Archive for the ‘war’ Category

The military never cared about religion

Posted: December 4, 2021 by copperhilltradingco in News/opinion, war
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While I don’t have a print subscription to the Military Times newspapers, I still get their morning email, and today’s headline featured the US Navy not accepting any religious exemptions for the COVID vaccine:

As the deadline for active-duty sailors to get the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine passed Monday, the sea service has yet to grant any vaccine exemptions on the basis of religious accommodation, according to figures released Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, 2,531 requests for exemption from the vaccine mandate had been filed by sailors on religious grounds, though officials could not say how many of those requests had been ruled upon.

Navy Times

I’m not surprised, because in my experience, the Navy (and most services) don’t really care about your religious beliefs. Never have, never will, because in today’s service, the service is the religion.

I noticed this trend when I first joined the Navy. I remember having to beg the Commanding Officer on my submarine to get a mere 45 minutes off on Sunday to hold Catholic services. Mind you, we weren’t on mission, at war, or even strapped for time, but he couldn’t be bothered, and it wasn’t until I talked with the squadron chaplain that I was grudgingly granted the time. This was despite the fact that there are plenty of instructions stating that time and space will be provided unless a submarine is on mission or executing critical duties. My Commanding Officer viewed my request as a nuisance, and he told me as much to my face.

It wasn’t just one CO though. At multiple duty stations, there would be this unwillingness to grant military members the time off to celebrate their faith, be it Christian, Jewish or anything else. In Bahrain, where Sunday is considered a workday, I essentially caused a small office revolt by going to noon Mass on Sunday and telling my boss I simply wasn’t going to work yet another 12 hour work day when we weren’t in crisis mode. I distinctly remember the Admiral there telling us at an all-hands call that he was expecting 6 day work weeks, and even most Saturday mornings, despite no apparent need to do so. It was like the Navy was his “god,” and he couldn’t pray enough while slogging through the mass of self-induced paperwork at his desk.

If the Navy can’t provide a simple hour for Mass once a week, its no surprise they won’t approve vaccine exemptions. Now, to be fair, I encourage people to vaccinate because I think its far better than catching COVID, but I also don’t really think its a hill worth dying on or kicking people out over, similar to why I don’t think we should be stopping everything to chase the extremely tiny number of extremists that might exist in the ranks.

Kicking people out over a COVID vaccine is just one more reason the Navy is going to be hurting for recruitment come 2024-2025. The lip service paid to everything from ship maintenance and strategy to human resources and bonuses is becoming more obvious every day. People are catching on that the Navy views itself as its own religion, and if you’re not willing to worship, then you’ll be shown the door.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this article, consider supporting the author by purchasing his book for either yourself or as a Christmas gift.

Paying in cash vs. paying in blood

Posted: November 27, 2021 by ng36b in News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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One of the major differences between the influence that China wields verses the former Soviet Union relates to China’s use of monetary incentives. The US and British defectors that sold nuclear, diplomatic and other state secrets to the Russians from the 40’s until the Soviet Union collapsed were not normally paid a lot of money. Only four ever made over $1 million, and those were only the ones that sold out significant secrets, such as Aldrich Ames identifying nearly ever top US recruit in major Soviet institutions. Most of these turncoats were motivated by ideology. They truly believed in the Soviet Union, right up to the end, and were quite willing to give our enemies secrets for cheap.

China is different. You don’t have to subscribe to China’s idealogy to be on their doll. China willingly flexes its financial muscles to buy people off. Even worse, China is happy to do this quite blazenly and openly. There isn’t a more perfect example then Hollywood right now. Did you notice the nod to China in the movie Midway? Or the pandering by actors like John Cena to Chinese audiences? Sure, maybe some of these people really believe that China is better than the US, but likely most are simply gold digging, and China offers lots of gold for those that toe the line.

