current Events

An Open Letter To General Mark Milley

10 Comments

I do not know Mr. Quentin L. Smith and research only came up with the scumbag who shot two police officers, and I am certain they are not the same. Therefore, I know not the validity of this letter,  but it sure caught my radar. I hope you do not mind Mr. Quentin L. Smith, whoever your are sir, if i make a slight adjustment to the title of your wonderful letter, by removing the word “General,” and replacing it as I did with Mattis and use the term “Mr.” He is not a general in my eyes or to most of my brother and sister veterans. In my professional opinion, today we have no “real generals” in service to our once great nation. In sum, thank you for your service to our country in both the U.S. Army and the FBI. 

General (Mr.) Milley:

During testimony before the Congress of the United States you stated:

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white…What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?…I want to find that out.”

Well, General, (Mr.) I am a 76-year-old white man, a former officer in the United States Army (1967-70), and a retired Special Agent of the FBI with nearly 29 years of service (1971-1999).  I attended Trump’s rally on January 6th and I think I may be able to help you understand the reasons for “white rage.”

You impugn the motives of hundreds of thousands of patriotic citizens: whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, male, female, young and old.  They weren’t trying to overturn the Constitution!  They wanted nothing more than to make their voices heard and, if possible, delay the certification of an election they believed, with probable cause, was stolen.  You and the media repeatedly claim Trump’s allegations of a “stolen election” are false.  Neither you, I, nor anyone else know whether this is true or not because the evidence (hundreds of witness affidavits signed under penalty of perjury, pristine mail-in ballots, Xeroxed ballots, the synchronized shutdown of ballot counting in 5 swing states until observers were removed from the election headquarters, etc.) has never been tested in court or disclosed to the people.

Apparently, my presence in Washington, DC on January 6th qualifies me, in your estimation, as one of those “outraged white people” you want to understand.  Since you appear to be somewhat intellectually challenged, let me give you just 13 easy to understand reasons for my “white rage” as you like to call it.

  1. I’m outraged that a duly elected President, the most effective President in my lifetime, was harassed, falsely accused of being a Russian agent, undermined, and lied about by “Deep State” career officials like yourself and a media that has become the mouthpiece of the Democrat Party; he was impeached and acquitted, not once but twice, during his entire 4-year term of office on clearly fraudulent charges.
  2. I’m outraged that BLM, Antifa, and other Marxists rioted during the summer of 2020 in cities across the country, and “heels-up” Kamala Harris led an effort to bail those who were arrested, out of jail.  Over 500 people, arrested for trespassing and vandalism at the Capitol on January 6th, remain in jail without bail and, in some cases, are held in solitary confinement.  This is not a defense of vandalism, but, how does the damage from the riots of summer 2020 compare to that at the Capitol on January 6th?
  3. I’m outraged that a president who accomplished more for the American people in four years than his three immediate predecessors did in 24 years having restored the US economy, cut taxes and regulations, made the US energy independent, brought unemployment rates down to their lowest level ever, destroyed ISIS, brokered peace deals between Israel and other Arab nations, defended our southern border, put America first, etc., etc., was fought every step of the way by Democrats and the Deep State.
  4. I’m outraged that this same president, who received eleven million more votes than he did in 2016, was questionably defeated in an election in which election laws were unconstitutionally changed in the days, weeks, and months immediately preceding the election, supposedly because of a virus.
  5. I’m outraged that a senile 78-year old career politician, who can’t put a coherent sentence together, who accomplished nothing during his 36 years in the US Senate and eight years as Vice President, who didn’t campaign and seldom left his basement during the campaign for President, and who could never draw a crowd of more than 200 people at one time, was declared the winner over a President who drew tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters at each of his multiple rallies, daily, during the campaign.
  6. I’m outraged that Candidate Biden bragged about having put together “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics” (it’s on video) during an interview on October 24, 2020, with Crooked Media, a left-leaning media company founded in 2017 by former Obama staffers, and the media says that Trump lies when he claims the election was stolen!?
  7. I’m outraged that on January 28, 2018, before the Council on Foreign Relations, Joe Biden bragged  how he once threatened to withhold $1 billion in authorized military aid to Ukraine unless the former President of Ukraine “fired” the prosecutor who was investigating the corrupt energy conglomerate, Burisma, with whom Biden’s son, Hunter, was being paid $84,000 per month to serve on the Board of Directors.  Can you say, “quid pro quo?”  But, when Trump congratulated the newly elected President of Ukraine, who campaigned on fighting corruption, and encouraged him to follow through on his campaign promise, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) blatantly lied about what Trump said and Trump got impeached!
  8. I’m outraged that the FBI was given Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop computer, the hard-drive of which contained emails reflecting the corrupt practices of the Biden family vis-à-vis Ukraine and China and the FBI did nothing with it since crazy ol’ Joe was running for President.  Can you say: “Hillary Clinton and unauthorized servers containing top secret documents?”  Do you see a pattern here?
  9. I’m outraged that the “New Oligarchs” of high tech are censoring virologists of their right to voice their thoughts and opinions when those opinions are in conflict with the Democrat Party or the CDC.
  10. I’m outraged that an agency for which I proudly worked for nearly 29 years was politicized and corrupted by James Comey who was accurately described as being “out of his mind” and a “crooked cop” by a former Deputy Director of the FBI.
  11. I’m outraged that thirteen U.S. Marines were recently killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban just because our senile President was too arrogant to follow the blueprint put together by President Trump and his military advisers for the “conditioned” withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.  Perhaps, you and our incompetent Secretary of Defense objected, but were either too cowardly or too busy promoting Critical Race Theory to push back and provide needed oversight of this withdrawal.  You succumbed to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and now, as a result, you have the blood of thirteen dead Marines on your hands.
  12. I’m outraged about how the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan was carried out “before” securing the removal of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens, Afghani interpreters, and others who assisted the U.S. military over the past twenty years, leaving them and Afghani Christians to be tortured and killed by the Taliban.  And you didn’t even give advance notice to our NATO allies.
  13. I’m outraged that you and Lloyd Austin carried out the withdrawal of the U.S. military without first securing the removal of $85 billion worth of military equipment, weapons, ammunition, Humvees, and aircraft, which you left behind for the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a re-emerging ISIS to use.  I agree with a retired British Colonel who recently publicly stated that President Biden shouldn’t be impeached, but rather he should be court martialed.  You should be, as well…for dereliction of duty and cowardice.

