By Robert K. Wilcox<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere do we find such men<\/em>?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n That memorable line comes from James Mitchner\u2019s Korean War novel,\u00a0The Bridges of Toko-Ri<\/em>. \u00a0It refers to intrepid aviators lifting from a carrier, flying into untold danger. \u00a0They know they may not return. \u00a0They launch anyway. \u00a0In boldness unfathomable to many, they willingly, artfully fly into peril. \u00a0They are warriors, men of rare talent, intellect, and courage \u2013 a combination essential for victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Needed warriors are now being purged from the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0military. \u00a0If\u00a0America\u00a0went to war right now with\u00a0China\u00a0or\u00a0Russia,\u00a0we could lose because of these purges.\u00a0 We\u2019re losing top-level warrior-leaders to make the crucial differences in battle. \u00a0They\u2019re being systematically drummed out as politically incorrect. \u00a0When the going gets tough, political correctness (PC) is useless. \u00a0Then the brilliant, wily fighters, the coolest heads, the most courageous warriors, are needed to lead regardless of social views or record.<\/p>\n Today, in large measure, our fighting forces are led by briefcase-carrying busybodies, yes-men more interested in enforcing political beliefs and social change than leading in battle. \u00a0They care more about their careers than what\u2019s happening to the military and thus the country. \u00a0Just last week, a new downsizing of the army was announced \u2013 without a protest.<\/p>\n Warriors are not prized. \u00a0They are criticized and ridiculed. \u00a0Up-and-coming warriors who admire the purged want to emulate them, see what\u2019s happening, and are exiting as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cSoldiers like George Patton or Curtis LeMay are no longer wanted,\u201d writes LCOL Greg Lee, USMC (ret.) in a well-circulated internet forward.\u00a0 \u201cThe fundamental job of the military, \u2018kill bad people and break things,\u2019 has become critically hampered by \u2018rules of engagement\u2019 [and policies] who\u2019s [sic] guiding logic is political outcome, not successful combat. If the\u00a0US\u00a0military is ever defeated, it will be because [rather than honing fighting skills, nurturing fighting thinkers and leaders] it is running the best Day Care centers in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Political correctness, social change, even care for the enemy are now the battle cries of the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0military hierarchy in the Pentagon. \u00a0The rules of engagement (ROI), changed to limit civilian deaths under President Obama, are now so dangerous that American soldiers have been made into sitting ducks. \u00a0In years past, generals and admirals resigned over such disregard for their troops. \u00a0Today\u2019s leaders acquiesce and espouse confusing non-military goals. \u00a0The president confounds Coast Guard graduates saying their enemy is climate change. \u00a0He sends 3,000 troops to battle…Ebola?<\/p>\n Pentagon priorities are women\u2019s and gay rights and defeating the world\u2019s social ills \u2013 disease, hunger, and poverty.\u00a0 These are worthy causes for a Peace Corps, church group, or diplomat, but not for the military, whose sole constitutional purpose is defending Americans against military threats. \u00a0Do you send a sniper to nurse a baby?<\/p>\n Battlefield interrogation, once a life-saver for engaged troops, is now considered torture by the Pentagon and therefore almost eliminated. \u00a0Commanders know it will bring immediate dismissal. \u00a0Ask former representative Alan West, who, as an army commander, roughed up an Iraqi spy and saved his men from ambush. \u00a0He was quickly relieved of command, and had it not been for public opinion, he would probably be in jail. \u00a0Soft interrogation in the heat of battle is useless. \u00a0Toughness, not empathy, is needed once war is declared. \u00a0War is hell.<\/p>\n Leaders are increasingly chosen for race and\/or gender rather than military skills. \u00a0Under Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel a Pentagon training manual taught how white males in the military have an unfair advantage. \u00a0A hushed story is that a Blue Angels skipper, Donnie Cochran, picked to head the famed Navy flying group largely because of race, resigned after admitting he wasn\u2019t up to the job. \u00a0Similarly, the first female Tomcat pilot, Kara Hultgreen, rushed into the cockpit because of her gender, died slamming into the rear of the carrier on approach because of \u201cpilot error.\u201d \u00a0In both cases, PC rushed the assignments. \u00a0The ignorance and bias of most media regarding warriors and warfare exacerbate the problem. \u00a0Few have served. \u00a0Most see only the social arguments.