This is coming to a head in the Solomon Islands right now, in this week’s very underreported story. Riots (not of the “mostly peaceful” variety) are happening in the Solomon Islands, an island nation that most Americans only remember from a World War 2 battle on the island of Guadalcanal. Located just north of Australia, the Solomon Islands operated in Australia’s sphere of influence for a long time. Australia provided government support and significant economic investment in mining, forestry and other areas. In exchange, the Solomon Islands were relatively peaceful, at least with their neighboring countries.

That has changed though. Manasseh Sogavare, the current Prime Minister, oversaw the end of the Australian mission to the Solomons in 2017. Not long after, the Solomon Islands stopped recognizing Taiwan and instead recognized the PRC. Almost immediately, Australian investments started to disappear, with Chinese firms replacing them. Everything from gold mines to logging is focused on, or has been purchased by, China. Heck, even China state run media says the Solomon Islands will be a Chinese hub soon.

The point here is China is building its empire with cash. When Japan attempted to invade a large portion of the Pacific, it ultimately lost because it was difficult to pacify that large of a population. Germany had the same struggles, losing significant numbers of troops in the post-invasion peace keeping operations in places like Poland and the former Yugoslavia. China avoids paying in blood for its conquests by simply throwing cash at the problem. Buy off a government, and they’ll let you take their resources via debt diplomacy. What’s not to love? You get what you want without having to use your military power.

If war comes to the Pacific, China won’t need to pull a Pearl Harbor moment to capture territory like the Japanese did in WW2. Instead, we will be the ones paying in blood to recapture territory and resources China simply purchased outright. Sadly, we will likely be seen as invaders, and will suffer the same consequences Germany and Japan did during WW2.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. You can support the author by reading and rating his books on Amazon, and with Christmas coming, every little bit helps!

No room for warriors

Posted: October 30, 2021 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Viscount Slim, from Wikipedia

When Viscount Slim was placed in charge of British forces in Burma, he inherited a mess, and his Army was forced to retreat from the onslaught of Japanese forces. While mobilizing his forces in the city of Sagaing, a small entourage of Burmese civil servants drove up to his tent, unrolled a neatly typed document, and demanded that Viscount Slim remove all forces from one of the nearby hills. The typed document was a decree from the Burmese governor, who had been assured that there would be no fighting near his capital city. When Slim replied that he indeed did not want any fighting near the capital, but that he doubted the approaching Japanese commander would see things his way, the small throng of civil servants simply stared at him in disbelief. The only question that came up was “Will we receive 6 months of advanced pay then?”

As humorous as this story is (recounted in the book Defeat into Victory), the U.S. military is rapidly approaching this same level of absurdity. The shift in priorities from fighting and winning our nations wars to completing mandatory training on domestic terrorism and transgender policy is pretty much complete. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Navy. It’s incredible, and frightening, to watch the military spend millions of dollars seemingly overnight to roll out domestic terrorism training while our ships rust at the pier without proper maintenance. Even in the bloated 3.5 trillion infrastructure proposal, there was no money allocated for increasing our ship building or repair facilities, which would have been an easy, bi-partisan allocation to make.

This insidious march has resulted in the advent of the administrative commander. We now have a host of officers in leadership positions that are simply unable to make hard decisions. They will toe the line on the increasing demands made by Secretary of the Navy instructions. Even the mundane instructions related to equal opportunity, sexual harrassment and whistleblower policy have become so strict that it becomes impossible to balance these requirements with operations. Commanders are expected to drop everything, including their primary military mission, in response to any complaint from any Sailor. If a Sailor complains about a supervisor, that supervisor must be instantly isolated, even if the ship is in the middle of an operation. We’ll fly out lawyer after lawyer to make sure everything is done correctly, because we can’t trust a commander’s intuition.

Worse still, if a commander tries to make a decision, he or she will get second guessed by an Admiral sailing a desk with a yellow flag thousands of miles away. That’s a guaranteed way to take a trip to Admiral’s Mast, where the rules of evidence don’t apply, and a punitive letter can quickly derail a career. Did you make waves trying to fix endemic issues and upset someone’s rice bowl? Be prepared for a number of equal opportunity and Inspector General complaints. Don’t worry, there will be enough so that SOMETHING sticks, because the yellow flag officer can’t not find someone guilty of something.

