State of the Armed Forces

Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash

What follows below is a guest post. It is not mine. I did not write it. I am posting it on behalf of the anonymous author who sent it to me, and I post it here with that author’s permission. It is a clearly articulated, no-nonsense look at our Armed Forces that in many ways builds upon some of the themes I presented recently in a piece I wrote that I called Treason and Cowardice.

Brad

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by Anonymous

PURGE TO RESTORE READINESS AFTER THE FAILURE OF REDRESS & LOSS OF TRUST

DOD’s hateful disrespect of inherent human dignity destroyed service member and public trust and confidence in today’s military leaders. The military who swore to support and defend the Constitution that protects the supremacy of conscience and honors a person’s inherent worth, was the first to destroy and tolerate violation of rights in the pandemic. How can the public trust a military to protect its liberties when not only does it fail to stand up for their own, but then becomes the mechanism leading the way to lockdowns, forced medical procedures, censorship, and the insanity of U.S. COVID response? The Biden administration falsely declared success of the military mandate to support the mandates that followed across America; the mandates subsequently ruled unconstitutional in so many courts. Plummeting recruiting, retention, and readiness figures along with $billions of lost training investment all trace to COVID policies. Congress’s elimination of the shot mandate and numerous judicial injunctions were necessary, but insufficient to return “readiness” to the force amidst the loss of special trust and confidence perpetuated and tolerated by DOD’s failed leaders. The entire general and flag officer corps of the U.S. military failed in the only duty they had, to support and defend the Constitution that exists to protect the rights of its citizens. Only accountability and removal of every O-7 and above will return the U.S. military profession to its historical position of respect and worthy deference. States, Congress, and the Judicial branch must intervene with strong support from the public to demand accountability for DOD’s abrogation of citizen rights and willful participation in fraud surrounding COVID-19 vaccines and policies.

Beyond the obvious failures in advancing U.S. national interest these past 20 years, culminating in the shameful retreat from Afghanistan, general and flag officer conduct through COVID indicates a cancer than must be excised root and stem as efforts to rehabilitate will endanger the whole body. The complete loss of general and flag officer moral authority comes from the futility, inadequacy, and danger in their subordinates fulfilling their duty to disobey unlawful and profoundly stupid orders. Worse they punished the exercise of rights in the fulfillment of duty, that they were sworn to support and defend. Officers must follow the law to address fraud, waste, and abuse. They must not follow unlawful orders. They must seek redress when there are wrongs, particularly ones that violate law. Similarly, the Constitution is clear that service members have right to act upon their conscience informed by faith and to free speech and inquiry AND that the Government has a duty to protect those rights, but the past two years, DOD and its cowardly general and flag officer corps systemically abused those who self-identified as critical thinkers, courageous constitutionalists, and faithful. The military crushed the rights and dignity of what it was sworn to support and defend, to its own demoralization and self-destruction.

The loss of service member’s voices, their agency in the world, destroyed morale in units more than the betrayal from the vaccine mandate, systemic religious discrimination, and vaccine injuries, because such tyranny destroyed the American spirit that bound us together. Service members see the disrespect of “unvaccinated refusers,” often high performers before their religious beliefs were suddenly and unconstitutionally declared incompatible with future service, and know that such an arbitrary policy could target them next.

THE COVER-UP IS WORSE THAN THE CRIME.

Denying informed consent surrounding the vaccine, test, and mask orders were human rights violations. That’s bad. What’s worse was the gas lighting, dismissal, and shadow policies perpetuated upon those unwilling to comply with unlawful orders. This is how we know the general and flag officers are wrong and they know that we know that they are wrong--because of the wholesale and pitiful denial of redress that followed. Inspector generals, legal, and commanders universally created strawman arguments and completely ignored the core assertions of grievances and complaints, when they didn’t ignore the complaints all together. The mechanisms for redress not only failed to protect complainants, but put targets on their back.

Take for example Lt Mark Bashaw, who was the only COVID-related Court-Martial throughout the COVID mandates. After his case the DoD stopped Courts-Martialing despite numerous service members requesting them because the policies of discrimination and abuse were so blatantly antithetical to the law. Instead, the DoD exclusively pursued unaccountable administrative procedures to purge the force of religious members and those understanding and courageous enough to defend the Constitution. Cowardly, war-losing, apparently unaccountable general and flag officers continue to retaliate against a Whistleblowers like Mark Bashaw, who exposed the harms of EUA products and is being actively pursued for discharge from service after 17 years of faithful service to his Country and Oath to the Constitution.

