Valor awards and politicians
The Washington Post writes once again about the politics behind valor awards and the Army system for those awards. This article focuses on Sergeant First Class Earl D. Plumlee the hero of Forward Operating Base Ghazni nearly two years ago. The Post recounts the events of the day;
A narrative of Plumlee’s actions provided to The Post credits him with rushing to the site of the car bomb blast near the base’s airfield in an unarmored pickup truck. The vehicle took repeated enemy fire, including a 30mm grenade that hit the vehicle’s front passenger-side headlight, but didn’t explode.
Plumlee left the vehicle, but wasn’t immediately able to get his 7.62mm assault rifle to work. He drew a pistol and fired at several insurgents, and killed one of them with a hand grenade, prompting the suicide vest he was wearing to explode. As he continued to fire, suicide vests on two more insurgents also detonated, the narrative said.
Under withering enemy fire, Plumlee provided suppressing fire to allow other Americans to take cover, and then reloaded his weapon while shielded by an electrical box, the narrative said. He opened fire on two more insurgents, causing a third enemy suicide vest to detonate and pepper him and another Green Beret with fragmentation from the grenade.
[…]
Plumlee braved enemy fire immediately afterward and applied tourniquets, the narrative said. He then directed a civilian and a U.S. soldier nearby to drive the wounded to a surgical team on base. Plumlee and three other coalition troops proceed to sweep the area to make sure it was clear of additional enemy fighters.
For all of that, the following month, Plumlee was nominated for the Medal of Honor as the paperwork wended it’s way through the system, the MOH looked inevitable. Stars fell on the recommendation – nearly every senior commander signed off on the award as it sailed through the halls of the pentagon. Then in March last year, Army HRC wienies abruptly recommended that it be downgraded to a Silver Star and that is what Army Secretary McHugh signed. The reason?
It seems that Plumlee had been given a rifle scope as a gift from a contractor that he tried to sell. Army investigators thought that Plumlee was selling military sensitive equipment. It was determined that the scope was not sensitive equipment and Plumlee was cleared, but he was warned in writing and that’s what sunk his Medal of Honor recommendation. Nothing. Nothing but a bunch of petty wienies.
Category: Big Army
Fucking pencil pushers
Fucking pencil
pushersDICKS!There, I fixed that for you!
Damned bunch of pencil-dicks.
That scope was for the rifle that wouldn’t work! WTF does that have to do with his actions against the enemy? Get those pussies off their desks and on the front lines!!!
The Remfs are upset a scope for sale on EBay but not many complaint’s about the 2000+ MRAPs and uparmers that Isis was just given.
“Politicians are the lowest form of life on earth. Liberal Democrats are the lowest form of politicians.” – GEN Patton
I say the same about bureaucrats as well.
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/politicians_are_the_lowest_form_of_life_on_earth/
As a Southerner (Patton was born in California but his family was from Virginia) I’m pretty sure that Patton was politically an old-school Southern Democrat. 😉
Guaranteed.
Big difference between a southern democrat and a liberal one
Total…fucking…bullshit.
REMFs. They just hate it when a soldier actually does something that they will never, ever do. Something ballsy.
I don’t get it. Everything about his actions scream MOH. The Pencil pushers deemed this is not a satisfactory award and downgraded it to a silver star because he was tring to sell a scope that was given to him by a contractor?
Meanwhile, ISIS has billions of dollars of equipment that was given, not sold, given to the Iraqis and this is the best they can come up with?
As stated above:
Total BULLSHIT!
Sounds like an upgrade to me!
Argh ….
Pathetic. Zero-defect management weenies hamstringing an award to an actual warfighter. I bet it was so stressful to shoot the MOH down that they had to award Silver Stars to each other just to recover.
And let’s not forget the ARCOM’s.
100% unadulterated undiluted bullshit. It was his scope to sell, what’s there to be warned in writing about?
Always hated REMF’s and staff pukes. Always will.
They SOOOO just need to empty the HRC HQ and JDAM the fuck out of it. Maybe some should stay inside though.
As much as I’ve dealt with HRC, it is obvious that there are bureacrats working there who think its “their money” and “their awards” and “their decision” as to what functions in the Army, who gets to stay, where they go, etc. (i.e., if I let that Soldier have an award, they’ll take money from MY paycheck. I can’t have that!)
I’ve dealt with a lot of personnel who bust their butt there, but far too many dirtbags who need to be fired and thrown out on the street.