I could go on but I believe you get “my drift” as to why I and so many others – white, black, Hispanic, Asian, male and female, rich and poor, young and old – are experiencing flashes of “rage” and “anger” against this current administration.  If you had any honor and decency, you would resign and retire.

Sincerely,

Quentin L. Smith

Amen and thank you sir!!

Originally posted 2021-09-09 13:56:22.

Recent Posts

Our Military?

5 Comments

I have given up posting stuff about the head swamp creature. Mainly because nothing he does surprises me any more and I firmly believe  that while the slime coming from his mouth may be his voice, it’s not his words. He’s simply following the orders of the other swamp creatures. So, As one of my favorite commenters stated he simply can’t rant anymore  on what “HE” says or does.  I agree. Biden is not  my president or anyone’s president for that matter. It’s President Joe “Sanders et al.” So, I shall disregard what those fools do and post on other issues such as this one. That is, of course, until he does something really earth shattering other than just stupid, which is an everyday occurrence. 

Anyway, here is a article from the Tennessee Star on an organization we all are very familiar with — our military.

Commentary: The U.S. Military Is Just Another Woke Institution

 Admin
by Paul Bradford

Tucker Carlson spurred a much-needed reexamination of the military in March. His monologue criticizing the military’s political correctness drew a more furious response from top brass than any foreign threat is likely to do. The generals’ response only affirmed Tucker’s points about the degraded state of our armed forces. Why do generals—both current and retired—feel the need to condemn civilians who question the wisdom of putting women in combat?

The answer is that the military, along with the entire national security establishment, is at one with the Democrat-Media complex. The image we have of generals and senior officers as defenders of tradition is wildly out of step with reality.

This fact is underscored by its contrast with a letter issued in France last week. The letter—signed by 20 retired generals, 80 officers, and 1,000 lower-ranking soldiers—was stridently right-wing. “The hour is late, France is in peril, threatened by several mortal dangers,” the letter states. Though retired, we remain soldiers of France, and cannot, under the present circumstances, remain indifferent to the fate of our beautiful country.”

The dangers, according to the letter, are Islamism, multiculturalism, liberal state tyranny, and anti-white and anti-French cultural currents. “Today, some speak of racialism, of indigenism, and of anti-colonial theories, but with these words, those hateful and fanatical partisans seek to foment a racial war,” the letter declares. “They despise our country, her traditions, her culture, and want to watch her dissolve by tearing her away from her past and her history. Thus, by attacking statues and analyzing words from several centuries ago, their true goal is to undermine our ancient civil and military glories.”

The letter argues that if the politicians do nothing, the military “will be forced to step in and undertake the perilous mission of protecting our civilizational values and the lives of our fellow citizens.” The letter also clearly defines France as a particular nation, a homeland with its own unique traditions and heritage. It’s not merely an idea.

