The Enemy From Within

[kalm]

I was also impressed by the many younger veterans who stepped up afterwards on social media to express disapproval of what Trump and Hegseth had to say. I was particularly struck by this post from a leader of the group Veterans for Responsible Leadership, reacting to Hegseth’s boast that “America’s warriors . . . kill people and break things for a living.”

This is a disgraceful message. There was a soldier that I served with in the army that later was killed in Mosul, Iraq that said the reason he joined the military was because he believed that it was the greatest force for good that the world has ever known. He said the military not only taught its soldiers to be lethal, but it also taught us to be compassionate and empathetic and care about not only the American people but also freedom-loving and -seeking people from all over the globe. This is the true warrior ethos that so many of us veterans know and love. I’m thinking about him a lot tonight and will be damned if sons of bitches like Trump and Hegseth will transform our great military into something resembling the Russians’. His memory and service must not be in vain.

Yesterday also saw a notable contribution to our public discourse from a veteran of a different generation, a man who served a tour in the Army over six decades ago and then continued his public service with a distinguished career as a U.S. federal district court judge. William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the federal bench in Massachusetts and now a senior judge, wrote a long and careful opinion in American Association of University Professors et al. v. Marco Rubio, finding that in one of the early ICE arrests this year the Trump administration had trampled on the free speech rights of an immigrant.

But Young chose to go beyond his important legal analysis of free speech jurisprudence to discuss the larger meaning of “our magnificent Constitution.” And so he addressed the practice of ICE agents wearing masks:

“Can you imagine a masked Marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-silenc ... he+Bulwark

[GannonFan]

It takes a long time to change something as large and as steeped in history as the US military. Trump has 3 and half years to go, and then he's gone. That's not enough time. The military will weather this storm.