quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
Well this guy didn’t last long....
https://www.foxnews.com/politi...tler-on-social-media

A half-measure...the position still remains, not sure why this position exists within this organization other than political placating. Higher up just needs to insert a person who's 'less of a lightening rod'. Richard Torres-Estrada is getting 'reassigned', meaning, he'll still exist somewhere unless, he's dismissed entirely.

Whomever vetted that guy needs to have his ass handed to him.

There is an old leadership training film titled "The Road to Abilene". It's about four people in a car on a hot dusty Texas road on a long trip, who suddenly realized that none of them really wanted to go to Abilene, but started the trip when the idea took on a life of its own. Sometimes I think this whole diversity thing is a trip to Abilene and nobody really wants to go there. As far as SOCOM is concerned, their focus is supposed to be hunting and killing the enemy with audacity, and this has absolutely noting to do with improving lethality.

Hayes, exactly right!
If anything, "D&I" diminishes lethality in a Unit. "D&I" lowers the bar. It's fine for a place like Starbucks. "Oh, we don't have enough of purple haired tranny amputees with nose rings!" Well, hire one. At the end of the day, someone's Latte has no bearing on anything important.

In other organizations, ESPECIALLY Military, even more so SOCOM, there's a standard that HAS TO BE MET OR EXCEEDED, no questions asked, no exceptions made. You start lowering or playing with that barometric, the "mission capable" status is going to shit the bed. If missions start to fail, things like that effect our way of life as Americans.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
Whomever vetted that guy needs to have his ass handed to him.

I'm sure he was vetted & he was EXACTLY the person they wanted in that position. In this day and age, there's no way they DIDN'T know he was a radical progressive. They were just hoping nobody else would notice, and didn't think anyone would question their decision.

The conspiracy side of me agrees with you that they knew exactly who he was, what he had said and put him in that permission.

Knowing it would come out and blow up and he/she/it would be removed. The politician that ordered it would then have to just eat it until another 'clean' replacement could be found.

quote:

Originally posted by Elk Hunter:

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:

quote:

Originally posted by tacfoley:

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInWV:
Tac, I can't speak to that guy's specific circumstances, but "disability" here is analogous to "quality of life". I've had a couple of friends start their retirement process which involves going to the VA to get their "disability" rating. Some things are obvious....knee/back/joint wear and tear. Some are more subjective. TBI, PTSD, etc. If you have documentation that suggests you may have been subjected to that, you get the benefit of a doubt. Heck, I'm told sleep apnea earns a Soldier some disability.

Some folks I know of have a very high disability percentage, yet still go out and run/ski/etc. Again, I don't know the details of it, they may very well have issues I can't see. But it does seem like the VA pushes out some pretty high percentages.

Thank you, Sir. By those standards, then, I, too, am 100% disabled - just never knew it.

Tac, I believe his grandson lost limb(s) from an internal attack. They were retiring him, he refused and proved his way back to the front.

Different breed of hero than most.

He didn't lose any limbs, altho he suffered major damage due to combat actions. One, he was blown up in an IED event that blew that armored truck completely off the road and overturned it. That was when he had major fractures, mostly to one leg. The second incident was when he was caught in an "insider" attack while in some kind of "bus" arriving at the post with the rest of his team. He got shot in the lower jaw which broke his jaw on both sides. In the midst of that attack, he was holding his jaw in place with one hand and shooting at the attackers with the other.

He told me when he was 5 years old that he wanted to be a Green Beret. And he is one of the best. There are other incidents, too, but I think what has been posted here is enough.

I remember spending hours and hours sitting at his bedside, or sleeping on the floor of the waiting room while he was in Walter Reed. Damn, screen getting fuzzy.

Anyway, after his refusal to accept the Silver Star awards, they finally forced him to accept the Bronze Star (V).

God bless him and those like him and their long suffering families. They have my everlasting gratitude.

I am a firm believer in progression through the ranks into leadership positions. So.... If this guy wants to be in a position to make decisions that impact our SF units, then he needs to be SF qualified and progress up the chain of experience and rank to reach that position.
Just look at the guy. He is not fit to carry water to an SF unit, much less be in a policy making position over SF units and personnel.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
Whomever vetted that guy needs to have his ass handed to him.

There is an old leadership training film titled "The Road to Abilene". It's about four people in a car on a hot dusty Texas road on a long trip, who suddenly realized that none of them really wanted to go to Abilene, but started the trip when the idea took on a life of its own. Sometimes I think this whole diversity thing is a trip to Abilene and nobody really wants to go there. As far as SOCOM is concerned, their focus is supposed to be hunting and killing the enemy with audacity, and this has absolutely noting to do with improving lethality.

The Abiline Paradox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7m6byv89mc

Now I can see the writing on the outhouse wall and why they created this special position.

Well, it looks like another blow to the military..
This administration is doing anything and everything to weaken our armed forces.

Can we hear the flush of retention rates going down the drain..

Maybe I am wrong, too close minded, or just served in very conservative units but how can all the General Officers state that it has not or will not effect squad/Company unit cohesion and readiness?


