Trump nixes NAMs for 4 prosecutors tied to SEAL case
President Donald Trump walks into the Oval Office for a meeting. (Evan Vucci/AP)
No participation NAM for these jokers!
By: Carl Prine
With a trio of tweets Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump nixed the Navy Achievement Medals recently bestowed on four prosecutors tied to the war crimes case against Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher.“Not only did they lose the case, they had difficulty with respect to information that may have been obtained from opposing lawyers and for giving immunity in a totally incompetent fashion,” Trump tweeted.
“I have directed the Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer & Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson to immediately withdraw and rescind the awards.”
Pentagon officials told Navy Times that they will comply with the president’s order.
As if the Pentagon officials would do anything less. Read the rest of the article here: Navy Times
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Big Pentagon, Feel Good Stories, Legal, Navy, Trump!
After that whole clusterfuck they were going to give them medals? I see the Good Idea Fairy is alive and well within the Navy.
According to the article, the E’s kept their awards for the long hours of grunt work they put in. Then there’s this loose end:
So, legal eagles, how can Portier be court marshaled for not reporting crimes that didn’t happen?
The same way Trump can obstruct investigation of collusion that didn’t happen?
Kindly proceed to the nearest hardware store and purchase a rectum extractor and get your head out of your ass. Then stop at the nearest 7-11 and purchase some Kool Aid. You clearly need both.
It seems someone’s sarcasm detector is non-functional . . . .
Isn’t this pretty much the premise behind “The A Team”?
You, sir, are correct!
Perhaps it will be one of those “mere formality” things, meant to clear the air but in actuality, get the charges dropped for not doing something that didn’t need to be done in the first place.
He can do the Chewbacca Defense now:
Self-esteem awards
Yeah, and now I hear the Army is starting to look at all those other awards they gave out over the years… at least mine are safe.
https://www.duffelblog.com/2019/08/trump-awards/
Gee, you’d think dTrump was in charge of things, or something. Oh, wait…!
Now if he can just clean up the Les mess….
President Trump can’t rescind awards and decorations that were never awarded to Les Brown. He can get the DOJ and IRS on the case though.
One can only hope….
Maybe he can do a Top Secret COSMIC rescindment (yes, I know that’s not a word).🤣
Sure it is and I understood what it meant at first glance 🙂
Hillary Clinton, because she was never the President, can rescind awards and decorations that were never awarded to Les Brown.
WTF? What would be the award if they had successfully prosecuted? A frikkin MSM? This was a consolation prize for bruised egos or done out of spite.
Geez, Big Navy had pumped out those NAMs rather quickly.
So, is the YN3 that pushes the inter-office mail cart around the Five Sided Asylum the Approving Authority on those?
Asking for a friend./s
NAMs are easy peasy to award.
I know that COs of ships and squadrons can award them without getting approval from higher authority.
And IIRC, a command that had “Program 2” billets could also award NAMs to personnel in those billets.
Anyway, IMO it’s too damn easy to get a NAM.
A shipmate of mine told me about his nav instructor at OCS. The CWO had ONE, count ’em, ONE personal award. A NAM in an over 30 year career. And what was the NAM for? For saving his ship from sinking! Compare that to some of the “actions” NAMs are awarded for today.
I took pride in the fact that I didn’t get a NAM until I retired. Especially after one ceremony where the dept yeoman got one for processing award citations.
A nice pistol, bottle of booze or bronzed combat boot would be more meaningful.
It’s a pendulum. One year they hand out NAMs like candy, the next year they hoard them like dragon’s gold.
For the first few years I was on shore duty, it was common for a NAM to be awarded as an end of tour award for junior enlisted. I even saw one cook receive a NAM for a particularly good meal! Comes my time to transfer to shore duty and I get told, “Sorry, we can’t give NAMs to Third Classes.” (This after seeing EVERY Third Class that transferred/separated before me receive one.)
Was promoted to Second Class on shore duty. For the three years I’m there, every E-5 and above that transfers/separates is awarded a NAM. Comes my time to rotate back to sea, and Surprise! Surprise! “We can’t give NAMs to Second Classes.”
Took me completion of ten years of active duty, two enlistments with two sea tours and a shore tour, before I finally received my first NAM as my kiss good-bye. Meanwhile I saw other Thirds and Seconds getting NAMs for hooking a computer up for the Nav Party to use in Control and troubleshooting a communications circuit so the boat could talk to a surface ship by handheld wireless at periscope depth, not to mention the ‘really good dinner rolls.’
It’s all a matter of timing and which way the pendulum is swinging when it comes time to get yours.