HRC Separations, for example, is full of dirtbags who should be fired for determining who should leave the Army (which is pretty much everyone else but them).
At the least, they should take every Soldier or Civilian in that facility and transfer them to company or battalion levels so they know what real work is and how things REALLY are in the Army.
Sorry, rant is over for today…
I don’t get it. I really don’t. This may be hard for HR to believe but more than a few of our nation’s recipients of the CMOH/MOH have been anything but candidates for sainthood. This altar boy, sock-starching crap is sickening. If there is nothing more to this denial than what is mentioned, this is truly “100% unadulterated undiluted bullshit.” To add insult, they skipped right over the DSC. What really happened, did they learn that he was caught fighting on school grounds when he was 15 or that he once complimented an officer’s wife on her rack? There HAS TO BE MORE–and A LOT MORE because, if that’s all they have, they have squat.
As an aside Cav, that is one of the best scenes in the movie. I watched a documentary about the Godfather trilogy and it was stated that the actor ad libbed that line. Perfect.
Case in point: SGT Maynard “Snuffy” Smith. Look him up.
Well, let me be the contrarian here. Anyone here remember the phrases “gifts from prohibited sources” and “Joint Ethics Regulations”? Not sure, but I seem to remember that annual training regarding the JER and its requirements is a DoD requirement – at least for some organizations and career fields. There are a number of things that are either outright forbidden or are risky when one is a Federal employee, whether military or civilian. One of those things is accepting gifts from supporting contractors. Those same ethics regs also discourage or forbid conduct that gives the appearance of impropriety, if I recall correctly. Yeah, they’re often violated – just like GO1 was often violated in theater. That doesn’t make violation of such lawful general orders or regulations any less wrong. I don’t know the details here, and I’m not making any accusations; I’m speculating. Further, the WAPO story didn’t say much about the scope in question other than it was determined not to be a “sensitive military item”; it’s silent on the details of the gift. But hypothetically speaking: if that scope was a gift from a supporting contractor and an exception to the JER did not apply, well, the man may well have been cut a break by getting only a letter of caution. Yeah, it seems like chickensh!t. But consider: do you really want people in the Federal government accepting expensive “gifts” on a regular basis from those contractors working for them – or from those seeking to do so? Before you say yes, maybe you should Google the term “Koreagate”. I’m guessing there may well be a bit more to the story than’s been presented by the WAPO here. And since part of that full story seems to have been a CID criminal investigation that ended w/o a trial, I’m also guessing that part will likely stay under wraps. It sucks that something like this might have impacted the award of an unrelated decoration for valor. Maybe it was nothing of the sort, and it was simply petty office politics or some senior guy wanting heroes to be… Read more »
“accepting expensive gifts on a regular basis” – seriously? That has to be one of the most disingenuous remarks you have ever posted. Our government officials are uniformly for sale, bought, and paid for.
It appears that the good SFC was given a civilian version of a scope which also exists as a military model. I’ll bet you money that even the serial numbers have government identifiers in the military versions, and the investigation vindication was about 5 minutes long and the only reason a letter was ever even placed in his files was some asshole investigator trying to justify his job by “finding something – anything” whether it was valid or not. Otherwise, the letter would not have been yanked.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but it is clear the awards system at the higher levels is less about proper recognition and more about politics (much by the Army, which is trying to avoid even a whiff of impropriety.)
Plumlee – odd… was watching “We Were Soldiers” and the SGM was named Plumley.
David: it doesn’t matter what the hell the gift in question was. If it’s more valuable than a certain, relatively small amount – and it’s from what is termed a prohibited source – accepting same is forbidden unless one of several regulatory exceptions applies. Period.
I have no “dog in this fight”, either. But from what’s been published, this could easily be something other than a case of office politics and/or someone getting screwed by higher HQ. Dunno either way.
My point is that neither do you – or anyone else commenting here. I was merely bringing up the rather obvious possibility that no one had mentioned so far. And since part of the story seems to be a CID investigation, we likely never will know the full story.
Oh, and “disingenious” my azz, bud. Try pricing scopes sometime. Even at a place like Wal-Mart, if I recall correctly most rifle scopes are well over the “prohibited source” limit. Precision scopes are way over that limit.
The JER may seem to be chickensh!t at times, but it’s there for a reason.
You mean the JER that higher ranking officials don’t pay attention to? I’ve been in GO and Senior Civilian Offices before, their walls (and they even flaunt their gifts they keep at home) are covered with “gifts” from various sources.