The Pentagon on Wednesday will sweep away Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military, issuing new rules that offer them wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defense officials told The Associated Press.

The new department regulations allow transgender people who meet military standards to enlist and serve openly in their self-identified gender, and they will be able to get medically necessary transition-related care authorized by law, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions not yet made public.

All four service chiefs told Congress in 2018 that they had seen no discipline, morale or unit readiness problems with transgender troops serving openly in the military.

One theory that's being floating within SOF circles is USSOCOM, in an attempt to 'look like they're on board' with the new admin and to avoid the DEI Nazi's from turning their spotlight on them, created this position before being mandated to. Basically, trying to avoid the Congressional hearings the USMC went through when members of Congress wanted women in combat arms MOS' and having to explain to deaf ears their reasons.

The USSOCOM office hires on a die-hard DEI Nazi who's got a trail of offensive and bigoted (anti-white/conservative) public comments, once the outrage has built to a nice boil, they pull this guy. Put out a public statement about reviewing and investigating, once things settle-down, they'll insert somebody else into the position who's less inflammatory. Meanwhile, the SECDEF office and national command authority, smiles believing our best warfighters are ahead of the game, and no need to pull the curtain back and find all the wrongs they suspect the military to be.

Hope you are right about SOCCOM getting ahead of the woke curve. If they can’t figure it out, we’re screwed.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Freedom Ringing

(laughs)

Air Force Magazine wrote today that trannies will now be allowed to serve openly. The policy goes into effect in 30 days.

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of the enemy like he/she charging you with a bayonet and high heels.

And like a bad burp he’s gone....

https://nypost.com/2021/03/30/...-social-media-probe/

quote:

Air Force Magazine wrote today that trannies will now be allowed to serve openly.

That's bad enough, but what's really bad is that apparently the military is going to provide assistance for their "transitions." So a soldier or airpersonman can't go where needed because, for example, he hasn't recovered from his false vagina construction surgery?

https://www.militarytimes.com/...and-people-of-color/

SOCOM is committing itself to attracting more women and people of color

Meghann Myers
21 hours ago

As the special operations community takes a deep look at itself after 20 years of relentless counterterrorism missions, it’s seeking solutions for how it can adapt to the much-discussed “era of great power competition” — and that is going to include more women and people of color, according to a recent report obtained by Military Times.

There are no hard-and-fast targets laid out in Special Operations Command’s diversity and inclusion plan, but at 20 pages long, it’s more of a treatise on where the special operations community would like to go.

“All of us understand diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives,” the plan opens. “This Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan provides a roadmap for sustained and direct action toward increasing the diversity of our formation and ensuring all our environments, from the team room to the executive conference room, are inclusive.”

A push to promote more women and people of color into leadership, as well as rank-and-file, positions held overwhelmingly by white, male troops ― decades after racial and gender integration ― is part of a long game.

In response to a request for information, SOCOM told members of Congress in writing on March 1 that not only have the vast majority of special operations forces leadership positions been historically filled by white, non-Hispanic men, they have also been largely special operators, despite the other career fields under SOCOM.

The special operations community also includes Army civil affairs and psychological operations organizations ― military occupational specialties with many more women than, for example, Special Forces or the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Both SOCOM’s operations (J3) and force structure (J8) director “positions have never been filled by a CA or PSYOP MOS,” according to the written response. “Both positions have been filled by Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Operators or Pilots. The gender and ethnicity of the fills have been white, non-hispanic [sic], males over the last 10-years [sic] with the exception of the J3 which was recently filled by a Marine Corps General Officer of Korean, [retired Maj. Gen. Daniel Yoo] non-hispanic [sic], descent.”

Elsewhere at headquarters, women have held other high-level positions: As recently, as 2019, Army Brig. Gen. Michelle A. Schmidt served as SOCOM’s director of intelligence.

To “identify barriers to diversity and inclusion in cultural norms, narratives, programs, processes, and procedures and work to create a more inclusive organizational climate,” is one of SOCOM’s top priorities, to be achieved by, for example, eliminating “all exclusive language, behaviors, narratives, norms, and practices from the command.”

More specifically, the report touts Naval Special Warfare’s recent addition of women to its instructor cadre, “with the goal of normalizing women in SOF and better identifying issues specific to female candidates.”

Another goal is to “eliminate cross-cultural barriers to entry by assessing recruitment strategies, accessions processes, assessment qualifications, and selection criteria in SOF career fields.”

Though there is no discussion of concrete goals in the plan, one bullet point does call for determining “metrics and measures of effectiveness and performance.”

Adding some numbers to the plan, according to witnesses who testified before the House Armed Services Committee’s intelligence and special operations subcommittee on Friday, would add an element of accountability.

For example, RAND Corp. researcher Linda Robinson told lawmakers, there are three women serving in Special Forces currently, two of whom are in the training pipeline, five years after the ban on women in a range of combat MOSs lifted.

At the time, “85 percent of special operators surveyed were opposed to letting women in their specialties,” she said.

In other words, it may be hard to make changes without a timeline, or quantitative goals, the organization can hold itself to.