These yellow flags will drive out the warriors. There isn’t room for people trying to balance operations with personnel. Yellow flags don’t want independent thought. They don’t want warriors in the ranks that might take actions against the enemy, push the envelope and actually fix problems. Those people are dangerous, because they might violate section 4 of paragraph A of chapter 3 in SECNAVINST 6969.120E. Or is it 120F? Better make sure we get the up to date rules onboard our rusting ship!

There is no room for warriors, and once the warriors have been driven off, our administrative commanders will look just like the Burmese civil servants, wanting their advanced pay from their cushy post-military jobs in the military industrial complex while a resurgent China pushes America from its ivory tower.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. I mean, duh, that should have been obvious from the material. If you want to support this author, try purchasing his book for yourself or a friend, since Christmas is coming soon!

Well, I was wrong on Scheller

Posted: October 16, 2021 by ng36b in crime, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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I won’t say catastrophically wrong, but wrong nonetheless. In case you forgot, I predicted Scheller’s court martial would get drawn into obscurity by his defense counsel, who would want some time to pass before anyone passed judgement on Scheller. Any good defense lawyer is going to want distance between alleged crimes and judgement so that emotions can die down and, hopefully, cooler heads prevail. I also figured after getting a light sentence of some kind, which would not include jail time, Scheller would be allowed to retire.

Besides the light sentence part, I was wrong. Lt. Col. Scheller plead guilty to all six charges against him. The judge punished him with a sentence of one month forfeiture of $5,000 and a reprimand. His next stop is a Board of Inquiry, which will likely recommend dismissal from service.

Now, this doesn’t mean he loses all benefits. The Veteran’s Affairs will still assess if he can get disability pay, which could be in the thousands per month depending on his level of disability. Given that he fought in Afghanistan, and the Marine Corps has pounded his body over the past 17 years, he’s almost assured to get some disability pay.

At first I was in disbelief that things went completely different from my prediction. I took some time to read his court martial statement, which made things much more clear. Lt. Col. Scheller couldn’t NOT plead guilty. If he had fought the charges, it would have made him look like a crazy person who suddenly realizes he made a mistake and is trying to quickly sweep it under the rug. Scheller isn’t crazy. He might be depressed, but its understandable, given that both his wife and the Marine Corps are abandoning him. But he’s not crazy. It becomes very apparent near the end of his statement:

…Going forward, I am still demanding accountability from my senior General officers.  Since this endeavor began, not a single General officer has accepted accountability.  Not a single General officer has contacted me directly in any forum to deescalate the situation.  Since this endeavor began, I have acknowledged that I should be held accountable for my actions.  I am standing here today pleading guilty.  This is me accepting accountability.  But it deeply pains me that my senior leaders are incapable of being as courageous.  

Without accountability from our senior leaders, the system cannot evolve, and the military will ultimately keep repeating the same mistakes in the future.  It doesn’t matter if a SSgt squad leader is highly efficient in distributed operations if the General officers have relegated themselves to ‘yes sir’ responses.  We need senior leaders who possess the morale courage to push back when something doesn’t make sense. 

– Lt. Col. Scheller

If Lt. Col. Scheller wanted to cast light on the problem, he certainly did so. But where does it go from here? Tackling the military industrial behemoth is a daunting task. Even Mad-dog Mattis, who finally won the war in Iraq, still struggled to make the Department of Defense refocus and change. The revolving door for senior officers still exists, not dissimilar from the revolving door for politicians and lobbyists. Also, given Lt. Col. Scheller’s negative response to help from Donald Trump, I’m not sure where he’s going to start to affect the change he wants to make.

I will say this: this episode is only going to make the 2024 personnel cliff even worse for the military. In less than a month the military threw everything at Scheller over social media posts. Every military member is taking notice. Any that agreed with him will be quietly quitting, and the slow drip of lost manpower is going to accumulate into a river.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked what you read, why not buy my book on Amazon and help me out!

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