Category: Military issues

If you haven’t heard, Col. James H. Johnson III, the former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who we’ve discussed twice in the last few days was sentenced in his trial for forgery, fraud, lying and bigamy yesterday. He got a wrist slap of a $300,000 fine for his plea of guilty to 13 charges and conviction on two others. Johnson keeps his rank, his current pay and his retirement.

Well, Stars & Stripes discovered that some folks are outraged over the little pat on Johnson’s rump the court calls punishment;

“Once again, it appears there are two different standards for officers and enlisted in the Army,” [Greg Rinckey, a former Army judge advocate general] said. “If this had been an enlisted soldier, you have to believe there would have been a reduction in rank and jail time. And that perception of different rules does become a problem.”

But Fidell said the verdict appeared mainly to be an attempt to protect the family that Johnson left behind.

“Obviously they wanted to preserve his pension so that his wife — one of his wives, anyway, the legal wife — could get the benefit,” [Eugene Fidell, military law expert who teaches at Yale University] said.

In some cases, the court-martial panel feels the need to send a loud and clear message, but this likely wasn’t one of them, Fidell said.

“It’s a freakish case,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to have to worry about an upsurge in bigamy as a result of this.”

Yeah, I’m sure they were thinking of Johnson’s first wife, but how much would they take into consideration a wife of a sergeant guilty of that much malfeasance? I think it’s the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of military justice. The thing is that Johnson wasn’t thinking about the welfare of his first wife, so why should Big Army consider it? Because it’s not their money they’re giving her – it’s the taxpayers’ money.

My drill sergeant, SFC Jason Hurst, in the first little talk he gave us late at night in those old wooden barracks at Fort Polk back in 1974, included the statement that the only pigmentation that is recognized by the Army is green. I’ll mention that SFC Hurst is black.

Fast forward to 2010; We were told before the military repealed their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that required gays to keep their sexual proclivities out of public view, that gays only wanted the opportunity to serve, that was their justification for repealing the old policy. That they couldn’t serve like the rest of us while hiding their sexual inclinations. And service was the overarching goal.

Fast forward to 2012; Well, since the successful repeal of the DADT policy, we’ve found that service isn’t the overarching goal because the goal posts have been steadily moving up the field. Now, for some reason, the Pentagon, according to the Washington Post, thinks that they need to recognize all of the people who violated the DADT policy;

For the first time, the Pentagon will mark gay pride month just as it marks other events honoring racial or ethnic groups, Defense Department officials said.

Officials declined to give details about the event but said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes it’s important to recognize the service of gays in the armed forces.

How about recognizing the service of male service members who perform cunnilingus? Don’t they deserve recognition for their service? Or female service members who perform fellatio? ANd, of course, service isn’t what’s important, according to reportage at the Associated Press;

That’s a reference to the fact that same-sex couples aren’t afforded spousal health care, assignments to the same location when they transfer to another job, and other benefits. There was no immediate change to eligibility standards for military benefits in September. All service members already were entitled to certain things, such as designating a partner as one’s life insurance beneficiary or as designated caregiver in the Wounded Warrior program.

As for other benefits still not approved, the department began a review after repeal with an eye toward possibly extending eligibility, consistent with the federal Defense of Marriage Act and other applicable laws, to the same-sex partners of military personnel.

Because “service” actually means “benefits”. So at a time when the Department of Defense is complaining that they can’t afford to live up to their commitments to retirees, who have already fulfilled their commitment to the DoD, in the interests of political correctness, the DoD trying to encumber the system by adding even more beneficiaries who largely didn’t fulfill their commitments.

So if this really was about providing gays solely with an opportunity to serve, we wouldn’t be having this whole discussion about gay pride days at the Pentagon and benefits.

If I were single and had a room mate who was either male or female and I wanted to get them benefits, and I’m not gay, I wouldn’t be able to get them military benefits – is that’s what’s next because I chose to be single and celibate?

Yeah, I’m not a “homophobe”, whatever that means, and I have nothing against gays serving openly, I’m just ashamed that too many people fell for the disingenuous “service” thing and that we’re not talking about service anymore.

