Earlier Saturday, The New York Times reported that along with Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Commander Rear Adm. Collin Green also threatened to resign if the Navy carries out the request of President Trump to restore Gallagher’s rank to chief petty officer after he was demoted last summer.

Officials say that The New York Times was inaccurate in reporting that Green threatened to resign over the Gallagher disagreement. Only Spencer -- not Green -- made such a threat, they said.

Navy secretary threatened to resign over Trump's request, but not top SEAL commander
—————————————-
My initial reaction.

Rear Adm. Collin Green, needs to step up immediately and clarify his support for carrying out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer needs to be relieved of his duties.
—————————————-
Maybe a change of my opinion.

On Saturday, Mr. Spencer denied that he had threatened to step down. “Contrary to popular belief, I am still here,” he said during a panel discussion at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “I did not threaten to resign. But let us just say we are here to talk about external threats, and Eddie Gallagher is not one of them.”

Link to New York Times

We need to be careful when taking any news source as complete true and factual.

It sounds like Navy Secretary Richard Spencer needs to be relieved of his duties, however in the current environment it is not easy deciphering the facts, as journalism is dead.

This could be another ploy of the media to generate fake news.
Could the media (Democrats) be trying to paint the image that the military is at odds with President Trump as a method of throwing mud on the President?

There are forces within this country, hard at work, trying to interject the military into the political partisan 'discussion' and take sides. The reasoning they figure, if the military, the most trusted of US institutions its leaderships takes sides against POTUS, then Trump has no more support and a coup is possible. These people have no idea what happens in coups

With Gen Mattis as SECDEF, they had hoped his resignation would be the signal to moderate conservatives to side with their position.

Adm McRaven's recent OpEd in the NYT has fired this movement up, and brought into question the appropriateness of former FOGO's commenting on political matters. The NYT is extremely desirous, to get a soundbite from any former brass denouncing POTUS. I would not take anything NYT prints serious, outside of their food and travel sections. The left is throwing the kitchen sink against the wall, along with the rest of the house to see what sticks.

Seems to me we have a problem in the military from damage done over the 8 years of the Obama administration.
A house cleaning seems to be necessary throughout both the government and military.

Is the Secretary of the Navy equally concerned with LTC Vindman’s espionage and treasonous acts?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kimber1911,

Well there you go. The Secretary of Defense just shit-canned the Secretary of the Navy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Balzé Halzé,

See ya, bureaucrat.

Anyone else wondering why the asshat Vindman - sorry, LT COL Vindman, isn't getting an Article 15? Regards 18DAI

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
Anyone else wondering why the asshat Vindman - sorry, LT COL Vindman, isn't getting an Article 15? Regards 18DAI

I’d like to think it is teed up, and they are just waiting for impeachmentpalooza to taper off.

All this public breakdown of order is a bad byproduct of Dems wanting to undercut our president. They don't seem to care.

The Sec. of the Navy got caught being two faced. Proved he wasn't worthy of Esper's trust any longer.

I hope he's not the last to go.

Satement from the DOD:

quote:

Statement by DOD Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman:

"Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper has asked for the resignation of Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer after losing trust and confidence in him regarding his lack of candor over conversations with the White House involving the handling of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher.

After Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley spoke with the Commander in Chief on Friday regarding the case of Gallagher, Secretary Esper learned that Secretary Spencer had previously and privately proposed to the White House - contrary to Spencer's public position - to restore Gallagher's rank and allow him to retire with his Trident pin. When recently asked by Secretary Esper, Secretary Spencer confirmed that despite multiple conversations on the Gallagher matter, Secretary Esper was never informed by Secretary Spencer of his private proposal.

Secretary Esper's position with regard to UCMJ, disciplinary, and fitness for duty actions has always been that the process should be allowed to play itself out objectively and deliberately, in fairness to all parties. However, at this point, given the events of the last few days, Secretary Esper has directed that Gallagher retain his Trident pin. Secretary Esper will meet with Navy Under Secretary (now Acting Secretary) Thomas Modley and the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday on Monday morning to discuss the way ahead.