<\/p>\n Sexual orientation appears the next criterion \u2013 especially with the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. \u00a0According to the\u00a0Washington Times<\/em>\u00a0(June 9, 2015), a gay general in the Army recently introduced his husband at a Pentagon gay rights rally, where Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was the keynote speaker. \u00a0In opening remarks, Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, master of ceremonies, called attention to his husband, Lucas, \u201csitting up front.\u201d \u00a0Carter then told the audience, \u201cWe need to be a meritocracy. We can\u2019t afford to close ourselves off to anybody.\u201d \u00a0Gays, as well as women, can certainly be warriors, but needed warriorhood was not mentioned at the rally. \u00a0It is never mentioned, because it is shunned.<\/p>\n Religion, too, a bedrock of warrior culture, is being purged. \u00a0Pentagon edicts have banned any expressions of Christianity in counseling soldiers. \u00a0A marine lance corporal, Monifa Sterling, a black female, was given a court martial and bad conduct discharge for having a Bible verse on her desk and refusing to remove it. \u00a0In contradiction to the old truism, will atheists now be the only soldiers allowed in foxholes? \u00a0How about Muslims? \u00a0In direct contrast to Christianity, militant Islam, a self-declared enemy, is coddled, even defended. \u00a0A blind eye is turned to its murder, tyranny, and aggression, a prime example being the\u00a0Ft.\u00a0Hood\u00a0shootings. \u00a0The rugged individualism and fervor, sometimes religious, of warriors like Patton, Jimmy Doolittle, Pappy Boyington, and Robin Olds are now deemed bigotry and discrimination \u2013 a quick ticket out.<\/p>\n As a well-circulated piece in the Beaufort<\/em> (South Carolina) Observer<\/em> lamented: \u201cCan you imagine someone today looking for a leader to execute the Doolittle Raid [on Tokyo] and suggesting that it be assigned to a dare-devil boozer whose attributes [nonetheless] are [those of a needed warrior] he had respect of his men, an awesome ability to fly, and the organizational skills to put all together?\u201d \u00a0No way. \u00a0\u201cWhere are all the dynamic leaders of the past?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019ll tell you, adds the piece: \u201c[t]hey were fired before they made major.\u201d<\/p>\n Numbers tell the tale: 197 officers purged in the five years up to October 2013 \u2013 this\u00a0according to\u00a0Stand Up America<\/em>, a media organization founded by army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (ret.). \u00a0That\u2019s an extraordinary number. \u00a0Later figures are unavailable (probably hidden). \u00a0It appears that senior officers who wanted to aid those under siege at\u00a0Benghazi\u00a0were purged. \u00a0A January 2015 article at AMAC.US named Gen. Carter Hamm, in charge of African Command, and Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette, a carrier commander in the Mediterranean\u00a0at the time, as believed relieved because of their indications to aid. \u00a0\u201cTake a look at some of the nine who have been fired or relieved of duty [since\u00a0Benghazi],\u201d writes AMAC\u2019s Joseph R. Carducci. \u00a0\u201cThis is one of the largest and fastest purges of military commanders that has ever been recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House is behind the purges. \u00a0For the first time in American history, a\u00a0U.S. president, Barack Obama, disdains the military from the Oval Office. \u00a0From ignorance of the military word \u201ccorpsmen\u201d to not acknowledging fallen heroes like at\u00a0Benghazi to championing huge and dangerous reductions in the military budget, Obama, even as threats mount, has shown his contempt for warriors. \u00a0While speaking out on questionable deaths of black youths, he says little to nothing about warrior deaths. \u00a0Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is woefully undershipped \u2013 from 600 to 300 in a matter of years. \u00a0This despite military buildups in\u00a0China\u00a0and\u00a0Russia. \u00a0The Air Force and Navy need new and better planes to keep pace. \u00a0We\u2019re ridiculously withholding arms from those fighting\u00a0ISIS. \u00a0Only lip service is given to shamefully treated veterans. \u00a0In addition, Obama refuses to identify by name\u00a0America\u2019s most vocal enemy \u2013 militant Islam. \u00a0The religion\u2019s fighters rape, murder, and torture, and assault almost every PC belief Obama and his aides expound, yet Obama dismisses them as \u201cJV\u201d (junior varsity), \u201cterrorists,\u201d or an aberration. \u00a0They know he won\u2019t fight.