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Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023

How exactly is the military supposed to appeal to a greater cause when, as this author himself points out, the country itself, down to its very founding, has been thouroughly villified?

I spoke in the recent article on "A Prisoner in China" on how I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) twelve years ago. In most countries where the Peace Corps operates, the vast majority of PCVs were and still are young, Ivy-league (or near to it) educated youth. Promotion of American exceptionalism was part of the job and wasn't considered an issue among the volunteers when I served in China. Flash forward ten years to 2020, and a group of Persons of Color (POC) who were part of the final group of PC China Volunteers wrote an open letter to the PC stating that the first two months of in-country training did not adequately train all PCVs to examine their own racism, and that the micro-aggressions they, the POCs, faced every day from other Volunteers made their already difficult job of representing America, a country in which they "already fear for [their] lives every day", all the more difficult. That's right, according to these PCVs, their biggest challenge in serving in China - a country that actually is ethnically supremicist and systematically racist, that actually is committing genocide - was being around the young, woke, Ivy-leage White volunteers, who were simply still just so racist that they, the POC Volunteers, could barely manage to do their job of teaching in China, a job that, because it was supposed to entail promoting American ideals, was just too traumatizing for them to continue doing unless the PC committed to incorporating CRT into every facet of PC training and operations.

The brainwashing is real and it is destroying everything.

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Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023

As someone who is currently on recruiting duty for a branch of the Armed Forces, I agree with the author. The sales pitch is increasingly based on tangible benefits. But even the money, bonuses, etc are not enough to entice a lot of young people.

The historical “bread and butter” of recruits (young, conservative, patriotic) has dried up because they increasingly see the military as a politicized institution that falls to the whims of the current party in power. The military is used as a political pawn, a place to institute policies and hold it up as an example to the rest of the nation that your politics work.

These people aren’t idiots, and they see the shameful things we did to those who refused the COVID vaccine. We were extremely aggressive and sought Other Than Honorable discharges in the beginning and gave them RE-4 enlistment codes (not eligible for reenlistment). We softened up a little bit later, but the damage had already been done. And when politicians finally forced the reversal of this policy, and allowed those forcibly separated to come back in, they didn’t offer anything other than the removal of negative paperwork. No back pay after being forcibly removed from your livelihood over something that we are now admitting never made sense in the first place. These people have families to feed and we showed a complete disregard for them.

We offered “religious exemptions” to those who did not want the vaccine on moral grounds, but the responses were rubber stamped “No” without any real consideration. It required a General Officer’s approval or disapproval, and in all of my experience, I’ve never seen a General Officer sign anything in less than 48 hours. But very automatically and swiftly the responses came back without any real consideration. Everyone knew it was just a convenient way to give the appearance of fairness, even though they had already concluded in their mind was the conclusion was going to be.

People see the lack of interest in having an honest debate about current or prospective service members with gender dysphoria and whether a condition that is highly correlative with other mental health conditions like anxiety, suicidality, and depression is truly suitable for military service in a war zone. It requires constant and routine medication in order to maintain. We take a hard stance on all other mental health conditions and any recent medication use for ADHD, depression, anxiety is immediately disqualifying. I sincerely want people with gender dysphoria to get better, but a lot of people can’t square a condition like that with military service and our leaders show zero interest in having that conversation without the Democrat/Republican hyperbole.

I also remember the SECDEF mandated “extremist training” that softly accused service members of being extremists and white supremacists after January 6th. The implication was that an extremist could be among us, lurking around any corner, and we had to report suspicious behavior.

I find myself often wondering if the military is still the place for me in today’s climate. I’ve dedicated the last 10 years of my life to it, but the military I joined is no longer the same. I just want to defend my country if called upon, but I’m not interested in being someone’s political prop or pawn in the culture war.

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What a mixed up hash of a polemic. The author comically conflates the establishment's intentional lowering of standards and combat readiness of our military, a campaign that is akin to treason, with the outing of the lies of that same government by a low level reservist who never should have had access to those secrets in the first place. At least not in a minimally competent organization. Do we want to protect whistleblowers or not? Do we value an even minimally honest government?

Let's be clear. People such as Carlson and Greenwald merely sounded the alarm that our government has been lying about what our troops are doing in Ukraine, the state of the Ukrainian military and its war chances. Americans deserve to know that truth. If our establishment press lionized Daniel Ellsberg, why vilify Teixeira? If our military is getting too feminized, too fat and to few to fight, isn't that part and parcel of the intentional destruction of America's power in the world by the Biden cabal and its worshippers? We need a reset and we need it fast. Especially now that our laughably senile, imbecilic fool has announced his re-election campaign. If you're too deluded or stupid or willfully blind to see the dangers that this holds for our nation, I pity you. But do not consider you fit for a role in our national dialogue.

