It’s another day ending in a “Y”, so another military commander has been relieved of duty. Today’s example of TDS fueled corruption of military standards is provided by Colonel Sheyla Baez Ramirez, the Garrison Commander at Fort McCoy WI. She apparently thought it would be cute to disrespect her civilian leadership, by omitting their photographs on the chain of command board.
She has now joined a growing group of unemployed officers found unworthy of leadership due to “loss of confidence.” That seems to be SecDef Hegseth code for: “I’m not confident they won’t try to frag their Commander in Chief, if given an opportunity” – metaphorically speaking of course. It’s a valid concern, given what Lt. Col. Vindman did to his Commander in Chief, the 45th President.
Mike Thiac provided a superb explanation of why such behavior is unacceptable, and what it says about military leadership. It can be found here. But I’d like to explore something that worries me a great deal more. If the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs can tell the Chinese that he will side with them in a Sino/American conflict – if Donald Trump is his CinC – without mass resignations and demands for court martial, how deep does contempt for civilian leadership run in our military?
The myriad officers relieved of duty, have all been guilty of overt acts of defiance to civilian leadership. Given their duty to train their subordinates, how extensive might the covert resistance be? I would posit that the resistance we don’t see, is much more dangerous than the resistance which we do.
Consider the case of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a terrorist in uniform. Nobody knew he was a threat to national security, until he murdered 13 people, and injured 32 others at Ft. Hood in 2009. Colonel Ramirez, he also took issue with his civilian leadership, but his resistance was covert – until it wasn’t.
Let’s say hypothetically, that the future Marine Corps has a young pilot with Palestinian sympathies. After Gen. Miley showed that officers are free to choose their loyalties, hHe figures that he has that power too. When ordered to fly a close air support mission over Israel, he simply decides to “accidently” miss his target and strike IDF forces instead. After all, they’re the colonizers — right?
The problem with covert resistance is that it may go undetected until crap hits the fan.
The hypothetical scenario I’ve described above is clearly more serious than turning pictures around on a chain of command board. But both are symptoms of the same cultural corruption – a self-perceived right to defy civilian leadership which they disagree with.
To drive out the covert resistance requires a change of culture, so that the ranks begin to police themselves. To achieve that, the overt resistance must be crushed quickly and brutally – over a long enough period that new leaders can develop a sense of duty over entitlement in their subordinates. How long will that take? That depends on how series the consequences are for the offenders.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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