The COVID mandate was bad. The shadow policies of abuse to coerce compliance with the unlawful, fraudulent order, like banning travel, promotion, assignment, was worse. The continued vitriol, hatred, and pettiness, like taking over two years to upgrade discharges so honorable veterans can go to school after being unlawfully purged from service, would seem to be the worst. But the readiness kill shot that reverberates to recruiting and retention today is the destruction of trust in leadership by compromising, breaking, and weaponizing [DOD’s] mechanisms for self-correction. When service members see that any attempt to self-correct is ‘futile, inadequate and dangerous,’ that isn’t an organization you fix, that’s one you flee.

ACCOUNTABILITY IS THE ONLY CURE

The normal, polite response is to call for investigations that lead to accountability. How’s that working out for us? The incompetence, dereliction of duty, and cowardice of the general of flag officers is abundantly clear to the most casual observer. Every official that denied a religious accommodation, failed the simplest and most fundamental test. The cowards that tolerated their peers denying subordinates rights to petition for redress, to voice concerns with their free speech, to stop blatant discrimination and unlawfulness, they were unable to fog a mirror when asked. They are unfit for further duty.

Those sadists, psychopaths, and toxic leaders that gleefully used coercion to compel participation in a medical experiment or acceptance of a medical treatment, that retaliated against their betters who questioned the insanity of COVID policies, are unworthy of the pension they so gleefully denied to so many of their subordinates. The one’s that buried complaints should have their careers buried. This means every general and flag officer is demoted and dismissed.

Congress should investigate the failure of redress within DOD, especially relative to COVID-19 vaccinations. How many equal opportunity complaints were filed, and how were they handled? Why did the EEOC create regulations in violation of law to enable systemic religious discrimination currently enjoined across the military? Having made religious members self-identify in onerous and futile accommodation process, what are the career outcomes? All religious accommodation requests were denied across all branches of service until Federal injunctions began, and then a few token accommodations were granted to those already separating. How well did the function of equal opportunity perform through the largest systemic discrimination event in DOD history?

The IG function should also be investigated. It failed and became the mechanism for targeted abuse. It failed to provide the serious thought to the inquiries it received and undermined trust in the institution. There is evidence that corrupt chains of command use well-intentioned complaints to address and mitigate unlawful violations in court…for cover rather than cure.

The failure of the chain of command to respond to Article 138s should especially be investigated. An Article 138 is filed by a service member who believes he or she has been wronged by his commander as a means of redress. These were unlawfully dismissed in bad faith because the military and those commanders was in cowardly “protect-the-bureaucracy” and “save their own hide” mode. These Article 138s removed plausible deniability from the collective military leadership by clearly outlining the panoply of violations. Current DOD leadership failed the test through COVID and proved they were insufficiently loyal to the Constitution. They had one job, to support and defend the Constitution, and they either walked all over it or tolerated its destruction. Every commander that denied a religious accommodation, that dismissed an EO complaint, Article 138, or IG complaint, or gas lit a congressional inquiry should never be promoted again. The evidence for these violations of their Oath is abundant and there is a bench of proven public servants, who fell on their sword to preserve the Constitution that STAND READY to ensure our military protects freedom and doesn’t further become the tool of tyranny. The same shadow lists the military maintains to discriminate and diminish against can be used to elevate. Until current leadership admits their errors and leaves service, the readiness crisis will continue. Congress can accelerate the process by denying promotion to those who mindlessly followed unlawful orders. A complete leadership changeout is the surest way to rejuvenate the military and completely warranted given the evidence.

TOOL OF TYRANNY

Our military became the tool of tyranny. The antibodies to tyranny have always been Men or Women of Conscience and Character who stand up at great personal risk to fulfill their Constitutional duty to protect the dignity and worth of people. Those members were sorted and continue to be purged from the military. It is apparent that President Joe Biden’s approval of the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that rescinds the military vaccine mandate provides is not going to fix the readiness issues, because so many have been separated, left voluntarily, or retired and have been demoralized by DOD’s dishonorable handling of redress. Those with honor flee, leaving the military a tool of tyranny.

There has been a complete loss of trust and confidence in the military attributed to the vaccine mandate. It’s not that there was a mandate; it’s that senior leadership failed to respond in an honorable way to its unlawfulness.

You can fix the mandate, but you’re not going to fix the recruiting and retention issue, or the tremendous blow to unit cohesion and morale. Even without a mandate, the military is going to suffer for a long time in the years ahead.