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Spot on, man.

I’ve been saying this for awhile. Even the short time I’ve been in (2015-2019 active and currently in the reserves), I’ve noticed pretty big cultural changes; none for the better.

The military’s reaction to Covid, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the vaccine mandate killed morale.

If our military ever does recover from the damage it did to itself, it’ll take years.

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Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023

"If people no longer believe in the country, then its future is finished." This is really the most succinct observation as everything traces back to this principle. If 40% of youths believe (thanks to progressive education and politics) that the Founding Fathers are villains rather than wise men who created a government to protect the natural rights of men, then what does it bode for America's future? And even the same rights that made America so distinct?

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The Pat Tillman saga is a case study of how our military has fallen. They covered up his friendly fire death, lied to his family, and used him as propaganda. Why would anyone fight for a military that does that to its heroes while paying DIE commissars more than front line troops? https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/pat-tillman-coverup

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I am the parent of an 18 year old and the uncle of another. I wouldn’t encourage either one of them to sign up. What, to be sent to Ukraine so Hunter Biden can make a bit more money off his business connections there? To bomb some innocent country so Lloyd Austin can go back to Raytheon with an even bigger salary and bonus?

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Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023

There is only one comment to this essay. The war against America its culture, its history and meaning by those antagonists who have desired to remake America is lost. They have won. The haters of America and its ideals, have embedded themselves in our schools and colleges and universities have made the fundamental changes to America they desired. Our own citizens no longer care. The self loathing is obvious. When you no longer celebrate merit, what is left to celebrate. When you call our dead white males who imagined then fought for Americas freedom evil racists with no context, how are our young supposed to feel? Ashamed? We enslaved not only people of color we conquered the natives that were living here and rounded them up in American Gulags. How could you love our history? The assaults on our country from within are successful. What do Progressive America haters want now? Who will defend them? Perhaps they feel they’d be better with Chinese leadership? The assaults on every level continue today. It would be hard to say that the assaults on family, fatherhood, motherhood are not leading to a generational slow down in the birth rate. I mean when the Progressive wordsmiths feel “birthing person” is a better description of motherhood how much more could you make it impersonal? Denigrate patriotism, and love of ones own country doesn’t make sense to me. We have our premier newspaper pushing the 1619 narrative, a flawed history to further their goal. What is that goal? That America is a flawed nation and shouldn’t be allowed to exist? I simply cannot fathom the hatred that many with the power to culturally change America feel. Do they really want to end up with a generation(s) that dislikes its own country. To what end?

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I think you can blame the industrial military complex that puts American’s into perpetual war, for no other reason than financial gain (I.e Iraq/Afghanistan). The rich political class seldom place their loved ones in the military (albeit officers in the rear), and the internet has exposed the ridiculousness of it all.

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This change in focus from values to self is not just the military. It infects all of American life.

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Having planned at the age of 13 to make a career of the military, I followed through and served 28 years. The military gave me exposure to people and places I would have never had the opportunity to experience. Sure there was Vietnam and other places, but I considered it my role to serve the country and flag, not a politician. It provided a path to get three degrees and rise from enlisted to retire as a Major. The joy of completing basic training and doing things the average person would never do was my motivation and made me want to be that person who was different. Always something new and exciting, the job was always changing as my location. Never did I have a day I did not enjoy getting up and putting on the uniform.

Today going on my local base it is hard to even understand how far the military has moved to kiss everyone's ass and be something it is not designed to be. Now contract maintenance for everything and no real technical skills being taught to the military members. No extra duty and no cleaning of the grounds or even picking up trash and making sure the base looks sharp. Military with their butts expanding the uniform looking like a couple of raccoons fighting in a sack. More days off than the average person ever gets and more political correct training than war fighting skills.

The military use to be the biggest, baddest gang around. Now I am just not sure. It seems the hope in any conflict will be Special Ops, Marines, and fighter / bomber pilots. I continue to hope the military will move back towards being a job that is not easy and does require you give for the greater good. When you have that as the mission, race, religion, and other issues quickly take a back seat. But when the elected leaders are more worried about themselves and playing stupid word games and pandering to the 1-2% of the population, then it becomes a crap shoot. How many woke liberals would even serve if the country needed? Not many is my guess and then you develop the mental theory; better alive on my knees then dying on my feet as a free person.

