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Forts and Senators
On Thursday, Donald Trump went to the Home of the Airborne- Fort (Roland Bragg (ex-Liberty, ex-(Braxton) Bragg) to gawk at a staged demonstration by the 82nd and other attached forces and give a typical Trump-rally speech. Normally, Presidential appearances at bases are at least somewhat discrete, with the caveat that Presidents of both parties have used the Armed Forces as props. This time, though, in front of a carefully-curated crowd of politically-friendly soldiers, the Army’s professional ethic broke. Soldiers cheered not just for the usual pleasantries but for the President’s personal, partisan grudges- against former President Biden, against Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass of California, against Democrats and immigrants. And yes, this is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and a violation of the long-standing tradition of political neutrality. Shockingly, the Army also allowed a Trump-rally-eque merchandise stand to sell MAGA-shit on-post, at the rally site.
Bluntly put, the Army fucked up. They allowed Trump’s campaign and political organization to perform a Trump rally with uniformed service members, on a military post, with a blatantly partisan message. The officers involved collectively failed to stand up for regulations, tradition, the honor of the service or discipline. This is far from the first scandal involving the Army, and it’s comparatively minor, but it still matters. As an American, how am I to trust that the government is honest or trustworthy or fair to me based on my identity?
This wasn’t even the bombshell from that particular rally. While there, Trump decided to drop the next bombshell in the back-and-forth name controversy- posts renamed during the Biden Administration to remove Confederate namesakes are being renamed back to their original names, but with “new” and non-Confederate namesakes. That’s right…Fort Polk is now no longer recognizing the infamous Louisiana traitor Leonidas Polk, but now James Polk, a senior WW2 general. Of course, those namesakes are not the actual namesakes, as President Trump so helpfully explained. “Officially”, for example, the current Fort Gregg-Adams / ex-Lee is being renamed a third time for Fitz Lee, a Buffalo Soldier who retrieved wounded men under fire from a failed beach attack during the Spanish-American War. It’s kind of weird how the President of the United States elaborated “Robert” instead of “Fitz”, but his confusion could be explained, because there was also a “Fitzgerald Lee” in a contemporary senior command role who was nephew to the traitorous Robert E. Lee. Then again, this is an Administration that is so focused on undoing the actions of its predecessor that they’ve washed away names like Hal Moore and Michael Novosel in their zeal to fellate treason, but whom simultaneously lack the courage to acknowledge their actions. Instead, they’re just picking people with the “right” names from the Army’s long history.
Now, it’s not to say that Roland Bragg and Fred Benning and Vernon T. Pickett don’t deserve recognition. Edward Rucker was, by all accounts, a courageous and brave aviator from the dawn of American military aviation. However, base names are one of the ways in which we build a legacy. Those legacies mean something. When someone joins up, they don’t really know or care about the history of those posts- they’re literally just posts. Not a lot of service members cared a bit about Fort Hood’s long-dead treasonous namesake John Bell Hood– Fort Hood was, is and will remain “the ‘hood” because it’s got a serious problem with deteriorated infrastructure, crime, undisciplined soldiers and leaders and all of the silliness of Corps headquarters. No one joins to get their name on a base…but one of the ways we remember our heroes is to memorialize them, and one of the more meaningful ways to do that is a name.
Perhaps no one exemplifies this more than Henry Johnson. A Black man, in the era of Jim Crow, who volunteered for the Army and combat service, along with thousands of other Black men, for a country where they’d be lynched at the slightest provocation in about 35% of the territories. His unit was literally parceled out to the French because American officers dismissed Black men as soldiers, and the 369th Infantry and 93rd Infantry Division were ignored for the better part of fifty years because it was inconvenient to admit that Black men were just as honorable, brave and valorous as Whites. His race, his unit, and his legacy were literally buried and mostly forgotten by the United States Army for a century, until the approaching centennial of World War I inspired closer scrutiny. Johnson’s medal was an acknowledgment of his valor, but for a base to be named for him- Fort Johnson…that’s a memorial to an entire generation of forgotten warriors. A memory to motivate the youth of tomorrow, especially those youth of disadvantage and those who overcame adversity to do the job at the tip of the spear. That name shows people that they too will be remembered, regardless of their rank and circumstance and identity, if they perform with excellence. Because that base name is not just about Henry Johnson or Ray Benavidez or Alwyn Cashe…it’s about recognizing that in the Service, everyone has a role and everyone will be acknowledged. That’s power. That’s motivation. But instead, we get another post named for another old White guy. Not to be dismissive of a career spent in the military and featuring combat service in WW2, but there’s nothing to inspire anyone in James H. Polk’s story. Army brat, goes to West Point, cavalry, Normandy campaign and the Western Front in WW2, staff work, senior leader, retired. Wooooooooo.