Its the same thing as a sexual assault, if a GO does it, “well we’re going to make you an O-7 and take one star!” If an E-7 does it, “you scum sucking maggot, we’re sending you to leavenworth with a big chicken dinner!”
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
– Animal Farm
Eric: gifts given by groups of subordinates on transfer, retirement, etc . . . fall under different rules than those from supporting contractors. Ditto those accepted on behalf of the government – as I recall, those become government property, not the property of the recipient.
DoD’s rules for such are public and may be found here, as they apply to personnel in uniform:
http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/defense_ethics/resource_library/deskbook/gifts_to_servicemembers.pdf
I suspect the actual incidence of abuse of the JER by senior uniformed personnel (or senior civilian employees, for that matter) is likely much lower than you think. Yes, it occasionally happens – but those guys/gals aren’t dumb. They know they’re being watched and also have legal staff who tend to keep them apprised when they’re about to step on an appendage.
I don’t see how the gift issue is at all relevant. It has nothing to do with the reasons for the proposed MOH; those being the conspicuous valor displayed on a particular day. The MOH isn’t a lifetime achievement medal. It is a medal for valor, honor, courage under fire. What has any past incident got to do with it; especially an incident that they didn’t see fit to pursue?
This is just small-minded bureaucratic head-up-the-anus behavior.
Personally I don’t either, medic09. However, para 1-17 of AR 600-8-22 says something a bit different:
I agree the two should be considered completely independently. However, based on that AR the Army doesn’t exactly seem to see things that way.
Yes, that raises the question of why any medal was awarded at all. Can’t answer that. Army policies – and other HQDA actions – don’t always pass the “common sense test”.
Sometimes regs need to be changed to reflect common sense. This IMO appears to be one of those times.
Did he get an honorable discharge? If yes then the question was asked and answered.
If his service was honorable enough to earn a Silver Star then it was honorable enough to earn a MOH.
I fail to understand how an event with no bearing on the citation matters. Was he carrying the offending riflescope at the time?
My reference had nothing to do with “gifts given for PCS” types that you refer to. I know all too well about those.
Again, this still goes back to my main point. He’s a lowly E-7 so some bureaucrat stops his award. Yet at the same time, General dick-out-of-pants gets a slap on the wrist and still retires will obscene pension. (there are how many stories about that on TAH?)
Again, HRC is filling up with too many people who think we are there to support them. If we do even the slightest thing they don’t like, they’ll take action as if they’re a commander to deny, kick out, etc. Unless of course you’re a senior officer and have buddies to cover your back…
I guess I missed the part where he was prosecuted and convicted of a crime. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. I’ll go reread the article…..Okay, I’m back…. Nope. All I found was this: “No criminal charges were filed and it was determined that the optic was not a controlled item, Kasper said. A letter of caution was placed in Plumlee’s administrative file, but later expunged, Kasper added.” Okay, so there was no charge and even a “letter of caution” was purged from Plumlee’s jacket. That leaves what? Nothing. Or are we now to think that CID said, a la The Godfather, “Leave the MOH. Take the Silver Star.”
It really makes me wonder. If this WaPo-suggested reason for the denial was sufficient to deny the CMOH/DSC, does this mean thjat the Silver Star is now deemed a consolation valor award?
So . . . “no criminal charges filed” always means the person is squeaky-clean absolutely not guilty of any wrongdoing whatsover, right?
Letters of caution (or admonition, or reprimand) can be filed locally only. Those held locally typically are expunged from the individual’s local file on departure, and do not become part of their permanent records.
Such letters can also be issued as punishment for wrongdoing that could – had the commander wished to do so – have sent the individual to a court-martial. They form the second-lowest punishment option a commander has under the UCMJ; they’re right above a verbal azz-chewing. A general court-martial is the high-end option. Other options exist between the two.
Without knowing more details, neither you nor I know for certain whether this is merely weather-related haze – or smoke from a fire. Based on what’s been published, it could be either.
If it was a “Letter of Caution” and was only filed locally, then it is valid to ask why it was even known or considered by the Senior Decoration Review Board? Which I think is the more important question that Congressman Hunter is trying to get at.
I have for a long time wondered how MOH/DSC/NC from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam would have been denied if we had today’s processes in place at the time of the event. A great case in point is Sgt. Peralta, who would have clearly would have been awarded a MOH if no autopsy had been conducted.
I find the language the DOD/Army spokesperson interesting. He stated that the SDRB didn’t recommend approval of the MOH, not that they didn’t recommend approval of an award higher than the SS.
