Loss of Confidence

No Trust in Military Leaders

I have completely lost confidence in the ability of the Department of Defense’s top officials to effectively and dutifully lead the military.

Military Leaders

The military is currently undergoing a change in some of its top officers, whether at the Pentagon or prominent commands across the force. These changes are routine in nature and don't necessarily signify in and of themselves that something is out of order. Therefore, what is disturbing to many Americans, including military troops and veterans, is not the fact that leadership changes are occurring but rather who these key positions may soon be held by.

After all, many of us are glad to see the top military officers leave their positions, though we may feel that the departure of some of these key leaders should be in handcuffs. I’ve written extensively about my feelings on senior military leadership in a piece appropriately titled Treason and Cowardice. However, I personally brook no illusion that their replacements will be any better. In fact, I assume that it will be more of the same.

Sadly, it's apparent that senior military leaders are passing loyalty tests of some sort, whether formal or informal. These loyalty tests have nothing to do with their oath to the Constitution or their love of country. In fact, these loyalty tests are clearly in direct tension with those ideals and even appear to supersede them.

One couldn't be blamed for wondering if the military actually operates as a type of secret society. On an exoteric plane, everyone is taught that the Department of Defense exists to protect the country, secure our freedoms, and ensure the integrity of the republic. However, perhaps at some esoteric level deep within the inner bowels of the organization, priorities and objectives are deliberately inverted and far more sinister agendas are pushed by individuals whose allegiances have nothing to do with American interests or values.

After all, it’s painfully obvious that the defense of our country, whether it be our borders or values, is not the concern of Pentagon leadership. In fact, it seems that one of their primary objectives is to enfeeble national security by destroying military readiness and directly attacking traditional values.

This has led to widespread distrust of these leaders by currently serving troops, veterans, and family members.

Loss of Confidence

When commanders within the military are relieved of their positions, it’s common for the relieving authority (typically, a higher commander) to cite a “loss of confidence” as a justifying reason for why the relief must occur. In other words, the higher commander no longer trusts that the subordinate commander can effectively carry out his command duties. This could be because the higher commander no longer trusts his subordinate’s judgment or because the higher commander feels that the subordinate commander’s troops no longer reliably trust him. This may have occurred because of a series of infractions or because of a single significant act of impropriety or misconduct.

Given this accepted usage of “loss of confidence” as a justifiable reason for declaring commanders or other senior leaders unfit, it’s time that we reverse the script and express our loss of confidence in top military leaders and the cowards who support them. We must convey our sincere and complete distrust of their ability to carry out their duties faithfully. We must declare our disbelief that they possess the character to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution or to put the law ahead of their own careers. We must demand that in order to restore our confidence in our military, those who willingly seek to destroy it from within — regardless of the number of stars they may wear — must be removed, and where applicable, prosecuted.

My Command

Let me use my own relief of command as an example of how these senior commanders treated their subordinates who refused to go along with the covid shot mandate.

When I was relieved of command, the exact language of “loss of confidence” was not specifically used. I was relieved of my battalion command position because I failed to obey the so-called “lawful order” to receive the covid injection.

The mention of the “lawful order” was also included multiple times in the General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand that I received from the Commander of the 101st Airborne Division (the same officer who relieved me of command).[1] You can find a few examples of the “lawful order” language or some derivation thereof, such as being “lawfully ordered,” below in the reprimand.

Of course, we now know the mandate was totally unlawful.

In addition to the insistence that the order was “lawful,” there are references to how my decision supposedly affected “the health and readiness of the force” or represented a failure in my “responsibility of taking care of” or “setting the example for subordinates to emulate.” Additionally, I apparently “undermined the effectiveness of [my] unit” and demonstrated “irresponsible and improper behavior.”

Interestingly, there is no direct mention in here of me violating any specific command responsibilities. The Division Commander refers to me as a Field Grade Officer but does not even mention that I am a commander (which I still was at the publication of this memorandum). Given the numerous memoranda of this type that he gave, I’m sure a form letter was used. Some staffer made sure to ensure that mine had my name and correct rank, and reference to my status as a field grade officer, but yet made no clear reference to me being a commander. In theory, according to their thinking, being a commander would make my refusal of an order even more egregious.

Then again, this memorandum came from a general who refused to even relieve me of command in person. I was notified of my relief of command via email eighteen days after the relief had gone into effect.

I was suspended from command in October 22, 2021 by my direct supervisor, the Brigade Commander. That meant that October 22 was the last day I performed any command duties though my initial removal from command was only a suspension (which is common). To his credit, my Brigade Commander conducted the suspension in person. I thought it was perhaps unusual that I was being suspended from command by the Brigade Commander because I knew that the officer with the authority to relieve me was the Brigade Commander’s boss — and therefore my boss two levels up — the Division Commander. I, therefore, assumed that the Division Commander would be the one to formally relieve me (as opposed to merely suspend me, as the Brigade Commander had done).

