Where did Markwayne “Smell war?”
Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
Unless you are really deep into following politics, you were probably only tangentially aware of Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Republican out of Oklahoma. He’s a 48-year father of six from the land where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. He’s been married to his high school sweetheart for coming up on 30 years.
The youngest of seven kids, he left a college wrestling scholarship as a 20-year old kid to take over his ailing father’s plumbing business. In the subsequent 15 years he built it from six employees to 100, was worth millions, and started several other endeavors (property management, ranching, and a steak house). He even hosted a radio show on local conservative AM radio called House Talk, about…well…houses.
He also claims a 5-0 record as an amateur MMA fighter in the late aughts. He wanted to go pro, but was too busy with his family and businesses to join the MMA’s reality TV show that was making fighters around then.
A well known local figure due to his constant advertising and radio presence, it’s no surprise a native son of Oklahoma was elected to Congress in 2012. That’s quite literal, as he’s a member of the Cherokee Nation, so he is, properly annotated, a Native son of the Native America state. He served in the House until being elected to the Senate in 2022.
He hasn’t made much of a national presence of himself until recently. He was immediately named by Trump to head DHS with the sacking of Kristi Noem. Prior to this nomination, his biggest Congressional claim to fame was trying to charter a helicopter into Afghanistan during Biden’s withdrawal from the country. The US State Department prohibited him, as did the Kyrgyzstan, and he didn’t make any rescues.
Mullin’s first round of Senate confirmation hearings started yesterday.
Smell of war
Among the big questions that we here at Valor Guardians will have, and it seems to be the biggest one his political opponents have seized on is what his overseas service entailed.
You’ll note that he’s been rather busy since graduating high school circa 1995. He has never outright claimed military service, and indeed he has none. He has alluded, repeatedly, to having served overseas on some sort of classified basis. He’s brought it up enough, that there’s several quotes about it, but if you ask him for details…well he’d have to kill you to divulge them.
“War is ugly. It smells bad. If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you and taste it and feel it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something you will never forget,” Mullin said earlier this month during an appearance on Fox News.
“I never wore the uniform or the flag on my shoulder, but I might have been in the same area,” he said.
He was asked by Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) about his claims.
“In 2015, I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area, which was scheduled for 2016,” Mullin said. “I had to go through tier training. The training and stuff was kind of fun,” he said, before adding that it “was absolutely awful. I’ve never spoken specifically on details.”
He was part of some top secret black ops wet work. The DoD came calling and built a team of irregular warfare experts. Having risen to the top of the nation’s electorate, the Defense Department picked Congressmen. To really keep the Taliban on its toes they limited themselves to picking Congressmen with no military service, no military training, and only a brief experience in mixed martial arts. The terrorists never saw them coming.
“So where did you smell war, sir?” Peters asked, referring to a phrase Mullin used on Fox News earlier this month. “I just said that this was classified — and the dates, locations and mission, I’ve never spoken about those details,” Mullin replied. He said had not reported details of this overseas spec ops work because it was official business in his capacity as a Congressman.
Makes sense to me. What’s your problem?
Private briefing
Mullin offered to provide details to his colleagues behind closed doors. After doing so, I’m still confused.
According to the Daily Beast,
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal described it to reporters as “weird” but could not get into what was said in a classified setting.
GOP Sen. James Lankford suggested it was not actually a classified trip at all but argue it was not a big deal with a mountain being made out of a molehill.
“It was dealing with a whistleblower issue that happened to be overseas on it, and so there’s a lot of nondisclosure that has to happen,” he said.
The Oklahoma senator further expanded to a group of reporters: “I would use more the term of nondisclosure than classified, but I get those are two different things on it. I think the terms are all being thrown around. I think even Markwayne wasn’t being careful in trying to be able to articulate between the two on it.”
So he went through “absolutely awful” “tier training” before his special mission overseas, which was a Congressional trip that involved a whistleblower complaint? To be fair, going through HR training on whistleblowers is what I would call “absolutely awful”, but I wouldn’t call it top tier training for a classified mission.
I did read that he was accused of acting like a high schooler on one of these overseas trips with other Congress critters. While riding on a bus in Israel, he went around sticking his finger in the noses of those who fell asleep (other Congressmen and their spouses). Kappy Trott, the wife of former Rep. David Trott, said “This idiot starts walking up and down the bus with his camera and anyone who fell asleep, he would put his finger in their nose and take a picture.”
This happened in 2015. Perhaps this was the super secret mission he was on. Not everybody will stick their finger in a sleeping woman’s nose for the laughs. He’s not the hero we need, but he’s the hero we deserve.
This is not how you introduce yourself to the world stage, Senator.
Category: Congress sucks, Stolen Valor, WTF?