That second sentence SHOULD have read, “For the first few years I was on sea duty, it was common…”
Not just the Navy. One of my shop mates got two AFAMs for going on his annual tours. While we were off doing our jobs for AT, he went with the rest of the squadron (civil engineers) and drove a dump truck. Apparently really, really well. Probably didn’t help that he was a schmoozer that like to chat the right people up at smoke breaks.
Bn Cdr (LTC/O5) can give out impact AAMs (Army’s NAM equivalent) like candy as its approval authority…
Good. Thanks, Mr. President.
If I was the JAGs on this case, I would have refused the award.
This reminds me of when I was a cop. I was given a Letter of Commendation for performing CPR on someone.
I couldn’t believe it and it embarrass me when I got it. The man DIED for cripe’s sake! May he rest in peace!
I’d rather have gotten a free case of beer.
Yeah. At least I could have raised on in his memory.
Hey now! Why shouldn’t they gets themselves a NAM? I mean after all, they did achieve making fools of themselves, NCIS, JAG, and lawers in general. And they did a FIRST class job of it. Now THAT’S an Achievement. (and for the sarcastic impaired, I’ll just leave this here…/s/)
Bet you they were already in the pipeline because they figured it would be a slam dunk. Oops, you lost, so they were going to get it anyway. Glad they didn’t, they sound like a bunch of incompentent hacks.
Unethical and possibly illegal conduct by prosecutors in a Swiss cheese case based on minimal evidence and contradictory testimony by witnesses with a grudge against the defendant sounds like it’s totally worth a medal.
/sarc
A commander-in-chief who knows real stuff from BS.
Shouldn’t this have been in with the “feel good” stories?
A Medal for a whorehouse of a case like that? IMHO they should have had their asses busted down!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
*Cough*
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
*Cough* *Cough* *Gasp*
I’m not laughing about the case or about Chief Gallagher’s situation. I just find it amusing that someone in those inept prosecutors’ chain of command thought that this was a good idea. Even if they had managed to secure convictions on all counts and done so without turning the case into a circus, I still don’t see how you present someone with an award just for doing their damn job. Good on POTUS for shutting that shit down!
My 10% veteran discount at Home Depot is far more valuable to me than my Army Achievement Medal.
Well, I’ve used that discount from both Lowe’s and Home Depot. It’s going to come in handy for my upcoming plumbing repipe project.
Amen, brother. Lowe’s is the easiest. Verify it online, then it ties to your phone number. Don’t have to show them anything at the register, just give them your phone number and bam!
Though in my state it basically just takes off the taxes. 🙁
So what award would they have got if the had actually convicted Chief Gallagher?
Seems like this NAM is a “Bless your heart, you tried” consolation prize
For a while there I was confusing achievement medals with commendation medals. As I recall the AAM replaced the certificate of achievement and could be awarded by the first 0-6 in the chain of command and was no big deal. This smack down, though deserved, seems like overkill. But the Navy always was different.
First LTC/O5 (Bn Cdr) now… ARCOM’s approved by COL/O6 (Bde Cdr). (At least folk can’t get an AAM w/ “V”… that’d be stupid.)
Terminal Lance is rarely not funny or relevant.
Love it.
I was awarded the AAM, AFAM and JFAM. If I had a NAM, it would like be playing power with a pinochle deck and betting the mortgage on four 9s….
I knew a guy who had all of those plus a Coast Guard Achievement medal. Sometimes you just end up in the right place at the right time.
I meant “poker”…
I wasn’t Navy, but isn’t 8 days to process an award insanely fast in any branch?
It is. JacktheJarhead is likely right. These awards were front-loaded on the assumption of a successful prosecution.
Short version:
BN CO says to clerk: “AAM for Schmudlap. Nice job on floor buffing. Need it now”. Clerk creatively writes, types, etc. Hands recommendation form, orders, cert, green presentation binder, and boxed medal set with binder clip attached to medal to CO. CO signs package, takes bundle (less file copies) and hands to Schmudlap while clipping medal to BDU pocket (insert quick attaboy speech here).
If the CO doesn’t leave HQ, and Schmudlap is waiting in the hall, it’s about 20-30 minutes.
If the CO is the Brigade Commander (O-6), that is a 30 minute ARCOM.
Nailed it 11B. Pretty much how it could be done, on either the Battery/Company Level, thru Battalion, Regimental, Brigade ect ect. Did exactly as you described upon ordered on several occasions my own self. Had every opportunity to cut orders FOR myself on many occasions, but never did. Wonder why I didn’t ETS with a chest full of bling? Oh yeah…that whole “morals I didn’t earn that bling, thing.”