At the time of publishing, SOCOM had not responded to a request for more information on how many women and minorities have held some its top leadership positions. It also had not responded to questions about the reasoning behind its open-ended objectives, versus setting numbers goals.

Fulfilling the plan will depend on attracting a more diverse group of troops to SOF organizations. It will also be incumbent upon the current members to not only make them feel welcome, but to recognize the tendency for people to recruit, select and promote people who remind them of themselves.

“Military leaders must understand, facts don’t drive human behavior,” retired Marine Lt. Col. Kate Germano told lawmakers. “Emotions do.”

The plan comes a year after SOCOM released a report that found two decades of focusing on combat deployments and little else had eroded the organization’s leadership and professionalism, as evidenced by a rash of misconduct incidents that shone an unflattering spotlight on some of the most elite and treasured organizations in the military.

“And while, yes, I do believe that we are over-focused on employment and mission accomplishment, I do believe that through that comprehensive review, we have taken a hard look at ourselves and are making the corrective steps to ensure — I think, most importantly — that we have the engaged leadership present through the force at the right time to reduce those incidents that have been occurring,” Army Gen. Richard Clarke, SOCOM’s commander, told lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday.

Part of that report’s recommendations included a push for more diversity ― not only of gender and ethnicity, but of military experience ― in order to shake up the insular world of special operations.

“There’s no question that Special Operations Command is taking the issue of diversity and inclusion seriously, and that’s appreciated,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Military Times on Monday.

The effort is off to a somewhat rocky start. Richard Torres-Estrada, appointed SOCOM’s chief diversity officer on March 1, has been reassigned amid an investigation into past Facebook posts comparing then-President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, SOCOM spokesman Ken McGraw confirmed to Military Times.

At the same time, SOCOM’s message echoes much of what the Defense Department in general has been grappling with in recent years, thrown into sharp focus after nationwide protests erupted after the May death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., allegedly at the hands of a white police officer.

After several senior service leaders spoke out, starting with the then-chief master sergeant of the Air Force, who is Black, then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper launched a working group to come up with short-term solutions for promoting diversity and diminishing unconscious bias in the force.

Some of those included removing headshots from promotion board packets and a department-wide review of grooming standards, some of which disproportionately burden service members of color.

In the mid-term, the DoD Board on Diversity and Inclusion put out a report at the end of last year, whose recommendations included prohibiting “extremist or hate group activity.”

The final piece, the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion in the Armed Forces, is suspended pending a review Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered Feb 2.

That suspension includes all DoD advisory committees, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell told Military Times on Monday.


Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.

quote:

A spokesman said Torres-Estrada has not been fired but rather "assigned to other duties pending the results of the investigation."

Further, the Pentagon’s press secretary declines to comment on the guy while the “investigation” proceeds. What needs to be investigated? He posted this sort of shit repeatedly. Frankly, when they posted his picture, my first thought was, “THIS is the guy who’s supposed to interact with the snake eaters?!? No political officers in the U.S. military! None! You want bad optics? THIS is bad optics.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:
To “identify barriers to diversity and inclusion in cultural norms, narratives, programs, processes, and procedures and work to create a more inclusive organizational climate,” is one of SOCOM’s top priorities, to be achieved by, for example, eliminating “all exclusive language, behaviors, narratives, norms, and practices from the command.”

USSOCOM has been working on this for decades, the difficulty is most minorities, particularly Hispanic and Asian don't see long careers in the military as something to pursue, there's other opportunities in the civilian world that are not only more lucrative but conducive to family life/stability. For many African-Americans, the 82nd Airborne & 101st oddly had a higher than average ranks but, move over to SOF and there's a big drop-off. Some have cited the aggressive swim requirements as reason.

Special Forces has been trying to work on this, as they are the unconventional masters however recruiting and retaining Hispanic & Asian members across all the units is fraught with issues such as narrow career path pipeline. If you're Hispanic you're automatically going to 7th Grp, if you're Asian you're automatically going to 1st Grp. The other issue is the cliquish nature of SOF units, it is human nature for tight-knit or specialized groups to be parochial in whom they select however some units are better at dealing with it than others, it all comes down to leadership and making sure the unit doesn't resemble a fraternity full of adult looking children with pathetic 'traditions'. Word of such practices get out and tend to push away qualified candidates. Even within the SOF world, there's certain units that others look at not so much with trepidation but, avoidance due to reputation and past mis-deeds.

Is it too much to hope that this D-bag was reassigned to the snapping turtle cage at SERE?

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
Hayes, exactly right!
If anything, "D&I" diminishes lethality in a Unit. "D&I" lowers the bar. It's fine for a place like Starbucks. "Oh, we don't have enough of purple haired tranny amputees with nose rings!" Well, hire one. At the end of the day, someone's Latte has no bearing on anything important.

In other organizations, ESPECIALLY Military, even more so SOCOM, there's a standard that HAS TO BE MET OR EXCEEDED, no questions asked, no exceptions made. You start lowering or playing with that barometric, the "mission capable" status is going to shit the bed. If missions start to fail, things like that effect our way of life as Americans.

And when missions fail, people usually die.