That, L4C, is a different matter entirely. And yes – that question is a valid one.
Commanders typically have to report disposition taken to MP/CID regarding their reports. I’d guess that’s how CID got word of the letter of caution. That’s only a guess, and I could easily be wrong.
I don’t know if the SDRB routinely requests criminal background info on MoH nominees or not. If so, it’s possible they may get full reports – including those were the individual was a subject of investigation but was never charged. I’ve been told (or perhaps read) that GO promo boards receive that level of detail when they’re considering prospective O6s for promo to O7. I don’t know that to be a fact, but believe it to be the case.
Considering the number of GOs who have hit the news in recent years for various crimes… those boards are doing a piss-poor job.
Cant argue with that statement – they’ve certainly missed on at least a few. And IMO the various courts-martial panels involved haven’t helped by giving some of those senior officers actually prosecuted lighter than deserved sentences, either.
The Promotion board members only score the files. The IG/JAG/CID info review is actually done after the board meets, but before the results are approved by SECARMY. This is done, as far as I know, for every board from BN command onward.
The good news is that every year there are people removed from the list. The bad news is that to often, indicators of bad behavior aren’t turned over to the IG/JAQ where a permanent record is made of the investigation and disposition.
CID – Chickenshits In Defillade
He must not have voted for the Glorious Leader.
So I guess I’m confused. He was investigated for trying to sell what the Army “thought” was a “Military sensitive equipment”. Then they found out that it wasn’t and seems like they couldn’t do dick about that so instead they stick some bullshit paper in his record “cautioning” him about accepting and trying to sell an item that is not “Military sensitive equipment” just because…fuck all the bullshit about accepting gifts this and DOD rule that, this is purely the bureaucracy of big Army giving the shaft to a Warrior because they’re so fucking squeaky clean….oh wait….
“So . . . “no criminal charges filed” always means the person is squeaky-clean absolutely not guilty of any wrongdoing whatsover, right?”
Whoa. This is the type of silliness I would expect from some but not from you. Nevertheless, I’ ll respond. The absence of criminal charges may mean many things, including that the suspected criminal act turned out not to be a crime. Another is that investigation failed to locate a suspect. Another is that a suspect turned and is an informant. This is markedly different from a not guilty verdict. If you want that explained, I’ll do so. I said before and I’ll repeat for your benefit that there had better be more to this than what the WaPo suggests.
Just pointing out the (hopefully) unintended implication of your previous comment, 2/17 Air Cav – where you highlight the fact that “no charges were filed”. Both you and I know that “no charges” hardly uniformly equates to “squeaky clean”. Your comment immediately above also fails to mention some other reasons that no charges might be filed – e.g., the evidence indicates that a crime very likely was committed by the accused, but the evidence isn’t strong enough for a conviction. Or perhaps the case is strong enough, but the prosecutor doesn’t have the time/money/resources to try the case, so he/she lets it slide. I will make one additional observation. I’m working from memory, so hopefully my memory is working well today. Under the UCMJ, an individual’s commander has broad discretion regarding what action he/she can elect to take on receipt of a report of misconduct (like a MP or CID report of investigation). They may opt to do nothing (literally); verbally reprimand/admonish/caution (e.g., “Don’t ever be that damn stupid again!”); reprimand/admonish/caution in writing (either to be filed locally or in the individual’s permanent record); offer non-judicial punishment (must be voluntarily accepted by the offender); or formally prefer charges and request the appropriate authority convene a court-martial to try the individual in question for a violation of the UCMJ. In short: the commander’s discretion on receiving such a report is much like that of a local/state/federal prosecutor. Here, we do not know the precise circumstances of what happened. However, at least two possibilities are supported by the reported facts. Either (1) no misconduct whatsoever occurred, or (2) misconduct occurred, but the appropriate commander determined that a written local reprimand/caution for said misconduct was aprpos, and did that. Both are equally plausible explanations given the publicly-known facts. To immediately jump to the conclusion that, “This guy is getting the shaft!” is exactly that: jumping to a conclusion. The known facts support both possibilities equally well, as well as perhaps other eventualities I haven’t thought of yet. Selecting one of these over the other is thus at this point a leap of faith… Read more »
If he is not guilty of a crime then he is not guilty of a crime. Period. His commander decided not to take the issue to a court martial – thus ends the issue. If it doesn’t work that way, it should. The rules may be written differently – I understand that – but the right and the wrong of it is just this – if no conviction then he is not guilty and it should not bear on a completely unrelated event where he showed rare bravery and saved a lot of lives.