Trump justifies all of this with “superstition”, claiming that “we’ve won a lot of wars out of those forts.” First of all…no, brother, we really haven’t. World War 1 was a dog-pile at the ass-end of the war, where American supplies, munitions and bodies were the last decisive check on the last real shot of Imperial Germany, but those definitive results were products of American supplies and individual courage, not so much American training forts. World War II was a massive undertaking, but it wasn’t the names of sweaty Southern training posts that won that war- it was, once again, the steel mills of Pittsburg and the oil of Texas and the human capital of the United States and the valor of brave men and women like Ernest Evans and Jimmy Doolittle and Shifty Powers and Isao Oshiba that won World War II for the Allies. Same with Korea- Lewis Puller’s Marines and Matthew Ridgeway’s GIs pulled their victories out on their own strengths- if anything, the Southern forts were pointless for anything other than running laps and doing pushups. From Vietnam forward, there ain’t no “winning”…service members in the GWOT weren’t exactly inspired at all by having trained at a place named for Braxton Bragg, we were more concerned about how to avoid shitty posts like Fayetteville, NC. Luckily, the Administration also corn-fucks itself out of the superstition justification by concurrently announcing that they’re renaming the USNS Harvey Milk and considering renaming other ships in its class– named for famed civil-rights leaders like Cesar Chavez, John Lewis, Harriet Tubman and Medgar Evers. Ironically, both Milk and Evers were veterans themselves, and Harriet Tubman was more of a warrior than most , given that she faced near-certain rape and certain execution if captured so that she could personally lead slave-rescue efforts during a Union raid on the plantations of Confederate traitors. Weirdly, there’s no word on if White guy Earl Warren will have his ship renamed…and even if we ignore the obvious, it’s also hard to ignore literally millennia of seafaring tradition that holds that renaming a vessel is a bad idea. That’s right…Neptune himself keeps a ledger and does not like trickery.
Frankly, this is disgraceful. Not only does the Army fellate long-dead traitors, but the Navy lacks an Enterprise…to say nothing of a Johnston, or an Intrepid, or a Balao, etc. Instead, we get another Kennedy….wooooo??
Now, this isn’t even touching the gigantic hornet’s nest that is the deployment of soldiers (NG and active Marines) to the ‘riots’ in Los Angeles, the entire train wreck that is Pete Hegseth’s failure to provide any meaningful answers regarding the DoD budget or future plans to Senatorial oversight, and it certainly isn’t engaging any further in discussing the politicization of the armed forces by Trump’s purges of senior leadership, nor is it discussing the walling-out of transgender service members. But, late today, while I typed this up, I couldn’t help but notice this:
Before Padilla began questioning Noem, she spoke to reporters about the administration’s actions, the subject of her appearance in Los Angeles. Noem said that DHS and its agencies, as well as the military, “will continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city,” she said.
“We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country,” she said, referring to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.
That’s right: a sitting U.S. Senator, an American citizen who has been entrusted with representative authority by his fellow citizens from the State of California, and who is politically empowered as a result of that election to the Senate of the United States Congress, was assaulted and detained by Federal officials for daring to ask a question of Kristi Noem, the presidentially-nominated and Senate-confirmed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Awkward…but let’s parse this a bit more.
“We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this over or and that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country.” Those are Kristi Noem’s words. First of all, it is not a crime to be a socialist. Not at all. In fact, thanks to the First Amendment, it is entirely acceptable to be a literal card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA, or Antifa, or even as a loyal subject of the literal Klingon Empire and mighty Kahless, or to be a literal Borg Drone. If the local and/or state government of California is “socialist”, well, that’s the magic of the federal system. They’re “socialist” because that’s what the majority of the people in that state voted for, and as long as it’s within the boundaries of the Constitution, that’s totally acceptable. Second, simply declining to activate the National Guard for a protest objectively smaller than a Lakers playoff win-riot isn’t socialism, it’s simply making a reasoned judgement of the resources at hand needed to quell a problem before it spreads. If they’re wrong and it spreads….objectively, this is not a big deal, or a Federal issue, and they’d be judged on it. Trump’s introduction of military forces, and Noem’s ICE operations, are the root cause of these events and have assigned responsibility for these to them. Bleating about “socialism” and a mayor doesn’t change that.
Third, Kristi, my dear puppy-killing Kristi, Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom haven’t put a single damned thing over the entire country. It’s literally beyond their power to do so. Los Angeles, maybe. Arguably California has gone to the pit of “socialism” to some extent (and yes, I do think that the California way of doing things has gone too far in terms of regulating some critical issues of import to me), but for Kristi to insinuate that heavy-handed ICE actions are the only thing “saving” America from “woke Socialism” completely ignores the other 49 states, the judiciary and countless county and municipal governments. Karen Bass ain’t going to install gay Socialism in South Dakota and Gavin Newsom ain’t going to turn Florida Communist and as much as I loathe him I think that Power Wheel Abbott is of at least equal authority to French Laundry Gavin. At the very least, I think Kristi Noem needs to reacquaint herself with basic civics and political subdivisions.
Then again, we’re in a time where half of the government is entirely non-functional except as fellators of the Trump movement, so good luck?
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