Several of you have been sending us links about Colonel James H. Johnson III, the former commander of the Herd (the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team) and his on-going trial for forgery, fraud, lying and bigamy that we discussed last week. But yesterday, he was found guilty of some of the charges, while others had been dropped earlier in the week according to the Stars & Stripes;

The former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team was found guilty Wednesday of two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

He had already pleaded guilty to 15 other charges, including fraud, bigamy, adultery, wrongful cohabitation and violating regulations or orders.

The funniest part of the trial was when his latest father-in-law, an Iraqi who had benefited from Johnson’s government-funded largesse, Alladin Al-Atar, told the court the colonel — his one-time friend and alleged benefactor — was “the best American I’ve met in my life.” Yet, Alladin had tossed his daughter, Johnson’s Iraqi wife out on her ass for marrying him. I’d hate to see what Alladin would do to the worst American he’d ever met.

And here’s another thing – how come Johnson was tried by other colonels? If I’d been court martialed, my “peers” would be sergeant majors and first sergeants. That’s probably why it took three hours for the jury to decide whether Johnson was guilty or not. Colonels have a hard time making a decision without a staff.

So Johnson could get 50 years in the Graybar Hotel but I don’t see Big Army doing that.

The Wall Street Journal publishes today the opinion of Stephen Kilcullen, an ROTC grad and Ranger School grad in a piece titled Women Don’t Belong in Ranger School. He picks up from a quote by General Ray Odierno who claims that the Army owes women a shot at Ranger School; “If we determine that we’re going to allow women to go into infantry and be successful, they’re probably at some time going to have to go to Ranger School.”

Odierno would be right if that’s all Ranger School is – a punch hole in a ticket to command. Kilcullen says;

It is this culture of excellence and selflessness that attracts young men to the Ranger brotherhood. The Ranger ethos is designed to be deadly serious yet self-deprecating, focused entirely on teamwork and mission accomplishment. Rangers put the mission first, their unit and fellow soldiers next, and themselves last. The selfishness so rampant elsewhere in our society has never existed in the Ranger brotherhood.

And that is the secret of the brotherhood’s success. Some call it “unit cohesiveness” but what they are really describing is a transition from self-interest to selfless service. The notion of allowing women into Ranger School because denying them the experience would harm their careers makes Ranger graduates cringe. Such politically correct thinking is the ultimate expression of the “me” culture, and it jeopardizes core Ranger ideals.

But, that doesn’t matter to Big Army, it doesn’t matter to those people who are going to make the decisions who think that special operations is some exclusive club they can’t join. Big Army leaders like Eric Shinseki who took Rangers’ berets from them and gave them to everyone, because when Shinseki was a tanker who had his tanker black beret taken from him in 1979 and he couldn’t wait to take it back from the Rangers.

If I thought for a second that allowing women in Ranger School wouldn’t change the school and the valuable lessons they teach young combat arms leaders, I’d say go ahead. But I know Big Army better than that. I watched simple things like allowing pregnant soldiers to remain in the service turn into a huge leadership problem. I saw the cadet corps of The Citadel blamed for the failure of fat ass Shannon Faulkner when she dropped out in days after two years of legal battles to get her in the course. Wiki says of her;

After four hours of the military indoctrination training, she spent the remainder of the first week in the infirmary before voluntarily resigning, citing emotional and psychological abuse and physical exhaustion.

Yes, after four hours, she was exhausted. Actually, she expected to be hand carried through four years of college and spent not one minute preparing for the rigors of cadet life. And yet the cadets at the Citadel were blamed for her failure.

Similarly, the media would expect women to graduate from Ranger School and blame the instructors and students on their failures (there’s a thing called “peer evaluations” at Ranger School last time I checked), so Big Army, in it’s infinite wisdom would change the standards, and they’d probably do away with peer evals – one of the most important parts of the school, so assholes don’t get to be Rangers until they change their ways.

The whole point of Ranger School is to simulate combat stress as closely as possible, it’s mentally and physically demanding and there’s no room for relaxed standards, unless we’re willing to only fight enemies who’ll agree to relax their own standards in regards to fighting women.

This isn’t a post against women in general, it’s post against Big Army who I know will screw this up.

Crossposted at Business Insider.