Stolen Valor. Tech execs are being sworn into Army as Lt. Colonels.

[pnwmom]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/web2QMsfAdY

From Military.Com

Four big tech executives the Army directly commissioned to be lieutenant colonels, with no military background, will not recuse themselves from business dealings with the Department of Defense -- as the Pentagon, particularly the Army, cozies up to Silicon Valley.

Earlier this month, the Army announced Detachment 201, the name being a reference to HTTP code, for the newly commissioned executives of Palantir, Meta and OpenAI. The new formation is set to recruit tech executives to work on major Army challenges, but the service has not articulated exactly what those individuals would do -- instead focusing on recruiting talent and creating jobs around them.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/06/27/tech-executives-commissioned-senior-army-officers-wont-recuse-themselves-dod-business-dealings.html

The Army Reserve has commissioned these senior tech leaders to serve as midlevel officers, skipping tradition to pursue transformation. The newcomers won't attend any current version of the military's most basic and ingrained rite of passage— boot camp.

Instead, they'll be ushered in through express training that Army leaders are still hashing out, Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for the chief of staff of the Army, said in a phone interview with Business Insider.


"They'll do marksmanship training, physical training, they'll learn the Army rank structure and history, and uniforms," Butler explained. He said that "you could think of it as a pilot" of the boot-camp-lite plans, adding that the new soldiers were a part of the Army's larger effort to rapidly modernize.

The execs — Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, the chief product officer at OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab who was formerly the chief research officer for OpenAI — are joining the Army as lieutenant colonels as part of an effort to turbocharge tech innovation and adoption, according to an Army press statement.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-execs-just-joined-the-army-boot-camp-not-required-2025-6

[Squaredeal]

1. I wonder what a captaincy would go for.

An honorary title, of course.
We’re already selling green cards for $5 million.

[dlk]

2. They will be clueless in carrying out their duties

The harm they will cause is enormous.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Leaving them open to courts-martial by future administrations.

Or, heck, why not this one ? That would put the pressure on an uncooperative exec.

[Beartracks]

4. So much for meritocracy. Apparently you can just buy a Lt. Col. commission now?

[harumph]

6. "meritocracy" has always been a fig leaf to cover up

the obscene advantages that spring from being born into wealth. Trust fund babies of middling intelligence don't need
no stinkin' scholarships for college. David Brooks for one, used to flog the idea of a US "meritocracy" fairly regularly in the NYTimes.
He also wrote pieces that purported to showcase the home grown wisdom of the simple folk as opposed to the elites. The cap on
government loans for medical students means that (1) less poor and middle class doctors will graduate, and (2) there will be a shortage of doctors. The Lt. Col. bullshit is yet another example of "pay to play." Fuck all of these people. I'd set them all adrift in a leaky boat.

[pfitz59]

5. Will they be forced to live on LtCol pay?

Or keep their bloated tech salaries?

[rickford66]

7. Will they stand watches ?

Eat within the allotted few minutes ?
Sleep and shit when permitted ?
Be spit polished for morning formation ?

etc

[Wounded Bear]

9. They're not going to be enlisted men. Officers don't do that shit...

[rickford66]

10. I realize that

But they are going to attend boot-camp-lite. So at least they may have to show up for something.

[Wounded Bear]

8. We continue to move towards a monarchy. Back in the day, British commisions for officers...

were basically purchased, usually for 2d sons of nobility who didn't otherwise receive an inheritance due to primogeniture.

We're coming full circle, becoming the authoritarian state we cast off 250 years ago.

America, it was good while it lasted, for some folks anyway.