Firing the Generals
BY Herschel Smith
5 hours, 28 minutes ago
It’s easy to watch Trump and Hegseth at work firing worthless generals now, but it’s also too easy to forget when Obama engaged in that action too. And one such detail is remarkable.
Rear Adm. Chuck Gaouette, commander of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, was relieved in October 2012 for disobeying orders when he sent his group on Sept. 11 to “assist and provide intelligence for” military forces ordered into action by Gen. Ham.
Let that wash over you. This officer was relieved of command for sending assets to assist and provide intelligence for what was happening in Benghazi and the forces General Ham ordered into action for the fight.
By the way, General Ham was also fired and had to sign an NDA on the event, so he can never speak of it. Clinton, Obama, and the other gaggle of demons. One cannot imagine a more insanely corrupt, polluted and poisonous bunch of people.
On February 23, 2025 at 11:43 pm, Dan said:
Firing people is easy. Obama proved that even he…as incompetent as he was could do it.
The hard part if replacing those people with hires who are competent AND who will do what is necessary and correct.
On February 24, 2025 at 2:12 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
Re: “By the way, General Ham was also fired and had to sign an NDA on the event, so he can never speak of it.”
There is probably some manner by which that NDA can be rescinded, but even if there isn’t – General Ham can probably make a good legal case that he was coerced into signing it, and that it ought to be null-and-void.
How valid can such a classification be in the first place if it was slapped on there not for valid national security reasons, but to protect the criminality of the Obama regime?
High-ranking officers who risk their careers and good names in the cause of honoring their oaths instead of playing political games and cashing in like their corrupt comrades ought to honored, not punished, for their integrity and righteousness.
Secretary Hegseth ought to emulate what was done by General George C. Marshall during his time as Chief of Staff of the Army. Marshall kept – or his aide did for him – a small notebook which went everywhere they did, and into which Marshall could record the names and other information concerning personnel who had impressed him, disappointed him in some manner, or who were otherwise noteworthy.
He knew that the army, indeed the whole institution of the armed forces, had gotten careerist and somewhat soft and complacent from years of peace and the bare cupboard of the Depression years. If and when war came, as he believed it would, a lot of dead-wood would have to be cleared away and up-and-coming officers appointed capable of getting the job done.
Over in the Dept. of the Navy, Admirals William Leahy – who later became the first Chief of Staff of the Joint Chiefs – as well as Ernest J. King and Chester Nimitz also used similar methods to track outstanding personnel on the rise in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
Secretary Hegseth is going to be under considerable pressure from the ring-knockers, the graduates of the service academies who tend to watch one another’s backs on their climb up the hierarchy of the service and the Pentagon. They’ll pressure him to select only from a pool of people known to them and a part of their ad-hoc association.
The Secretary ought to resist such pressures and – if necessary – promote much more junior officers over the heads of those above them and more senior. Indeed, if the right person for the job isn’t a professional at all, but someone outside standard military channels, he should be prepared to issue whatever waivers are needed.
The Secretary of Defense should know, and perhaps he already does – that principled, ethical officers who are warriors and aspire to the highest standards regardless of the winds of political correctness, often don’t make flag rank at all. Why? Because they upset the gravy train and smooth functioning of the peace-time military. Warriors make chair-warmers at the Pentagon and civil servants of all kinds nervous, which is why some of the finest officers our military has ever produced top out at O-6 and never make the jump to flag/general rank.
General/flag officers are inherently political creatures under our system anyway, since no aspirant to general/flag rank can be promoted to Brigadier General or Rear-Admiral (lower half) without the advice and consent of the Senate.