At least in the cases I was personally involved in, the awards were legit. Did see some that were known to be sketchy as hell.
Why hasn’t someone relieved the CO at the NLSO for this shit? The entire Gallagher case has been one non-stop Pan-Asian cluster fuck from the get go.
Anyone who’s ever worked at the Pentagon or done a Joint Tour knows that it’s all crap anyway – except those awarded for combat to enlisted personnel and very junior officers.
Aside from all the personal bling we msy/may not have been awarded, I’m sure we can all agree that when the president himself takes a personal interest in your achievement medals…..you have surely messed up somewhere along the way.
Having in your file award orders followed by a Presidential revocation order…
Yeah, and don’t look for any commander’s coin either. He’s got his eye on you.
None of you are going to like this, but this was overkill and posturing by Trump, and it is not going to help the SEALs solve their problems- if they don’t either SecDef or Congress will, and that will be bad for everyone involved. The SEAL community has serious discipline issues right now, and they are F’ing it up for everybody. They need to get their S#!+ together ASAP, and Trumps move will only make them think they have a get out of jail free card. Eddie Gallagher is sort of a folk hero right now, and there is no doubt that the prosecution mishandled this case, perhaps rising to the level of a crime. If so, by all means stop their awards and investigate. But do it quietly and move on. Tweeting this out as some sort of grandstanding move will only encourage the members of Navy Special Warfare that are causing a lot of problems for their community. But, even though he was not convicted, SO1 Gallagher had established a pattern of questionable behavior prior to that deployment. He didn’t murder that kid, but neither did he fulfill his obligations as a leader and he certainly did not uphold the finest traditions of the Naval service nor the United States of America. It don’t take no GED to know better than to have a reenlistment ceremony over the corpse of a detainee then send out pictures of it. That was just stupid and foolhardy, and says volumes about his decision making. I know many of you think those rules are stupid (you are all wrong), but they are not just regulations but laws and constitute lawful orders. Gallagher took an oath to obey those laws, and he failed to do so and to ensure his men did so. The big courtroom surprise was when the platoon medic revealed, counter to his sworn statement, that it was he that killed the prisoner. That means that he was either lying or knowingly withholding the truth during the investigation. Either way, it does not reflect well on him or his platoon,… Read more »
“QP” does seem to be the way to be.
I would offer the observation that while SEALS are a highly useful asset, so un-f***ing them is valuable, preventing corruption of the UCMJ and Justice in general impacts our entire military and it’s morale and functioning. Thus smacking the FlusterCluck of the court is actually the higher priority.
I think Sun Tzu’s commentary on discipline supports my position.
You make a good point, RD, but the one thing you left out is the Hollywood the Industry looks at the SOF groups as a way to come up with some cash.
It doesn’t help that some of the people involved in these missteps are social idiots, either, but a good portion of the blame falls on Hollywood’s need for cash.
Hollywood the Industry has been following the eons-long tradition of glorifying war and warriors, even if it despises them behind the closed doors of the production offices.
RedDevil, definitely agree with your assessment. Case in point the recalling of Iraq recently https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/24/navy-seals-kicked-out-iraq-over-deterioration-good-order-and-discipline.html
A few too many screw up in discipline too many.
If you want to be professionals, yuou have to act professional. YEs, everyone likes to take a break every once in a while, but a professional knows how lax they can get and when to tighten the shot group back up. I seem to recall this was the case with BLACKWATER. They were a very professional organization that grew too big too quick. Too many non-professionals in the ranks and the professionals all left, then the unprofessional acts happened and the organization is persona non grata.
This 2017 article was pretty prescient of what we’re seeing today
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/selling-the-trident-navy-seals-describe-a-culture-in-crisis-in-their-own-words/
Here’s what I am talking about.
https://news.usni.org/2019/08/01/we-have-a-problem-letter-from-naval-special-warfare-command-co-to-force
The NAM is really the junior officers good conduct medal. They give it out Lt.’s and below for selling the most hot dogs for Navy Relief or running the annual physical readiness test.
When I was a CO, I did a lot of “management by walking around”. It was a great way to check the pulse of the command and to recognize excellent performance that maybe didn’t rise to the level of a medal.
To punctuate the attaboy, I had command coins made up to give out. Of course, I couldn’t give one Sailor more than one, but from the reactions of many of them that didn’t matter. They really liked getting the challenge coins. It meant a lot to them.
“Little” stuff like that means more than most medals.
I have a few medals, but what means more to me is the respect of my peers and the satisfaction of having done a good job for my country.
Think the Navy awards system is wonky? Go look at the Army and then have a few drinks before the reality hits you. Ho Lee Fukk