I was, in fact, formally relieved six days later, on October 28, 2021, by the Division Commander as expected. However, I was not notified that I had been formally relieved until November 15, a full eighteen days after having been relieved. Since I had not been performing command duties since I had been suspended, I had no way of knowing that I had been formally relieved until notified in some way. As mentioned, the relief memo was signed on October 28. If the Division Commander felt no responsibility or desire to face me in person to relieve me, I could still have easily been notified that day or a day later. However, I was only notified eighteen days later, when I received an email.

The email did not come from the Division Commander or even the Brigade Commander. It came from the Brigade Judge Advocate, or in other words, a military lawyer who was a staff officer, with the rank of major. I’m not a stickler for unnecessary formalities nor am I overly rank-conscious. Also, I genuinely liked this specific military lawyer. I thought he was a good dude and harbored zero resentment towards him. However, majors that are staff officers do not inform higher ranking officers that they have been relieved of command. That’s not how it should happen.

To me, my entire relief, ranging from the reasons I was relieved to the manner in which it was conducted, clearly demonstrates the way in which the military establishment treated the covid dissenters. It also portends the way in which the military establishment will treat those who dissent when unlawful orders are given in the future (and they will be). This is why I have lost confidence in our military. The specifics of my story may be particular to me, but they are similar to the stories of so many others, and therefore indicative of why so many of us have lost confidence in the ability of the military to faithfully execute its duties.

My Resignation

This loss of confidence led me to leave the Army despite the financial effect that leaving would have on me. When I departed the Army, I had served on active duty for nineteen years, three months, and fifteen days and therefore only had about eight and a half months remaining to qualify for my retirement pension.

I couldn’t stay. I could not stomach further involvement with leaders that I had come to despise for their cowardice.

I was relieved in late October 2021 as detailed above, but did not submit my resignation packet until early March 2022. By this time, it was obvious that DoD was not going to “come to its senses” anytime soon and rescind what I knew by early 2022 to be the unlawful mandate. In the additional time that has passed between then and now (July 2023), though the mandate has been repealed (without acknowledgment that it was ever unlawful or misguided), very little has been done to repair the damages done to those who suffered under its implementation. Troops were significantly injured by the shots, careers were lost or otherwise irreparably damaged, families were placed under enormous stress, and extensive moral injury was perpetrated across the force.

Speaking of my own case, and by extension the cases of many other service members, when will either the Army in general, or my former Division Commander specifically, admit that he was wrong in the memorandum that he published above? I did not disobey a lawful order, despite his accusations. I did not represent a readiness risk. I did not behave irresponsibly or improperly, as he stated. As for serving as an example —and please forgive me for touting my own actions here — but what other battalion commander within his division provided an example that there was another way to deal with the mandate? With my actions, I hoped to demonstrate that refusal to go along with the mandate was possible, thought it might come at high cost. When I looked to my left and my right as this entire situation was unfolding, I sure as hell didn’t see any of my peers demonstrating the same example to their subordinates. (Again, as I have said over and over, I’ve never claimed to be an exceptional officer who did everything right. I’ve only ever claimed to be a good officer who got this right.)

My decision to resign from the Army was my way of removing myself from the command of these disloyal officers that make up our wayward military leadership. Due to my loss of confidence in their ability to effectively lead, I refused to pretend that they could exert command over me. While I could not relieve them of command obviously, I could relieve them of their command over me by resigning and therefore no longer being subject to them.

Though they may continue to run around, costumed up in military uniforms, LARP’ing as true commanders and leaders, I wasn’t going to LARP as one of their subordinates.[2]

Note the language I used in my resignation memorandum to the Army’s Human Resources Command.

I could not in good conscience remain in uniform, not because of any objections I had or have to military service per se, but because I refused to remain in a military held hostage by those whom have inverted, subverted, and perverted the very nature of their commands. When I was relieved of command in October 2021, I was not aware of the Comirnaty/BioNTech deception, but when I submitted this memo in March 2022, I was well aware of it. That is why I referred to DoD’s mandate, itself built on collusion with Pfizer and the FDA, as “medical fraud” in my reasoning above. It was this ongoing commission of a crime that I believed was, at least at the highest levels of DoD, open, intentional, and deliberate. If I wanted to keep my oath to the Constitution and attempt to live by the values the military purports to support, then I could not do so under senior leaders who stood in clear opposition to those very values.

In recent conversations with other military personnel or veterans, I know I am not the only one who feels a severe loss of confidence when it comes to our top military officials. These top generals and admirals are responsible for the physical, moral, and systemic degradation of readiness that currently stares us in the face. The military will not fix itself. Placing more criminals at the head of a criminal enterprise is not the solution.

Granting key positions to senior officers who have demonstrated their willingness to compromise their integrity, their oaths, and the physical and moral health of the troops, is a clear and unnecessary strategic threat. As Americans, we need to clearly and unequivocally declare our loss of confidence in these hollow shells pretending to be military leaders.

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Notes:

[1]. The document provided in part here is the General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand. To be clear, this type of document has nothing to do directly with my status as a commander. Many service members across the Armed Forces received similar memoranda. I’m merely mentioning that the documentation detailing my relief of command also mentioned my refusal to obey a “lawful order.”

[2]. If you don’t know what LARP’ing is, then my hat’s off to you.