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I have a very bright and accomplished son who is considering the academies ---and I have to admit very mixed feelings about it that I would not have had 10 years ago. I am still immensely grateful for what this country has meant to my Italian immigrant/ peasant family. I am in awe of where my parents started in life and where I and my siblings are today. Only in America. So when I look backwards it is easy to be patriotic. It’s the present and future that drain it. I fear my son becoming a cog in a perpetual war machine. I resent his future participation in a “Battle of Taiwan” over microchips, and the dependence on them that the greed of our elites enabled. I also see a country that , more and more, sees its own citizens as its biggest threat, and i want my son to have nothing to do with defending that version of the US, which feels the need to censor and repress its own people. In the end I will support him but he will hear from me on everything I see.

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I'm Desert Storm vet and I have worked with the federal government for 30 yrs with about 15 or so with the military. Indeed, I work with the military now.

Let me be clear. The entire federal government is a middle class jobs program and where it is not it is set up to be a path to the upper middle class or great wealth. This includes the military.

Your government is owned by lobbyists and is populated by people who want the security of a GS or military job. Where it is not populated by those it is populated by private contractors. I know as I am one of them.

If you take a GS position, regardless of where it is, there is almost no chance you will ever lose it, even if your current job is no longer needed. You will get steady promotions to at least GS13 with any reasonably intelligent person hitting GS14 or GS15. Nobody is going to force you out or fire you. I have seen people who are essentially retired in place, they are too incompetent for anyone to trust to do anything but the effort to get rid of them is more effort than the bosses want to put in and they do not want a fight with the union. Congress will put out steady raises, particularly in election years because they want the union support and because they know that the GS's really run the government. Congress only knows what the GS folks tell em, the GS folks have access to all kinds of personal data, such as at the IRS, which can be leaked and kill a political career. Just screw with the CIA or FBI and see what happens. Now, the smart ones stay long enough to get an pension and then go work for a federal contractor. So, they get great retirement benefits and then go work for the companies that they used to hire to support the government for very very nice salaries. These companies hire them for their inside knowledge of budgets and planning, organizational decision making, and contacts to help win more contracts.

The military is no different. A whole lot of senior enlisted and officers stay for the pension and retirement benefits such as free medical care for life and access to tax free shopping on bases, then the go work for a contractor when they retire. A friend of mine retired as a full bird Col., O6 at 47. His last posting was leading budgeting and planning for Army facilities world wide. His pension is $87,000 a year, he gets free medical for the rest of his life, shops on post, to include buying cars, and then walked into a contracting job paying him $170,000 a year. The military paid for his MBA and he used the GI bill to get a Law Degree. Most of the senior enlisted that I have known, particularly in the Air Force, have some form of advanced degree that the military paid for and they too walk out with their pensions in their early to mid 40's and start a whole other career. Now go look at the number of former deputy secretaries, retired generals and full birds that sit on corporate boards or who own small federal contracting companies. There is a BOAT LOAD of money to be made. Just take a look at the prices of homes around the Pentagon, in Northern VA, or around most of the major military bases. San Antonio is only what it is because of the military spending. Same for VA generally.

Now this is also true for former congress critters, congressional staffers, and political appointees. They do similar things but also go to think tanks or to private sector companies that they would have overseen. If you were involved with oversight of Big Pharma, got work for Pfizer. If you were a staffer on the Transportation Committee then go work for a railroad or airline. If you were a political appointee at USDA, then go work for one of the major ag firms or be a lobbyist for one of their trade organizations. Come out of the SEC then go work for Goldman Sachs.

Contractors make up a HUGE portion of the federal labor pool. I'm not talking about just companies like Raytheon that sell missiles or Electric Boat that sells submarines, I am talking about companies that do everything from providing security at federal buildings to janitorial services to IT work to maintaining military bases to providing bulldozers for forest fire fighting. Go drive through Reston or Herndon VA and look at the number of major corporations that have HQs there that are dedicated to selling into the federal government. Microsoft, Oracle, CGI, Booze Allen, Accenture, the list goes on and on. Lots of million dollar homes paid for by tax dollars via government contracts.

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The young people who would typically be joining the military have been taught to hate America in government schools. Why on earth would they defend it?

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There is no single reason or explanation but I tend to start with the lack of patriotism that starts in both many homes and schools. It is a big ask to expect someone to put their life on the line for someone or something they have been taught to despise from early on. Increasingly our kids view themselves primarily as global citizens. And now our military academies and leaders are all aboard the DEI train. One day soon we will learn that Uncle Sam has transitioned and now goes by Auntie Samantha.

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Strange, no mention of Milley or Austin, the two weak and self-serving leaders that gave us the Afghanistan debacle. The fish rots from the top down. Can you imagine any of our great generals calling foreign leaders re the president?

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