"I am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD official." said Secretary Esper. "Unfortunately, as a result I have determined that Secretary Spencer no longer has my confidence to continue in his position. I wish Richard well."

Secretary Esper has proposed to the President that Ambassador Kenneth Braithwaite, current U.S. Ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy Rear Admiral, be considered as the next Secretary of the Navy."

https://www.defense.gov/Newsro...an-jonathan-hoffman/

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
Anyone else wondering why the asshat Vindman - sorry, LT COL Vindman, isn't getting an Article 15? Regards 18DAI

Because it’s gonna be an Article 32 and not just non-judicial punishment....

Then, on his way out, the secretary of the Navy, in referring to the president's direction on Gallagher, wrote: " I cannot, in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took . . .. "

So, in my reading, Spencer admits he wanted something different from the president and was working against him.

Even though fired, Spencer's final letter is here:


LINK

As an outside observer, President Trump wants to support hard chargers as a matter of good order and discipline.

While there is a line, the way the trial and command philosophy was operating, President Trump seemed to be saying Gallagher was not it.

Anybody else want to be president? You can be relieved of military service to give you time to try for it.

Look at how easily you were replaced, bureaucrat.

Trump's choice for Navy secretary has distinguished career

quote:

Braithwaite trained as a naval aviator, and after 21 years of military service, was the first of his class to earn a flag rank.

In his first assignment in 1986, he flew anti-submarine missions as a member of Patrol Squadron 17, stationed at Naval Air Station Barbers Point in Hawaii, tracking Soviet submarines throughout the Northern and Western Pacific regions. After a two-year stint in Naval aviation, Braithwaite became a public affairs officer and rose to chief of public affairs for Naval Base Philadelphia in 1990.

He initially went to work on legislative affairs on Capitol Hill, including strategic communications and public affairs. His job titles included special assistant in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs and director of public affairs aboard the aircraft carrier USS America, before leaving active duty and joining the reserves in 1993.

He assumed command of the Naval fleet tasked with providing support to the joint task force commander at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October 2001, shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Braithwaite deployed overseas several times in the Navy reserves. In 2003, he served a naval support role as part of the fleet involved in the initial invasion into Iraq.

A portion of his command supported the naval operations to capture the port of Umm Qasr in March 2003, which marked the first military confrontation during the Iraq War to regain control of a key port that played an important role in the shipment of humanitarian supplies to Iraqi civilians.

He later deployed to assist with relief efforts after a major 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.

Aside from his naval service, Braithwaite also served as executive and state director to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania from 1997-2000.

A successful businessman, Braithwaite also served in executive positions at ARCO, a prominent American oil company, and Ascension Health in Washington, D.C.

In March 2007, Braithwaite was named the senior vice president of the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and executive director of its Delaware Valley Healthcare Council lobbying group, which represented more than 50 acute-care hospitals and 50 other facilities providing health care services to Southeastern Pennsylvania. That same year, he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.

Although Braithwaite's tenure in the Navy and public service has been seen as relatively free of controversy, he slammed then-President George W. Bush's proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as "draconian" in 2008.

Braithwaite retired from the Naval Reserve in 2011 as a highly decorated rear admiral, his last post being vice chief of information and head of Naval Reserve public affairs.

We're already forgetting your name, bureaucrat.

Don't buck the CIC. He's in charge and you're not.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum: Look at how easily you were replaced, bureaucrat.

Seems like the replacement was named very quickly, almost like the 'crat was already on a list and the new person had been chosen a while ago. President Trump was just waiting patiently for the moment to strike.

Makes me wonder what other 'crats are on this list and who their replacements are.