The contrast between the sentiments in this letter and those of our own military leadership is like night and day. Our generals support all the things the retired French commanders denounce. Our military happily resumed critical race theory training as soon as Donald Trump left office. Senior commanders essentially endorsed Black Lives Matter and its “mostly peaceful” demonstrations last year. They view too many white Americans in the service as the problem and embrace multiculturalism. The military endorses the abolition of American heritage if it offends modern sensibilities. The Defense Department vows to root out all “right-wing extremists” from its ranks. The same Pentagon that sent soldiers to D.C. to guard against imaginary threats to Joe Biden’s inauguration refused to use soldiers to curb BLM riots in 2020. Our military refuses to step in and protect any civilizational values.

Our retired generals also like to issue letters about political issues—but they sound more like Barack Obama than staunch conservatives. Retired Marine General James Mattis, one of the most recognizable faces of the American military, published a letter last summer endorsing Black Lives Matter and condemning Trump, the president who made him Secretary of Defense. He said the military should not be used to stop riots, which he claimed were nearly all peaceful. He also said that Black Lives Matter and Antifa merely call on Americans to “live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.”

After the election, Mattis wrote an op-ed urging Biden to eliminate “America First” policies. The retired general said America should instead return to globalist policies. Evidently, Mattis is not someone who considers America his homeland with its own unique traditions and character. It’s merely an “idea,” best upheld by far-Left agitators and the generals who agree with them.

Mattis wasn’t alone in publicly expressing such sentiments. Eighty-nine former defense officials signed a joint condemnation of Trump’s attempted crackdown of rioters last summer. The letter accepted BLM’s assertion that our justice system oppresses blacks.

Fifty-six retired senior officers attacked Trump for barring transgender personnel from serving in the military. “Patriotic transgender Americans who are serving—and who want to serve—must not be dismissed, deprived of medically necessary health care, or forced to compromise their integrity or hide their identity,” the 2017 letter stated.

Granted, not all current or former generals are like this. There are those like retired Lt. General Michael Flynn and others who stand with middle America against the swamp. But the military, as an institution, is reflected in these letters. You will never see 20 retired generals issue a strong statement denouncing mass immigration, critical race theory, or the state persecution of Trump supporters. Neither are you likely to see a call from those quarters for the military to protect America from domestic threats—unless those threats happen to be white and conservative.

We can see further evidence of our military’s decline in two viral media posts from last week.

The U.S. Navy apparently made history last week when the first all-gay flight crew flew its first mission. The crew wore rainbow bandanas and proudly displayed the gay pride flag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures presented a bizarre image of the military to the world.

Additionally, the CIA recently released an odd ad that may portend to future military recruitment. The ad, titled “Humans of CIA” in a nod to the popular Humans of New York blog, shows a very different CIA from its popular image.

The agent in the ad declares:

“I am a woman of color.”

“I am a cisgender millennial.”

“I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.”

“I am intersectional.”

The agent also sports a t-shirt with a raised fist. As a member of one of the most powerful institutions in the world, it’s unclear what she is raising her fist against. She is the power, not the resistance.

This is the CIA, of course. But you could see the Pentagon producing very similar ads.

Many conservatives still think of the military as an institution dramatically different from and immune to the harmful trends infecting the rest of the government. To them, the military evokes “honor” and “country,” and you can trust the troops to resist liberal tyranny. Reality paints a very different picture. While many of the troops, including senior officers, are great Americans who serve our country with honor, the institution itself no longer serves the American people as conservatives imagine. It serves the American empire controlled by liberal elites.

We can’t hope for the troops to ride in to save the day like the French military. The American military is just another corrupt institution that requires serious reform.

Paul Bradford is a Capitol Hill refugee now earning an honest living.

Check out the link below for a letter signed by  120 retired generals and admirals warning the admiration’s policies are a serious threat to national security. As a Marine, I am glad to see some names  who I know, worked for, and respected.  But sadly there are some I had much respect for who are missing. Shame on them; they know who they are! And then there are those I had  little respect for and they are on the list e.g., Krulak, Mattis, Kelly, Allen, Hagee, Jones, and more. The letter is a good read and look and see if your heroes or villain’s are on the list.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/over_120_generals_and_admirals_warn_that_administration_policies_are_national_security_threat.html

Originally posted 2021-05-12 10:18:45.

Current Events

Semper Fi, Ooh-Rah, and Yut

6 Comments

Time for a break from the swamp and something from the Duffel Bag 

By Blondes over Baghdad

PENTAGON — A Pentagon study aimed at identifying and rooting out extremism in the armed forces has led to the conclusion that the Marine Corps should be a banned extremist group by 2022.

“The Department of Defense convened a panel to study the roots of extremism after the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “We had to understand how a person becomes radicalized. And Jesus Christ did you know what the Marine Corps is like?”

Laura Goodwin, a researcher for the Rand Corporation, shared some data that informed the panel’s decision.

