Three take-aways from ‘The Cost of Loyalty’ by Tim Bakken, a law professor at West Point. An extremely well-researched and documented book which largely dealt with upper-rank military malfeasance with a good deal of the same within the ranks of military academy students, in combination with my own experiences.
Officers had daily study sessions together, but, of course, being the only enlisted student in the class, I wasn’t invited and did my best to study the material on my own. The very first glance I had of the final test, it all became clear because it was exactly the same “test” the professor had started the course with “to see where we were.” The officer/pilot group wasn’t studying the course material, but reassembling the test and studying THAT, “forgetting” to invite me to their sessions since I was still an enlisted troop, while they were commissioned.
“At a time when families across the country are struggling to pay the bills—including more than 16,000 military families on food stamps—we need to take a hard look at every dollar and reinvest in people. It’s time to cut weapons of war and prioritize the well-being of our troops, anti- poverty programs, public health initiatives, and diplomacy.”
The US military is one of the few institutions that the vast majority of the public praises, but its strategic failures on the battlefield and lack of accountability in its ranks expose an organization that is deeply flawed and out of step with 21st-century needs. This according to Tim Bakken, the first civilian promoted to professor of law in West Point’s history. He eventually blew the whistle on corruption at the military academy and, after the Army retaliated against him, became one of the few federal employees to win a retaliation case against the US military.
Colonel Moon H. Kim used his official Army email account to send a digital copy of John Piper’s Coronavirus and Christ that claims “some people will be infected with the coronavirus as a specific judgment from God”…
Here is one of the the underlying conflicts between Mobly and Capt. Crozier that I knew was there…Crozier looking at his ship’s combat readiness—as he should have—while Mobly was focused on international deterrence, with its extremely high cost to the American budget at the expense of domestic programs. Offshoots of Teddy Roosevelt’s ”gunboat diplomacy.” Maybe, just maybe, enough such occurrences might force the DoD to heavily modify its “global-presence” concept to free up much-needed dollars to more appropriate domestic programs! ~ Don Chapin
As Danny notes, those of us ex-military currently protesting the ever-present wars and the Military/Industrial establishment… as noted by President and WW II General Eisenhower… are low-ranking veterans today. As I see it, it simply points out how stultifying and conformance-inducing military life actually is… and as I have pointed out in other article “Interjections” on militarytruth.org, it also highlights the politicization … and retirement-oriented mindset… of those achieving higher ranks. If you read no further, please note Major Danny Sjursen’s last words of this article:
“Someone of his [Butler’s] credibility [link to Butler’s book ‘War is a Racket’], character, and candor is needed more than ever today. Unfortunately, this military generation is unlikely to produce such a figure. In retirement, Butler himself boldly confessed that: ‘… like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical….’ Today, generals don’t seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more’s the pity….” ~ Capt. Don Chapin, USAF, ret’d)
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