Pissants pissing onwards Christian Soldiers...

Ok, I am a soldier. Retired grunt, old noncommissioned officer because I thought officers were too political. Had a ball, loved it. And, after Abu Grahab, wondered when the military was going to get smart about the digital universe...those dorks were taking pictures of what they were doing and sending them around to show how cool they were.

I also understand why operational stuff shouldn't be compromised. Hey, bullets hurt! In general, I'd prefer the majority of the hurting to be inbound, rather than outbound.

So, it doesn't surprise me that the Army would like to limit blogs, emails, sending videos, etc. etc. etc. What does surprise me is that they are so clueless at it...This note tells of a blogger who is now told to stop blogging. He claims to always have backed the war, the administration, the war on terror and, for all I know, the Andover Cheerleader Squad and the Texas Rangers, but the Army is shutting him down.

Fine. I understand that with the contract go some restrictions on liberty. That is what putting yourself under authority means, as both Jesus and the Centurion understood well. What Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes is wondering revolves around equity -- somewhere there's a guy or gal blogging themselves silly praising everything from Laura's fashion sense to Rummy's Machismo to W's rhetorical flourishes to Condi's nude photos in Girls of the Methodist Church in the 1974 Playboy Christmas edition and that guy or gal is wearing the uniform I wore.

I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and obey the officers appointed over me; I didn't swear to uphold the officeholders appointed or elected over me. So, forbid bloging; forbid email; forbid streaming videos; forbid the whole digital world and while I think you're fucking idiots, I could salute and support it. But, hit those who are critical of policy and threaten them with punishment -- surprising how many articles of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice list as death maximum punishment, which can get your attention -- and we got a beef.

Now, we watched them make a fool of Jessica Lynch who was a cute kid in a horrible place and a crappy situation made worse by poor planning, execution and the unfortunate death of the company First Sergeant, who appears to have been the sole adult leadership. We watched them make a fool and a dunce of Pat Tillman who probably did save a lot of his Ranger buddies by stopping the fratrical firefight that killed him. We watched them decide that everyone above the rank of SGT and was involved in running that part of that awful prison was not guilty of criminal offenses. We've watched them do wierd things like plan to covertly move sailors and airmen into the Army and Marines in a program called Blue to Green, only to have that stopped by the services that pointed out that it was a volunteer force. We watched them generally fuck up by the numbers...if the guys getting hurt by their fuckups can't bitch but the stooges and dolts can babble on and on and on, what the fuck are we bothering for? If the terrorists are against us because they hate our freedom, they've already won, and we did it to ourselves.

Comments

[eRobin]

I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and obey the officers appointed over me; I didn't swear to uphold the officeholders appointed or elected over me.

Isn't that the whole "chain of command" thing?

[Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes]

Yup. But, you seperate the person from the position. I can respect the office and preserve it's role while roundly despising the occupant. Which I have done, a lot, now that I think of it.

[cas]

I've been following this topic on Fred's site. You have hit the nail on the head with this post.

Actually, as I'm sure the poster knows, the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids expressing contempt for the Commander in Chief. To me, however, that does not forbid very forthright comments about the policies the incumbent might have adopted.