I hear you talking and I understand the words but I disagree with what I think you are saying.
Richard: they’re two different types of actions with two different sets of rules. The standards of proof – as well as the rules regarding what can and cannot be considered as relevant for each type of action – are very different between the two.
Crimes under the UCMJ are just that – crimes. Conviction requires criminal justice standards of proof. Awards are administrative actions. They generally require a much lesser standard of “proof”/documentation for final action – and are also highly subjective as well.
This is the reason that an officer or senior NCO arrested for, say, public drunkenness whose charges are later dropped on a technicality can still be relieved for cause by his/her commander. The lack of a criminal conviction in the case does not preclude relief for cause – which is an administrative personnel action subject to different criteria, and is also the subjective call of the individual’s commander.
Not defending the decision here – I think I’ve made it clear in other comments that I think the two items (gift of scope, award) should be considered completely separately. I’m just explaining why this may have happened under the rules in effect today. I’m also pointing out the fact that the case in question here may not be as “cut and dried” as the press reports. There is a plausible alternate explanation than “This guy got unjustly screwed due to politics”, and we don’t know enough facts to know which is the truth.
Hondo, ja ich verstehe. I am not arguing that you do not understand, I am arguing that a system like that is screwed up. Using your NCO example – maybe there was no court martial because there was no evidence and he should not have been charged in the first place. How does one tell from a distance? The arrest is not the event, the conviction is the event. It is easy to be arrested but it requires due process to be convicted.
I get the shades of grey argument but I don’t accept it. I guess that makes me an idiot or an idealist. In my experience, people who actually try stuff and do things make mistakes. They usually pay for those mistakes and keep trying stuff. People who never made a mistake never did anything – I have never seen an exception to that statement. If we are going to hold everyone to the standard of “you have to be perfect to receive the MOH” then everyone whoever did anything is “not good enough” and in my experience we are connecting events that are not related.
The MOH is for Valor, that is what it says on the medal. He didn’t risk his life so he could earn the award but it is major chickenshit to withhold it over a scope. I have questions too but people are alive today because this guy rushed in and got it done. Call me a jackass but I think that is the important thing.
You know what this is. this is character assassination by speculation. The facts are in his citation. Whatever else there is–IF ANYTHING–is unknown to us. So, since we do know what he did in action and nothing else, we can conclude that the Secretary of the Army did not agree that Plumlee’s selflessness, leadership, and gallantry in the face of a hostile enemy ought to be recognized with any valor medal higher than the Silver Star. And now, I’m done. I think.
A guy with balls this big doesn’t need a CMH, although I agree 100% that he has earned it and the reasons behind denying it are pure crap. I think he has a future in NASCAR or Indy car racing…
So is the MOH awarded for valor in combat or perfect behavior in the barracks afterwards?
Regardless of stepping on his dick for accepting something that maybe he should not have accepted didn’t those actions warrant the MOH?
If I remember correctly during WW2 there was an airman nicknamed Snuffy Smith who won the medal of honor but missed the ceremony due to being punished with KP for some minor infraction of the rules and received his award during formation…it would seem today Mr. Smith would be denied the MOH for the minor transgression that resulted in being punished with a KP assignment.
If politics continues to enter the process the 1%’ers serving will predictably become the .5%’ers and the .25%’ers as people realize there’s no longer any actual benefit to serving your Uncle Sam because he fucks you every time you look away even for a minor issue.
Fuck troops out of benefits, deploy them a half dozen times due to a lack of manpower required to perform the mission, jam a fighter into the production stream at the expense of a proven airframe that saves lives on the ground, alter the tri-care payment system, pass some bullshit rules to aid the RIF…seems to be harder and harder to explain to someone why serving is an honorable thing to do when the only one acting with honor is the enlistee and not the government.
VOV: see my comment above. I agree that the two should be completely separate and distinct, but apparently Army policy currently technically requires both (well, perhaps not “perfect” – but certainly “no serious misconduct”).
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=60294&cpage=1#comment-2554172
Understood, too bad…I am certain you understand my point. In an operation (US Army) where leniency is often shown to the upper echelon, hypocrisy is quite obvious when the lower echelons are treated with a significantly different outcome.
I am not suggesting it negates the wrongdoing of either group, it just illustrates an obvious disparity with respect to the treatment and respect shown to the different groups. Anyone who thinks enlisted personnel are perceived with the same consideration and respect as the perfumed fucktards wandering around the puzzle palace is purposely blinding themselves to an ugly reality.
