Nice Sidestep, Mr. SECNAV. Nice Backbone, Mr. SECDEF.
Remember those recent allegations that the military records of the outgoing Commandant of the Marine Corps – Gen James Amos – were not exactly 100% “kosher”? You know, that little “oopsie” where somehow a signed official bio submitted for Senate confirmation seemed to claim that Gen Amos went to USMC’s “The Basic School” in 1972 when in truth he actually received credit for completing it via correspondence in 1977?
Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that – in the words of Gertrude Stein – “there is no there there”. The SECDEF has determined that the error in Gen Amos’ bio was due to a “data entry error” on the part of the person preparing the resume, and that claims Gen Amos padded his resume were “not . . . credible.” He also further determined that Gen Amos did not engage in misconduct in terms of unlawful command influence two other matters – the famous “urination video” and “Heritage Brief” incidents.
Bottom line: “Nothing to see here, folks; move along.” Gen Amos will retire with 4 stars.
Well – isn’t that special. “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
Frankly, the fact that Gen Amos will retire as a 4-star isn’t the part that bothers me the most. I indeed have a hard time believing that Gen Amos didn’t adequately and thoroughly review the bio submitted to Congress over his signature. However, since someone else actually prepared the bio that claim is at least plausible (if IMO pretty damned unlikely).
And while I have my own personal opinions about the other two incidents, I wasn’t there – so I don’t really know the “real deal” on those, either. The DoD IG apparently did clear him of outright misconduct in the “urination video” case. Regarding the “Heritage Brief” issue, precisely when a public statement does and does not constitute improper command influence in a Court-Martial is IMO a fairly murky area. And besides, even if Gen Amos “fornicated Fido”* in one or both of those cases I’m not sure that rises to the level of misconduct invalidating “successful service”.
What bothers me more is the way this was handled by the SECNAV and SECDEF. The SECNAV could have handled this himself. He didn’t; he punted it to the SECDEF. And the SECDEF’s statement here IMO gives the distinct impression of obfuscating through dwelling on irrelevant trivia – perhaps in order to bolster a predetermined conclusion – vice making a decision based on his own evaluation of the pertinent facts.
I mean really, Secretary Mabus: you couldn’t review the facts and make the determination yourself whether Gen Amos was truthful when he submitted a signed bio to Congress that was incorrect? And really, Secretary Hagel: blaming the submission of a clearly erroneous but signed document on a “data entry error”? Really?
Bottom line: I’d expect a SECNAV to be more decisive than that. And I’d expect both a SECNAV and SECDEF to actually, you know, face and make hard decisions head-on – particularly since the each is a member of the chain-of-command (administrative in the case of the SECNAV; both administrative and operational in the case of the SECDEF).
One day, perhaps we’ll see that kind of decisive leadership again at senior levels. But based on this, I guess we won’t see it any time soon.
* – PC-speak for “screwed the pooch”. Used here for the benefit of any of our sheltered-from-reality “liberal brethren” who might chance across this article and be offended by non-PC language.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Marine Corps, Military issues, Navy
If you were a senior NCO and submit an incorrect Bio Summary and/or made people think you were something you weren’t, you’d probably get “retired” or worse.
But do it as a Flag officer, “well, you had all those years of good service (kissing my ass), so its all good.”
This is like so much these days – the explanation begs more questions than we might have had if they had done/said nothing at all. If confusion, obfuscation, and/or misdirection is their goal they are doing it quite well. (Except for the part about many folks seeing right through the tactic.)
“was due to a “data entry error” on the part of the person preparing the resume”.
Said “person” will be found and flogged appropriately, then stand tall for an Article 15 Hearing.
Well considering that every officer is responsible for his/her record when it gets reviewed I not only find IMPLAUSIBLE. I find it stupid that we would believe some E4 is to blame.
Fuck this guy.
Remember, the Glorious Leader wasn’t responsible for targeted IRS abuses, it was “rogue low-level functionaries.” The Glorious Leader and Hildebeast weren’t responsible for Benghazi, it was an old youtube video and “what difference does it make?” See the pattern here?
Well, given Amos’s demonstrated lack of integrity, are you really that surprised to see similar crap coming from the administration that put him there? Chuck Hagel hasn’t exactly been popular around here at TAH, with good reason. Hagel wasn’t appointed for the good of DoD, he was appointed to be a yes-man for the Glorious Leader. Likewise, Amos wasn’t made the Commandant for the good of the Marine Corps, he was picked because he’d fire anybody who didn’t toe the party line. And can anybody say with a straight face that Dempsey has been good for the Army?
Hagel and Mabus did nothing but follow their established pattern, which is the same pattern followed by the rest of the administration. IRS, Benghazi, Fast &Furious, ebola, etc.
Yep.
Hmmm. So I wouldn’t be held responsible if S1 makes a ‘data error’ on my ERB? I should have kept the BSM they accidently put on. It was only a data error, after all.
My take is SecNav discovered the truth, had an aw shit moment and passed the buck to SecDef for the cover-up. Can’t say as I blame SecNav.
Unless he passed it to the SECDEF with a note/memo recommending a course of action, Club Manager – I certainly can blame the SECNAV.
The USMC is part of the DON. If the SECNAV though the CMC had stepped over the line here, he had a duty to tell his boss the SECDEF exactly that – along with recommending an appropriate action to be taken. Ditto if he thought Amos was in the clear.
I can respect him doing either of those. But from my perspective, it certainly looks like he merely “passed the hot potato”.
Imo, the bottom line is there is no reason to have any trust in, nor respect for, the senior military leadership anymore.
Our military leadership is acting more and more like the rotten inbred aristocracy that the “officer and gentleman” bullshit we adopted from Europe calls them to be.