Sergeant Bergdahl is a Traitor because 'he read too much and didn’t drink enough beer'

[MADem]

74. I'm not lecturing you--your comments led me to believe you don't have an appreciation of it, frankly

and don't realize that it's coming YOUR way, like it, or not.

Look, if you think that service personnel who trash their commander-in-chief's decision making process, or who question the SECDEF's orders, possess "fairness and integrity" I can't help you. I will say it's probably a good thing that you've put in your retirement papers--you might not be a good fit for a smaller force if you think that kind of thing is "OK."

Force shaping decisions are made by Congress, not at the unit level. The shit rolls downhill. When billets are cut, bodies follow. Congress makes these decisions based on testimony from the service chiefs/secretaries. I have written a lot of that testimony over the years. The individual services make decisions about what they want to cut, where they want to cut it, and then the word goes forth. Often, installation commanders are authorized to shape their base force to suit their priorities, but the parameters under which they are laboring are VERY limited. They are cutting the billets, no matter what, but they may elect to cut an extra one from the logistics end of things, and leave a spare on the operational side. But those numbers, like it or not, will add up at the end of the day. If a commander is told that he or she needs to cut twenty percent of the personnel at an installation, then one person in five IS gonna be gone because the billets will no longer be funded.

We're not talking about uniform and appearance standards, here--Obama isn't the one issuing tattoo orders (which, FWIW were implemented for one reason and one reason only--to get RID of people, to make it harder for people to stay in, to single people out as "inappropriate" and push them towards the exits). He is, though, the one who made the decision to get Bergdahl out of captivity. Mocking and derisive comments about the Commander in Chief or SECDEF are boneheaded at any time, but I can promise you that tolerance for that kind of thing will take a downhill slide. And anyone who puts up with that kind of stuff from peers or subordinates isn't demonstrating very good leadership at all.

I bit my tongue through years of GOP Commander in Chiefs; even though I didn't care for them, and often their decisions, I wasn't so stupid that I thought mouthing off about my opinions as to my boss's decisions was a good idea.