^^^ I’m wondering that too. I had a very good family friend with a LONG history in the Navy get fucked by the Obama administration. What goes around comes around. Karma is going to be a mother for the Dems.

https://townhall.com/columnist...-the-others-n2556977


Fire the Admirals to Encourage the Others
Kurt Schlichter | Nov 25, 2019 12:01 AM

Mark this day on your calendar because here is the moment that I admit that Barack Obama did something right. He fired Army General Stanley McChrystal.

Now, I would have fired him well before for failing to win the Afghanistan War. In World War II, which America incidentally won, we fired lots of generals and admirals for failing to win. It was nothing personal. You aren’t winning, so “Next!” Obama did (gently) fire McChrystal’s predecessor for failing to win; he was a good officer who, by coincidence, was literally onstage talking to my Army War College class the moment Obama’s firing of McChrystal was announced. But that’s about the only big-name general fired for not winning since the not-coincidentally Endless War on Terror™ began.

Anyway, Obama fired McChrystal because McChrystal surrounded himself with a staff that included petulant and childish folks who decided it was a smart idea to run down the commander-in-chief and Veep Joe Biden to a Rolling Stone reporter, who published it.

Look, I am second to none in my love of mocking the proud papa of unproud papa Hoover Biden, noted dope-huffing loser and Ukrainian gas industry expert, but when you are a general, you can’t disrespect the CinC or CinC, Jr. That doesn’t work. Similarly, President Donald Trump needs to relieve the commander of the Naval Special Forces Command. And then he needs to relieve that guy’s boss for failing to relieve his subordinate. Oh, and he also needs to relieve the chief of information, or whatever they call the head public affairs guy for the Navy, for allowing his command to issue passive aggressive statements disrespectful of the President.

And the garbage Secretary of the Navy, who allegedly told “the White House that a tweet is not an official order and if the president is ordering the Navy to end the Trident Review Board of Gallagher, he needs to do so in writing.” Can him.

The Brits know – well, knew – a bit about how to have a winning Navy and about properly orienting their admirals toward victory. After all, the purpose of a Navy is victory; the rum, sodomy and the lash parts are just fringe benefits.

In 1757, some effete British admiral named John Byng was ordered to hold Minorca and he didn’t. He "failed to do his utmost," so the Admiralty hauled him out onto the deck of a warship and shot him. Voltaire wrote about this uncompromising leadership technique in Candide and commented, “Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres,” which essentially translates as “shoot an admiral every once in a while to encourage the others.”

Time to figuratively shoot some admirals.

Here’s what happened. The president used his constitutional prerogative to pardon or otherwise restore the rank of three accused military personnel, which some of us in the military community had mixed feelings about but which some flag officers vehemently opposed. The most clearly correct action was the restoration of the rank of SEAL Eddie Gallagher. His shameful prosecution had been replete with JAG misconduct, including the mind boggling decision of the prosecutors to electronically spy on defense attorneys. Beyond this outrage – and I note, incredulously, that apparently no one was prosecuted for doing it – these hacks put up on the stand an immunized witness who testified that he killed the alleged ISIS victim. Gallagher was acquitted of everything except some piddling charge of taking a selfie with a terrorist stiff and still had the book thrown at him.

Well, after the acquittal, the JAGs decided to award each other medals. Medals. Not indictments for their eavesdropping antics. Not letters of reprimand for their staggering incompetence. Medals. President Trump got wind of this and had to personally direct that these defective decorations be withdrawn. Fast forward to the restoration of Gallagher’s rank and what happens next? The Naval Special Forces commander, apparently the next day, initiated a proceeding to take Gallagher’s SEAL trident, his status as a special warfare operator.

Are you kidding me?

Let me explain how command works for those who aren’t military. Command is not about “orders.” It is almost entirely about the commander’s intent. You can give a formal order – “Let’s do weekly training at the rifle range.” But you can also express a wish – “It would be nice to have a silver bullet of coffee in here for the overnight shift in the main command post,” and that is also, and equally, an order. But even vaguer expressions of intent are orders – if the commander says, “Our guys are not passing the physical fitness test at a high enough rate and we need to do something about it,” then you would be going against his intent if you decided to cancel your subordinate unit’s physical training to use that time complete gender identities briefings.