“When we asked recruits why they served in the Air Force, 54% said ‘college money,’ and 34% said ‘Patriotism or service to country,’ When we asked the same question to Marine Corps recruits, 18% cited ‘shoot a giant f**king machine gun,’ and 88% said ‘kicking in Bin Laden’s door, sneaking up to his bedroom, shooting his f***ing beard face, and throwing a grenade on his sleeping innocent wives and children just to watch them writhe in pain,” Goodwin said before pausing to take a deep breath. “That’s a hard sentence to read out loud for a normal non-Marine but there you have it in the data.”

Marine Commandant General David H. Berger disputed the study’s findings. “I don’t think we have an extremism problem in the Marine Corps,” Berger said. “I think we have an extremism tradition. Oorah! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Experts point to groups like the Proud Boys or Antifa as extremist groups, but according to Rand, those groups are underdeveloped in recruitment, restructuring values, physical conditioning, and widespread cultural acceptance of extremist viewpoints when compared to organizations like the Marine Corps.

While there are many aspects of the Marine Corps that are good, like Motor Pool Monday and barracks parties, those activities were built on a backbone of “being ready to destroy absolutely anything, anywhere in the world, right f**king now,” officials said. Many Marines reported that they barely noticed that the organization’s foundational goals include going somewhere to indiscriminately kill, then pick up and move to another place, quickly, to indiscriminately kill, as they were more focused on getting paid to punch another man in the face.

“Blood makes the grass grow! Kill babies, oohrah!” responded Sgt. John Morgan, a 31-year-old well-adjusted man that is charming at dinner parties, when asked what the mission of the Marine Corps should be in the future.

Many of the Marines in the Rand study said they joined when they were in particularly economically and societally vulnerable situations. Joe (not his real name) explained that he had little access to education in his community and few job prospects. But when he was exposed to radical propaganda in a YouTube ad late at night, “all [he] could think about was slaying dragons and wearing white gloves and a sword.” Joe said that if he would have been able to attend college or find a good job, he probably wouldn’t have been susceptible to radicalization.

“We see this a lot,” said Goodwin. “Young men find radicalizing videos on the internet. It starts out as a curiosity, but they go deeper and deeper and find a community of extremist men, who isolate them from their friends, families, and the values they grew up on. Eventually, it escalates to the planning stage, where they find a strip mall with a Marine that matches the image from the radicalizing videos. The sad thing is that we spend a lot of money fighting extremism, but these young men are recruited for about $35 — the price of a USMC T-shirt and lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings.”

“When you find another man that thinks a K-bar dripping in human blood is ‘f**king sick,” it normalizes the behavior, Goodwin continued. “Eventually the two of you will use the same tattoo artist and marry the same stripper. At that point, you’re so entrenched it’s hard at that point to think that a nice job as an admin specialist in the Navy is an acceptable lifestyle.”

When asked for comment, Berger explained that plenty of Marines have good job prospects and healthy relationships with their families and communities, he just hadn’t found one yet, and “if you’re not a Marine you can’t understand us.”

Pentagon officials say known extremist dog whistles such as “Oorah” and “yut” have already been forbidden at bases around the world. During tattoo inspections, known extremist phrases like “Semper Fi” and eagle, globe and anchor motifs will be disqualifying. And Marine Corps Birthday balls must be open to the public and watched by neutral observers.

Plans to de-radicalize Marines and slowly transition them back to military service include encouraging them to spend time with mainstream military communities.

One promising pilot study placed Marines with Senior Airmen in air-conditioned dorms with clean running water. Within six weeks, 40% of participants stated that “They had their retirement all figured out and would just cruise on easy until then,” and 60% chose “getting an excellent evaluation,” as more important than “crushing a man’s windpipe with my bare hands.”

“The Department of Defense has shared core values of service, honor, and integrity, based on a long tradition of just war, the Geneva Conventions, ethical conduct, escalation of force and law of armed conflict,” Austin said, though his remarks were drowned out by a passing Marine platoon singing about blood making the green grass grow and putting claymores in children’s playgrounds.

While banning the Marine Corps is expected to address many aspects of military extremism and send an important message to Americans that extremism will not be tolerated, the underlying problems will be harder to address.

“I fully believe that we can ban the Marine Corps by 2022,” Berger said. “But we’re here because America wants us here. Try to stop that. YUT.”

Blondes Over Baghdad lets someone else take the top block because it’s the selfless service thing to do. She’ll go to ranger school when there’s a 3-beer policy. Follow her on Twitter at @BlondsOvrBaghd

Postscript: In case you have not realized it by now, this is a spoof from Duffel Bag.  LOL

Originally posted 2021-04-17 12:12:51.