<\/p>\n Like Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister on the eve of WWII, Obama and his advisors have a naive and dangerous belief that appeasement and concession are the ways to avoid conflict and aggression. \u00a0Chamberlain, waving his meaningless treaty from Hitler, learned the hard way. \u00a0Once Hitler started WWII, the British people saw the error of Chamberlain\u2019s beliefs and elected Winston Churchill, a warrior if there ever was one, to lead them in crisis.<\/p>\n But it may soon be too late for\u00a0America. \u00a0Few, if any, of Obama\u2019s aides seem to know this gallant history. \u00a0Few, if any, have served in the military. \u00a0They disguise a low opinion of warriors by casually referring to anyone in uniform as a \u201chero\u201d while privately ridiculing soldiers as ignorant, offish, and war-mongers \u2013 the \u201cbitter clingers\u201d Obama has spoken of. \u00a0They certainly do not embrace the \u201cwarrior culture,\u201d one of the phrases most used by the purgers in calling for good riddance.<\/p>\n No less than John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy, has called attention to the purging. \u00a0In a recent U.S. Naval Institute\u00a0Proceedings<\/em>,\u00a0he wrote, \u201c[T]he attributes of naval aviators \u2013 \u00a0willingness to take intelligent, calculated risk, self-confidence, even a certain swagger are the very [attributes] that make them particularly vulnerable in today\u2019s zero-tolerance Navy.\u201d \u00a0Zero tolerance means one strike and you\u2019re out \u2013 no second chance. \u00a0Commanders, especially warrior-commanders, are being \u201cbounced for the bad luck of being breathalyzed after two beers, or allowing risqu\u00e9 forecastle [shipboard] follies.\u201d \u00a0Such follies, usually to commemorate events like crossing the equator, have been international naval tradition for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s purgers, writes Lehman, are PC \u201cthought police\u201d who, \u201clike Inspector Javert in Les Miserables<\/em>, are out to get [the offenders] and are relentless.\u201d \u00a0Any infraction means dismissal. \u00a0A soldier\u2019s previous record or potential means nothing. \u00a0He has no chance to learn from his mistake. \u00a0\u201cAdm. Chester Nimitz [who led the U.S. Navy\u2019s Pacific victory in WWII] put a squadron of destroyers on the rocks. But while being put in purgatory for a while, he was protected by seniors who recognized his potential talent. In today\u2019s Navy, Nimitz would be gone\u201d \u2013 as would any officer who wanted to keep him. \u00a0\u201cPolitical correctness just might do more damage to American security than did the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhere do we find such men<\/em>?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n That memorable line comes from James Mitchner\u2019s Korean War novel,\u00a0The Bridges of Toko-Ri<\/em>. \u00a0It refers to intrepid aviators lifting from a carrier, flying into untold danger. \u00a0They know they may not return. \u00a0They launch anyway. \u00a0In boldness unfathomable to many, they willingly, artfully fly into peril. \u00a0They are warriors, men of rare talent, intellect, and courage \u2013 a combination essential for victory.<\/p>\n Needed warriors are now being purged from the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0military. \u00a0If\u00a0America\u00a0went to war right now with\u00a0China\u00a0or\u00a0Russia,\u00a0we could lose because of these purges.\u00a0 We\u2019re losing top-level warrior-leaders to make the crucial differences in battle. \u00a0They\u2019re being systematically drummed out as politically incorrect. \u00a0When the going gets tough, political correctness (PC) is useless. \u00a0Then the brilliant, wily fighters, the coolest heads, the most courageous warriors, are needed to lead regardless of social views or record.<\/p>\n Today, in large measure, our fighting forces are led by briefcase-carrying busybodies, yes-men more interested in enforcing political beliefs and social change than leading in battle. \u00a0They care more about their careers than what\u2019s happening to the military and thus the country. \u00a0Just last week, a new downsizing of the army was announced \u2013 without a protest.<\/p>\n Warriors are not prized. \u00a0They are criticized and ridiculed. \u00a0Up-and-coming warriors who admire the purged want to emulate them, see what\u2019s happening, and are exiting as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cSoldiers like George Patton or Curtis LeMay are no longer wanted,\u201d writes LCOL Greg Lee, USMC (ret.) in a well-circulated internet forward.