My guess is he actually went somewhere in order to do something low key/confidential and in so doing was exposed to some sort of force protection drills like “gentlemen, if something bad happens, we expect you all to keep out of the way while we do one of these drills. Keep still, don’t do anything until it is over. Watch this. (Does some tactical thing.) What are your questions?” Now he is playing it up. Way up.
As an army guy on a state department assignment, I regularly “did” cool guy stuff because the DoS security contractors involved us in their rehearsals, laughed about how they could share with us how to access their weapons and trust us to use them, unlike the diplomats and politicians. I guess I am practically a special mission unit guy except the only thing i smelled was farts because we didn’t roll the windows down in the armored NTVs.
Daggone Prior, I am eating lunch and had to keep my sandwich from coming back up into my nose cavity when I read the smelling farts comment. LOL I remember those days very well. I was in a Helicopter Assault unit, so we flew in CH 46 and 53 birds all the time. Couldn’t smell the farts in there, but when someone blew chow, you sure could smell that as it wafted past us and out the tailgate. And it happened fairly often. On occasion though we traveled in the old Amtracs when doing ground training operations in the bush (this was the early 80’s) and you damn well could smell the farts in there, but when someone blew chow in an Amtrac as tight as it was in there, it caused a chain reaction. Sorry for being so gross. I’ll let myself out now.
When we were hanging out in our Volly FD den, two of the guys used to sit on the couch drinking beer and eating hard boiled eggs and when they passed gas, they would light their Bic lighters under their butts while their legs were raised and you would see a green flame shoot up for a second along the outside of their dungaree pants which he learned at Slippery Rock College in Penn. He passed away a few years ago from 9/11 illness while working as a local 3 electricion down in the subway.
You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but
you can’t pick your friends nose.
Mad Magizine’s “Nose Job” Dell Woods 1961
He is the Chuck Barris of the Congress world.
He is right though. War smells like absolute shit. Especially after the sewage system has been destroyed and the trash service stops. Then the fires for the piles of garbage start and, well it smells like shit. And the giant sewage ponds in the low lying areas, also smells like shit. Then there is the wolf pussy. That stuff smells enticing at first and then it gives you lung cancer. CLP doesn’t smell terrible. It will smell better than you and your guys after a week with no shower. But if you are looking for something that smells good, keep looking. Even shit smells worse after a steady diet of MREs, beef jerky and Copenhagen. The only thing that smells good is home and your wife when she hugs you after months away and then softly whispers in your ear; “Love of my life, you need a shower”.
Condensed version is “War smells like Somalia”.
Loved the Gong Show and my favorite panelist was J P Morgan who always had to comment about a singers voice. I think she had perfect pitch… Sewage, Every time the sewer workers removed a manhole cover, they had to pay a cover charge to go in…
Nuoc Mam sauce smells a lot like war.
Mullin: “So, like, a while ago—in [YEAR REDACTED], I think—I got invited to this super elite thing. You’ve probably never heard of it. It was a ‘contingency,’ which is a fancy word for a [REDACTED]. We were supposed to go to… a place… you know, over there, specifically [GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION REDACTED], which was scheduled for [YEAR REDACTED].
I had to do this ‘tier training,’ which is basically like leveling up in a video game, but with more mud and less fun. Or maybe it was fun? It was absolutely awful, actually, but also kind of, um, [ADJECTIVE REDACTED]. I never wore the uniform or the flag on my shoulder, but because of my Indian heritage and training, I’ve learned to operate in the shadows…like a whisper… or maybe even a fart. Anyway, I can’t give you any more [NOUN REDACTED] because they’re, uh… classified. Very, very secret [PLURAL NOUN REDACTED], and stuff. Definitely. You wouldn’t believe the [CLASSIFIED DETAIL REDACTED] involved.”
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: “Bullshit.”
This fellow is another assclown, tough guy wannabe….he could have served, he could have done the things he claimed, but he hasn’t instead he struts around running his pie hole and now when he’s being called out on his past bullshit he wants to cry about how unfair it all is to him and how it’s character assassination.
You can’t assassinate what isn’t there Mr. Mullin.
You can’t piss and moan about people suggesting you aren’t able to control your personal anger issues when you run around suggesting that people who are assaulted from behind leaving them with damaged internal organs and broken ribs deserved it for being a snake…
If you had any sack at all you would have told Senator Paul to his face that you meant every word you said about him, instead you chose the coward’s way out claiming the Senator and you didn’t get along ( no shit, really?) and that you wouldn’t say shit to his face and you wouldn’t apologize either…
That leaves you as just another revisionist history jerkoff, the kind of guy who could have served but didn’t and now wants to claim he’s a tough guy who could have done “stuff” but didn’t actually do jack shit…
The best part is the nation sees you for what you are, a liar with personal accountability issues. You’ll still most likely be confirmed because the Senate is filled with guys just like you, fucking liars who are also cowards afraid for their jobs. Willing to sell their integrity for a chance to keep sucking on the public tit until they’re too old to work for a living.