Thank You From An Active Duty Military General
From: (Active Duty Military General’s e-mail address withheld)
Subject: Thank You From An Active Duty Military General
Date: November 15, 2024 at 9:03:48 AM MST
To: Michael L Weinstein <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Mikey and the MRFF Team –
I’ve gone through all the stages of grief these past few weeks. Not necessarily for myself…I’ve had a great career and retirement doesn’t sound so bad. But I fear for my service members. Our DoD has always led the way towards the integration of women, people of color and racial minorities, minority faith and non-faith people, transgender people and others of the LGBTQ+ community. Our Services have worked to reduce disparity and barriers to promotion. We’ve made gains in modifying dress and appearance standards to be more inclusive and reduce barriers and physical ailments that some of our strict standards were causing. The upcoming Administration is already vocalizing a reversal of all this goodness. Not just a reversal of a few standards, but complete elimination of our amazing leaders who fought for diversity and inclusion because these leaders know it makes us the best Air Force, Space Force, Navy, Marines, Army, and Coast Guard in the world. I am afraid for our service members. Afraid that their proud service will be thrown away because they are transgender, or another member of the LGBTQ+ community, or because they practice a minority faith or non-faith path, or because they are a black man that spoke on the military need for diversity and inclusion. How will we recruit and retain our fighting force of the future if that future is watching these horrors occur? We won’t. Then we’ll wring our hands about why we are not the best in the world. Our adversaries are definitely watching and I’m sure they are comforted by what is about to happen.
Thank you for all that you do to fight for our amazing members who volunteered to serve this great nation.
– A General Officer currently on active duty
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General, if you guys had court-martial guys like Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter for their roles in the Iran-Contra affair, court-martial all those military and ex-military people who participated in the 1/6 event and court-martial the military people especially Christian nationalists who impose the religious beliefs on other people thus violating the line between church and religion, you wouldn’t have organizations like MRFF and the ACLU doing your job.
I noted the mention of possible decline in recruiting. Pre-Trump, the only service achieving its recruiting goal is the Marine Corps. Navy enlistees, up to age 41, are eligible for bonuses from ~ $5,000 to $140,000 and it still struggles but misses the target. Based on experience as a Recruiter-In-Charge during Viet Nam, I initially envision a decline in enlistments, a large increase in first-term experienced members accepting discharges, and significant retirement requests from the career pay grades (E-6, E-7, E-8, & E-9), many who planned to remain for 24 to 30 years. I’m guessing some would respond, that this would be crazy as there would be few jobs. My story is somewhat similar and my wife and I had agreed to this two years prior. Family time was the priority! In 1980 I was selected for Command Master Chief. That would have required a two year obligation on sea duty. I shocked the CO and XO when I informed them I was declining the promotion to submit my retirement request! They tried to convince me no jobs were available due to the recession. “The early 1980s recession was a severe economic recession that affected much of the world between approximately the start of 1980 and 1982. It is widely considered to have been the most severe recession since World War II until the 2007–2008 financial crisis.” I got help with my resume from a university business management professor and started a campaign six months early. I turned down several interview requests, including the CIA. I interviewed with a company in Rockville and shocked the CO when I showed him the offer letter four months prior to my retirement. I took 60 days retirement leave and started work while buying a home. In today’s $ I was earning $107,000! The actual outcome of this puzzle will be interesting.
Studies show that every time, a Republican is in the White House, you will always get a recession. Of course, it doesn’t help when American CEOs have sent jobs overseas in the last 45 years and/or hired immigrants (legal and illegal) to replace American workers not to mention the CEOs have totally dis-invested themselves from American society while at the same time have access to the politicans.