\u00a0 \u201cThe fundamental job of the military, \u2018kill bad people and break things,\u2019 has become critically hampered by \u2018rules of engagement\u2019 [and policies] who\u2019s [sic] guiding logic is political outcome, not successful combat. If the\u00a0US\u00a0military is ever defeated, it will be because [rather than honing fighting skills, nurturing fighting thinkers and leaders] it is running the best Day Care centers in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Political correctness, social change, even care for the enemy are now the battle cries of the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0military hierarchy in the Pentagon. \u00a0The rules of engagement (ROI), changed to limit civilian deaths under President Obama, are now so dangerous that American soldiers have been made into sitting ducks. \u00a0In years past, generals and admirals resigned over such disregard for their troops. \u00a0Today\u2019s leaders acquiesce and espouse confusing non-military goals. \u00a0The president confounds Coast Guard graduates saying their enemy is climate change. \u00a0He sends 3,000 troops to battle…Ebola?<\/p>\n Pentagon priorities are women\u2019s and gay rights and defeating the world\u2019s social ills \u2013 disease, hunger, and poverty.\u00a0 These are worthy causes for a Peace Corps, church group, or diplomat, but not for the military, whose sole constitutional purpose is defending Americans against military threats. \u00a0Do you send a sniper to nurse a baby?<\/p>\n Battlefield interrogation, once a life-saver for engaged troops, is now considered torture by the Pentagon and therefore almost eliminated. \u00a0Commanders know it will bring immediate dismissal. \u00a0Ask former representative Alan West, who, as an army commander, roughed up an Iraqi spy and saved his men from ambush. \u00a0He was quickly relieved of command, and had it not been for public opinion, he would probably be in jail. \u00a0Soft interrogation in the heat of battle is useless. \u00a0Toughness, not empathy, is needed once war is declared. \u00a0War is hell.<\/p>\n Leaders are increasingly chosen for race and\/or gender rather than military skills. \u00a0Under Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel a Pentagon training manual taught how white males in the military have an unfair advantage. \u00a0A hushed story is that a Blue Angels skipper, Donnie Cochran, picked to head the famed Navy flying group largely because of race, resigned after admitting he wasn\u2019t up to the job. \u00a0Similarly, the first female Tomcat pilot, Kara Hultgreen, rushed into the cockpit because of her gender, died slamming into the rear of the carrier on approach because of \u201cpilot error.\u201d \u00a0In both cases, PC rushed the assignments. \u00a0The ignorance and bias of most media regarding warriors and warfare exacerbate the problem. \u00a0Few have served. \u00a0Most see only the social arguments.<\/p>\n Sexual orientation appears the next criterion \u2013 especially with the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. \u00a0According to the\u00a0Washington Times<\/em>\u00a0(June 9, 2015), a gay general in the Army recently introduced his husband at a Pentagon gay rights rally, where Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was the keynote speaker. \u00a0In opening remarks, Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, master of ceremonies, called attention to his husband, Lucas, \u201csitting up front.\u201d \u00a0Carter then told the audience, \u201cWe need to be a meritocracy. We can\u2019t afford to close ourselves off to anybody.\u201d \u00a0Gays, as well as women, can certainly be warriors, but needed warriorhood was not mentioned at the rally. \u00a0It is never mentioned, because it is shunned.<\/p>\n Religion, too, a bedrock of warrior culture, is being purged. \u00a0Pentagon edicts have banned any expressions of Christianity in counseling soldiers. \u00a0A marine lance corporal, Monifa Sterling, a black female, was given a court martial and bad conduct discharge for having a Bible verse on her desk and refusing to remove it. \u00a0In contradiction to the old truism, will atheists now be the only soldiers allowed in foxholes? \u00a0How about Muslims? \u00a0In direct contrast to Christianity, militant Islam, a self-declared enemy, is coddled, even defended. \u00a0A blind eye is turned to its murder, tyranny, and aggression, a prime example being the\u00a0Ft.\u00a0Hood\u00a0shootings. \u00a0The rugged individualism and fervor, sometimes religious, of warriors like Patton, Jimmy Doolittle, Pappy Boyington, and Robin Olds are now deemed bigotry and discrimination \u2013 a quick ticket out.<\/p>\n As a well-circulated piece in the Beaufort<\/em> (South Carolina) Observer<\/em> lamented: \u201cCan you imagine someone today looking for a leader to execute the Doolittle Raid [on Tokyo] and suggesting that it be assigned to a dare-devil boozer whose attributes [nonetheless] are [those of a needed warrior] he had respect of his men, an awesome ability to fly, and the organizational skills to put all together?\u201d \u00a0No way. \u00a0\u201cWhere are all the dynamic leaders of the past?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019ll tell you, adds the piece: \u201c[t]hey were fired before they made major.