By Kurt Schlichter,Col, US Army (Ret)It gives me no pleasure to say that I no longer recommend that young people join the military, and I’m not alone. The non-Blue Falcon veteran community is in full revolt against the conscious decision to decline embraced by our current military leadership. After failing to win a war in the last 20 years – and don’t say Syria, because the second President * woke up in the Oval Office wondering how he got there, more of our troops were heading back into the hellscape for reasons no one has bothered to articulate – the military has decided to target an easier enemy, i.e., other Americans.
See, the problem with me and the other vets who are disgusted by the brass’s choice to focus on SJW priorities instead of, you know, successfully deterring or defeating America’s enemies, is that we actually listened to what we were taught when we were coming up. Most of us were trained by the heroes who put the shattered American military together after the Democrat war in Vietnam broke it. We learned about leadership, about putting mission first but taking care of people always, and about objectives and how to attain them.
None of that’s a thing anymore.
So, count us out from complicity with the degeneration of our proud institution into a giant gender studies struggle session. And that’s a big deal. Do you know where the military gets a huge chunk on its recruits? Legacies. These are young troops who want to be like their father or grandfather or big brother or neighbor or other role model. I was the third-generation commissioned officer in my family, on both sides. Guess what? Right now, if one of my kids goes in, it’s against my advice. And again, I am not alone. I hear this over and over and over from other vets. And it makes me furious.
You put two divisions behind wire in D.C. to protect against phantom insurrections by guys who dress like Vikings. And then you can’t even feed the troops, or house them. Gosh, if only there was a great big five-sided building full of generals just a couple miles away to square that idiocy away.
Oh, wait, there is.
And now, though we have not won a war in two decades, our military has plenty of time to stop training and focus on purging the ranks of people who like the politicians the current administration opposes. I eagerly await the introduction to the new 69D MOS – political officer. A zampolit for every battalion – hell, why not every company?
And don’t patronize us with baloney about how this is just about rooting out all those secret “extremists” lurking in the ranks – that’s right up there with sending the new second louie down to the supply room to retrieve a box of grid squares. How about you stop trying to expel these mystery “extremists” and start firing the incompetents all around you?
Sadly, this trickle-down SJW foolishness is reaching what used to be the pointy end of the spear. Generals and colonels adopt it because if they don’t, they’ll get tossed out – if you invest three decades in the green machine, it must be awfully tempting to hold your tongue to nail down that retirement and then get the hell out ahead of the deluge. It’s the company grades who buy this pap who are most disconcerting. One lieutenant – for you civilians, lieutenants are the wisest officers in the military, according to lieutenants – went on Twitter to inform me and some other people who were actually alive and in the military the last time America won a war that when we Neanderthals were serving, the military was awash in “white supremacy.” Could have fooled me. When I got off active duty the first time 30 years ago this May, I was stunned at how often race came up back in the civilian world. It almost never did when I was in the service, though in basic training it would have been nice for the awesome power of my pallor to keep Drill Sergeant Whittlesey from dropping me for countless sets of 20.
But hey, some 23-year-old assistant S2 who operates the coffeemaker doubtless has better insights into stuff happening before he was born that those of us who were actually there. The only positive thing about my interaction with that guy was my relief in knowing that I was no longer the dumbest lieutenant in the history of the United States military.
We had our imperfections and misadventures back in the day, sure, but if some idiot had done something bigoted to another solder, we would have slammed him. The only thing that mattered when a new soldier showed up was whether or not he was squared away. But not now. No, winning battles is hard, but internal snipe hunts are easy and fun! Why focus on external warfare when the career payoff for witch-hunting within the organization is so much bigger? Check out this new Navy pledge – us vets’ enlistment/commissioning oaths were apparently insufficient for today’s woke battlespace:
“I pledge to advocate for and acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every Sailor in the Navy. I pledge to engage in ongoing self-reflection, education and knowledge sharing to better myself and my communities. I pledge to be an example in establishing healthy, inclusive and team-oriented environments. I pledge to constructively share all experiences and information gained from activities above to inform the development of Navy-wide reforms.”
The most disconcerting part of this is that it was apparently written on purpose. Is the next thing we’ll see some sort of mandatory woke Space Force interpretive dance?
No, I do not recommend anyone subject themselves to this sort of four-year camo sociology seminar in which they must “pledge to advocate for and acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities of every Sailor in the Navy” or any other branch. My intersectional identity is “America,” and I am utterly uninterested in any other identity.
Maybe the brass should focus on killing America’s enemies, and maybe not running ships into other ships? Both those things would be totally awesome.
War is a serious business, even for guys like me who ran heavily armed carwashes. But this current tail-chasing is not serious. The military is hollowing out as people vote with their combat boots. Word from inside is that it can’t keep troops from ETSing – that is, leaving the service when their obligation ends. If our troops want their thoughts controlled and to be programed into little lefty conformobots, they can go off to college – the Dems want to give it away to slackers for free anyway, so who needs to ruck march and attend Bill Kristol’s latest war to get the G.I. Bill?
The military used to be a welcoming safe space for patriots. But no more. With this insane babbling about “internal enemies,” does anyone think that potential recruits do not understand that this slur is what the liberal elite that the military brass obeys calls people like them and their families? Why would you join an organization that sees you as an enemy?
