{"id":56265,"date":"2014-11-06T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56265"},"modified":"2014-11-06T11:46:58","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T16:46:58","slug":"nice-sidestep-mr-secnav-nice-backbone-mr-secdef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56265","title":{"rendered":"Nice Sidestep, Mr. SECNAV. Nice Backbone, Mr. SECDEF."},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember those recent allegations that the military records of the outgoing Commandant of the Marine Corps – Gen James Amos \u2013 were not exactly 100% \u201ckosher\u201d<\/a>? You know, that little “oopsie” where somehow a signed official bio submitted for Senate confirmation seemed to claim that Gen Amos went to USMC’s “The Basic School” in 1972 when in truth he actually received credit for completing it via correspondence in 1977?<\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019ll be pleased to hear that \u2013 in the words of Gertrude Stein \u2013 \u201cthere is no there there<\/a>\u201d. The SECDEF has determined that the error in Gen Amos\u2019 bio was due to a \u201cdata entry error\u201d on the part of the person preparing the resume, and that claims Gen Amos padded his resume were \u201cnot . . . credible.\u201d He also further determined that Gen Amos did not engage in misconduct in terms of unlawful command influence two other matters \u2013 the famous \u201curination video\u201d and \u201cHeritage Brief\u201d incidents.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:\u00a0 \u201cNothing to see here, folks; move along.\u201d\u00a0 Gen Amos will retire with 4 stars.<\/p>\n

Well – isn’t that special. \u201cSurprise, surprise, surprise!\u201d<\/p>\n

Frankly, the fact that Gen Amos will retire as a 4-star isn\u2019t the part that bothers me the most. I indeed have a hard time believing that Gen Amos didn\u2019t adequately and thoroughly review the bio submitted to Congress over his signature.\u00a0 However, since someone else actually prepared the bio that claim is at least plausible (if IMO pretty damned unlikely).<\/p>\n

And while I have my own personal opinions about the other two incidents, I wasn\u2019t there \u2013 so I don\u2019t really know the “real deal” on those, either. The DoD IG apparently did clear him of outright misconduct in the \u201curination video\u201d case.\u00a0 Regarding the “Heritage Brief” issue, precisely when a public statement does and does not constitute improper command influence in a Court-Martial is IMO a fairly murky area.\u00a0 And besides, even if Gen Amos \u201cfornicated Fido\u201d* in one or both of those cases I\u2019m not sure that rises to the level of misconduct invalidating \u201csuccessful service\u201d.<\/p>\n

What bothers me more is the way this was handled by the SECNAV and SECDEF. The SECNAV could have handled this himself.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t; he punted it to the SECDEF.\u00a0 And the SECDEF\u2019s statement here IMO gives the distinct impression of obfuscating through dwelling on irrelevant trivia – perhaps in order to bolster a predetermined conclusion – vice making a decision based on his own evaluation of the pertinent facts.<\/p>\n

I mean really, Secretary Mabus:\u00a0 you couldn\u2019t review the facts and make the determination yourself whether Gen Amos was truthful when he submitted a signed bio to Congress that was incorrect? And really, Secretary Hagel:\u00a0 blaming the submission of a clearly erroneous but signed document on a \u201cdata entry error\u201d? Really?<\/p>\n

Bottom line: I\u2019d expect a SECNAV to be more decisive than that.\u00a0 And I’d expect both a SECNAV and SECDEF to actually, you know, face and make hard decisions head-on<\/em> – particularly since the each is a member of the chain-of-command (administrative in the case of the SECNAV; both administrative and operational in the case of the SECDEF).<\/p>\n

One day, perhaps we\u2019ll see that kind of decisive leadership again at senior levels.\u00a0 But based on this, I guess we won’t see it any time soon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* – PC-speak for “screwed the pooch”.\u00a0 Used here for the benefit of any of our sheltered-from-reality “liberal brethren” who might chance across this article and be offended by non-PC language.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember those recent allegations that the military records of the outgoing Commandant of the Marine Corps … Nice Sidestep, Mr. SECNAV. Nice Backbone, Mr. SECDEF.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,213,184,84,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-marine-corps","category-military-issues","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}