\u201d<\/p>\n Numbers tell the tale: 197 officers purged in the five years up to October 2013 \u2013 this\u00a0according to\u00a0Stand Up America<\/em>, a media organization founded by army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (ret.). \u00a0That\u2019s an extraordinary number. \u00a0Later figures are unavailable (probably hidden). \u00a0It appears that senior officers who wanted to aid those under siege at\u00a0Benghazi\u00a0were purged. \u00a0A January 2015 article at AMAC.US named Gen. Carter Hamm, in charge of African Command, and Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette, a carrier commander in the Mediterranean\u00a0at the time, as believed relieved because of their indications to aid. \u00a0\u201cTake a look at some of the nine who have been fired or relieved of duty [since\u00a0Benghazi],\u201d writes AMAC\u2019s Joseph R. Carducci. \u00a0\u201cThis is one of the largest and fastest purges of military commanders that has ever been recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House is behind the purges. \u00a0For the first time in American history, a\u00a0U.S. president, Barack Obama, disdains the military from the Oval Office. \u00a0From ignorance of the military word \u201ccorpsmen\u201d to not acknowledging fallen heroes like at\u00a0Benghazi to championing huge and dangerous reductions in the military budget, Obama, even as threats mount, has shown his contempt for warriors. \u00a0While speaking out on questionable deaths of black youths, he says little to nothing about warrior deaths. \u00a0Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is woefully undershipped \u2013 from 600 to 300 in a matter of years. \u00a0This despite military buildups in\u00a0China\u00a0and\u00a0Russia. \u00a0The Air Force and Navy need new and better planes to keep pace. \u00a0We\u2019re ridiculously withholding arms from those fighting\u00a0ISIS. \u00a0Only lip service is given to shamefully treated veterans. \u00a0In addition, Obama refuses to identify by name\u00a0America\u2019s most vocal enemy \u2013 militant Islam. \u00a0The religion\u2019s fighters rape, murder, and torture, and assault almost every PC belief Obama and his aides expound, yet Obama dismisses them as \u201cJV\u201d (junior varsity), \u201cterrorists,\u201d or an aberration. \u00a0They know he won\u2019t fight.<\/p>\n Like Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister on the eve of WWII, Obama and his advisors have a naive and dangerous belief that appeasement and concession are the ways to avoid conflict and aggression. \u00a0Chamberlain, waving his meaningless treaty from Hitler, learned the hard way. \u00a0Once Hitler started WWII, the British people saw the error of Chamberlain\u2019s beliefs and elected Winston Churchill, a warrior if there ever was one, to lead them in crisis.<\/p>\n But it may soon be too late for\u00a0America. \u00a0Few, if any, of Obama\u2019s aides seem to know this gallant history. \u00a0Few, if any, have served in the military. \u00a0They disguise a low opinion of warriors by casually referring to anyone in uniform as a \u201chero\u201d while privately ridiculing soldiers as ignorant, offish, and war-mongers \u2013 the \u201cbitter clingers\u201d Obama has spoken of. \u00a0They certainly do not embrace the \u201cwarrior culture,\u201d one of the phrases most used by the purgers in calling for good riddance.<\/p>\n No less than John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy, has called attention to the purging. \u00a0In a recent U.S. Naval Institute\u00a0Proceedings<\/em>,\u00a0he wrote, \u201c[T]he attributes of naval aviators \u2013 \u00a0willingness to take intelligent, calculated risk, self-confidence, even a certain swagger are the very [attributes] that make them particularly vulnerable in today\u2019s zero-tolerance Navy.\u201d \u00a0Zero tolerance means one strike and you\u2019re out \u2013 no second chance. \u00a0Commanders, especially warrior-commanders, are being \u201cbounced for the bad luck of being breathalyzed after two beers, or allowing risqu\u00e9 forecastle [shipboard] follies.\u201d \u00a0Such follies, usually to commemorate events like crossing the equator, have been international naval tradition for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s purgers, writes Lehman, are PC \u201cthought police\u201d who, \u201clike Inspector Javert in Les Miserables<\/em>, are out to get [the offenders] and are relentless.\u201d \u00a0Any infraction means dismissal. \u00a0A soldier\u2019s previous record or potential means nothing. \u00a0He has no chance to learn from his mistake. \u00a0\u201cAdm. Chester Nimitz [who led the U.S. Navy\u2019s Pacific victory in WWII] put a squadron of destroyers on the rocks. But while being put in purgatory for a while, he was protected by seniors who recognized his potential talent. In today\u2019s Navy, Nimitz would be gone\u201d \u2013 as would any officer who wanted to keep him. \u00a0\u201cPolitical correctness just might do more damage to American security than did the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n