I wish I could believe that the generals and admirals will en masse reject this sack race to failure, but it may be too late, at least until we get a real president determined to unscrew this cluster. It will be hard. The academies and war colleges are already full of the same kind of liberal hacks that civilian education is infested with. Michael Walsh’s hardcore new book Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost should be required reading for every military leader, but some professor at the Army Command and General Staff College (I’m a graduate, sigh) reviewed it and found it – I’m not kidding – “problematic.” You know what’s really problematic? Turning the military into a cauldron of neurotic SJW obsessions while our foreign enemies circle our senile CINC like vultures.
We can laugh at the antics, but the terrible reality is that this crap is going to get a bunch of our young people killed. Let’s be very clear – when your priority is social justice nonsense instead of preparing to fight and win, you are opening up a lane for the enemy and the enemy is going to drive right through it.
But look on the bright side. When something horrible happens – maybe the Chinese will send a carrier to the bottom, for example – we can all take comfort in the fact that our sons and daughters, because it’s us patriots’ sons and daughters who usually fight and die in America’s wars, perished because our leadership failed to prepare, but at least they died fully aware of trans intersectionality.
See what happens if things get worse in my newest novel Crisis, and catch up with my other four novels of America splitting apart into red and blue nations, People’s Republic, Indian Country, Wildfire, and Collapse!
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA – Revelations that the insurrection at the US Capitol included many former and current members of America’s armed forces have been met with alarm. And yet, as a 35-year veteran and retired commandant of the US Marine Corps, I saw the events of January 6 as the predictable culmination of a growing disconnect between the US military and civilian society.
Once home, many veterans joined organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, where they were surrounded by like-minded people who had served, suffered, and sacrificed together. Jobs were plentiful, and Americans took pride in their country and their military.
Similarly, in the Korean War less than a decade later, though America was never “all in,” it nonetheless had clear strategic goals. As in WWII, US servicemen and women did a remarkable job and came home to an appreciative country.
But then came Vietnam, where most Americans never really knew what their country was fighting for. When the conflict finally came to its ignominious end in April 1975, there was no victory to celebrate (and it certainly was not fireworks that flew from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon). Unlike previous generations, those who fought in Vietnam were not honored for their service and sacrifice. Equally important, the public backlash against the war led to the end of military conscription, which fundamentally transformed the relationship between the military and the American people. The rift created by the shift to an all-volunteer military has grown wider ever since.
After Vietnam, America’s next major war was Desert Storm, in 1990. Again, clear strategic goals were met in a dramatic fashion, and US servicemen and women returned to a proud country – on the cusp of becoming the world’s only remaining superpower with the collapse of the Soviet Union the following year.
Yet by the end of the Gulf War, globalization and technological change had already begun to reshape American society. Old-line industries were being upended, and many manufacturing jobs were disappearing. Although immigration had only a minor effect on the big economic picture, it became a hot-button political issue for those who found themselves out of work. At the same time, a new wave of social-justice issues also started gaining momentum during this period. As a microcosm of America, the US military was not immune to these political dynamics.
It was against this political, social, and economic backdrop that America embarked on its “long war.” Much like Vietnam, the “War on Terror” lacks clear strategic goals and has lost public buy-in over time. Many of those who have fought it subscribe to the apocryphal refrain that while the military was at war, America was at Walmart. After serving multiple tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, servicemen and women who sacrificed years of their lives have received little recognition.
In his 1973 book, The American Way of War, the historian Russell F. Weigley quoted US General George C. Marshall as saying, “a democracy cannot fight a Seven Years’ War,” because any protracted conflict eventually will lose the support of the electorate. The longer a war runs – particularly when it becomes cross-generational – the greater the disconnect between the typical citizen and the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who serve.
he War on Terror is an abiding case in point, helping to shed light on the unrest and extremism that burst into public view at the Capitol. A small minority of alienated former and active service members have concluded that something is wrong in the America for which they fought and sacrificed. The past two presidential elections have fueled this discontent and convinced some that they have a duty to confront perceived domestic “enemies.” Political leaders, meanwhile, have exploited these sentiments for their own advantage.
The COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to a perfect storm. As the economy shed jobs – particularly at the lower end of the income distribution – face-to-face interactions were no longer possible. With deepening social atomization, it has become more difficult to experience solidarity. Angst or boredom have afflicted many, and some have found refuge in online communities espousing extremist ideologies. The 2020 presidential election brought the situation to a boiling point. A sitting commander-in-chief openly sought to overturn a free and fair election with lies and intimidation, and a small minority of his acolytes answered his call to action. Really?
But Americans should have faith. Notwithstanding a few outliers, the US military is unwavering in its support of, and dedication to, the US Constitution. Those in its ranks who harbor extremist views will be discovered and dealt with appropriately. Looking ahead, recruitment methods will be strengthened to weed out extremists. Recruiters will have to look not only at candidates’ social-media activity but also at their “body paint” (tattoos) and other potential indicators of extremist or racist sympathies. Interviews will need to be more pointed, and education for active members improved.
While the troubling trajectory of US military-civil relations has created fertile ground for some members to be radicalized, it is important to remember that the insurrectionists represent an exception. The US military has defended American democracy for centuries and will continue to do so, in keeping with our noblest traditions. Yes, I agree general, you can bet on it!
CHARLES C. KRULAK
Writing for PS since 2020
4 Commentaries
In sum, I categorize this fellow in the same company as Mattis, Allen, and all the other Kool Aid drinking generals viewing the military through their woke eyes and ears. Krulak says the recruiters will take care of this supposed problem. LOL What does he know about recruiting — Nothing!