No, the Military Dragged Itself in to Politics via CDR Salamander

 via CDR S

American respect for its military is plummeting. It has dropped by 30 points in the past five years in surveys conducted by the Reagan Foundation. In their recently released poll, less than half of respondents have a great deal of trust and confidence in America’s military. Unless both civilian and military leaders take corrective actions to repair the breach, this will impede recruiting, diminish unit cohesion, and damage the bond between the military and the public it serves.

As concerning as the drop itself is the reason. 62 percent of respondents said they were losing trust and confidence because the military leadership is becoming overly politicized. Nor is the attitude partisan: 60 percent of Democrats gave that answer, as did 60 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Republicans. Only 35 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the military’s ability to act in a professional and nonpolitical manner.  

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 It is much more than that. The American public see senior leadership who refuse to defend their own institution. Our military reflects its nation, so of course will have many of the same ills. There are the usual suspects who will use any topic to bash the military they will never like and will attempt to paint the military with a very thick and broad brush – often using questionable metrics to describe a military full of racists, sexists, and rapists – and when confronted our senior leaders either remain silent or accept the worst descriptions of the personnel they lead.

Service members see that. Family members see that. 

They also see a senior uniformed leadership who will discipline enlisted personnel, company grade and field grade officers with aplomb, but do nothing but defend, excuse, or even look the other way from abject failures from fellow General and Flag Officers (GOFO).

The greatest national humiliation of our nation since the fall of South Vietnam was only 15-months ago, and yet who has taken responsibility or been held accountable? It was at best a negotiated surrender and retreat under fire – and yet in front of the people’s elected representatives we made excuses, fudged, or made the farcical claim that Kabul was a successful Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) (see 2:38).

The whole disaster was treated like the weather. No one was to blame. It just “happened.”

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