It was ever thus and sadly will remain ever so.
Hondo, I was one of those supporting contractors for almost thirty years and I can tell you the prohibition against accepting gifts was mostly observed in the breach. Military physicians, who naturally have far lower incomes than their civilian colleagues, were quite happy to accept a dinner invitation for themselves and their spouses. And if we let them pick the restaurant, they inevitably picked the most expensive and usually French. We also entertained other key medical personnel such as pharmacy officers, nurses, nurse practitioners and physicians assistants. It was a very effective means of getting plenty of face time across a table, which was next to impossible to do in their busy clinics or offices during working hours. In fact, it was recognition of this reality that caused my company to grudgingly give me a far larger entertainment budget for my military sales department than what my civilian counterparts received. The really expensive entertaining took place at medical conferences where we sponsored speakers and cocktail parties, followed by expensive restaurant dinners every night of the conference for selected officers and their wives. Periodically a local commander or higher would issue a reminder of the ethics regulations and the military folks would pull back and we would simply chill for a few weeks or months after which things went right back to normal. Trust me, my company and my department were not alone in this. In fact my small company was a minor player compared to the more widespread and more lavish spending of the big pharmaceutical companies. I well remember my colleagues from big pharma talking about how they entertained key officers from the surgeon generals’ offices. Five years after I retired in 2000, I did some consulting for a small company and I quickly learned that nothing had changed except those entertained. The product this company wanted me to get into the federal system was an insect bite treatment which was not a hospital type product, so instead of doctors I entertained physicians assistants, medical E-9’s and other key NCO’s at division and corps levels. That gig ended nine… Read more »
Poetrooper, FYI the current hot thing in scopes (Schmidt & Bender PMII) is roughly $4,200. That is a daylight scope. When you get to the thermal scopes, the number changes to between $15,000 to $20,000.
A few weeks ago I was in New Orleans and I ate in Commanders Palace. I paid about $100 a head. I confess we drank an ordinary good red and not the good stuff. If you are drinking chateau lafite rothschild with your clients then you got me. I would hope that was not necessary to get the business.
Poetrooper: I’d be willing to bet that very few of those military docs you “wined and dined” were GOs – although given how rank-heavy the Medical Corps is, maybe a few might have been.
From what I’ve seen, those who decide to “push the envelope” in this fashion are almost never that senior. Rather, they’re the mid-grade to moderately senior types in “right place/right time” positions who somehow get the idea that no one will notice. And they’re not always officers, either.
Sometimes they are right and get away with it. Sometimes not.
You’re right on that point, Hondo, although many of them were O-6’s. That seemed to be the cutoff point. Once any of my friends made O-7, they became much more aloof. One of them made three-star/surgeon general and he would still see me in his office but that was it and that was just gabbing about who was now where.
An interesting side note: my boss who had founded our department and knew everything that was going on in military medicine accompanied me on a call with this doctor when the doc was still a young major. As we walked out of the hospital, my boss said, “I’m hearing rumors that young fella is going to be surgeon general someday. The brass have their eyes on him.” Fifteen years later he was. Sure makes you wonder about THAT process.
Kinda what I figured. Once an officer makes O7, they’ve generally been screened about as thoroughly as the aliens did Cartman – less the probe. (smile) And they’ve got a much larger staff to keep them out of trouble – usually including a legal adviser.
About the promo process: maybe what you saw has a different explanation. I once served with a guy (he was a Major at the time) who was quite well thought of – pretty much everyone thought he was GO material (I think even his commanders thought that). He swore he was punching at 20, come hell or high water.
He ended up retiring with either 2 or 3 stars about 20 years after we parted ways. Sometimes it really is apparent when a guy/gal is an O4 that they’re destined to rise high – absent a royal screw-up or “right place, wrong time” situation, of course.
I don’t care what he did after the fact. Valor on the battlefield and conduct in the rear are two different things. Once they started playing political bullshit with awards none of them mean a thing to me.
If the man walked up to the bar sporting a MOH, I would buy him a beer. He earned it and not a single person I have any respect for said he didn’t.
Semper Fi Plumlee
Just a thought, maybe we need to have a “National Neat a Nureaucrat Month” where every Vet is allowed to pummel as many bureauweenies a day as he or she pleases, and is limited to twelve per day the rest of the year?
Maybe if it had been posthumous would it have been different?? Just a question thrown out there…