Of course, that’s a bad example because in today’s military, briefings on the need to pretend to care about weird people’s bizarre gender delusions are much more important than physical fitness and no CO would get fired because his troops look like a bunch of thick Vindmans while a complaint from an aggrieved transvestite might cost you your career.

In any case, the president was unequivocal about what he wanted, and this pipsqueak admiral publicly defied and disrespected him. Then Trump tweeted that it was not going to happen. What should have happened is the Chief of Naval Operations should have picked up the phone breathing fire, but he didn’t, and it got worse. Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, Chief of Information, issued a statement reading:

"The Navy follows the lawful orders of the President. We will do so in case of an order to stop the administrative review of SOC Gallagher's professional qualification. We are aware of the President's tweet and we are awaiting further guidance."

At the same time, according to NPR, the Navy pressed on with its administrative review of Gallagher’s status.

This is intolerable.

Fire them all.

The commander-in-chief made clear his intent. Then, when he found out the Navy was defying him, he expressed his intent again, and they still drove on with their defiance. And then the press flacks for the Navy issued their passive aggressive statement and pretended that his expression of intent did not constitute a clear and unequivocal order.

Fire them all.

Then fire their bosses for not having fired them already by the time the president got around to it. And fire their bosses. Fire the whole chain of command and order them all to retire. And thesSecretary too. They can all go on CNN and embarrass themselves babbling about “fully semiautomatic weapons” or whatever other nonsense its audience of 12 likes to hear.

As much as the admirals – who really ought to have a bit more humility in light of the Navy’s recent demonstrated inability to perform its basic task of sailing ships without crashing them into other ships – might not approve of Trump, approving of him is not their job. While in the civilian government worker force there appears to be a Trump Exception™ to the powers of the presidency, there cannot be one within the military. This is an unprecedented breach of military discipline that must be swiftly, mercilessly and publicly crushed, here and now.

If you think some uppity lieutenant would have openly defied me when I was in command and not found his sorry rear out heading up rock repainting operations at the far reaches of the base, you are higher than former sailor Hunter Biden in a rental car.

Every commander knows you need to establish discipline. And one way to do it is to plant pikes with the heads of a dozen insubordinate admirals on the steps leading up to the Pentagon. Mr. President, you are the Commander-in-Chief and they disrespected you and your constitutional authority. Time to encourage the others to stop playing politics and start doing their damn jobs. Start encouraging, Mr. President.

Pre-order right this moment and get my latest thriller first thing on Thanksgiving Day. Collapse is my hard-hitting yet occasionally hilarious sequel to People's Republic, Indian Country and/or Wildfire, and was already an Amazon top seller, so see why. The Kelly Turnbull novels have been hailed by Bill Kristol as “Appalling,” so you know that’s good (Does Vichy Bill make an appearance in the book…? No spoilers…)

UPDATE: After this column was written, the Los Angeles Times reported: “U.S. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer denied a New York Times report Saturday that he had threatened to resign or be fired if President Trump intervenes to stop an administrative review of a SEAL at the center of a botched war crimes court-martial.” But if he doesn’t put an end to this mini-mutiny pronto, the president should still Schiffcan him.

FURTHER UPDATE: And Trump fired the bum (through the Defense Secretary). Good riddance.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Fire the Admirals to Encourage the Others

I'm reminded of the anecdote of the concubines in The Art of War.

A warlord challenged Sun Tzu to teach the warlord's concubines to perform military drill. SunTzu assembled the 180 women in a courtyard. Among these women were the warlord's two favorite concubines.
The concubines were arranged into ranks and SunTzu gave them an order. The concubines giggled and smiled and failed to follow the order. Sun Tzu then had the warlord's two favorite concubines beheaded on the spot. Again, he issued his order to the concubines, and this time, they followed his command, immediately and in unison.

I think, though, in this instance that President Trump has made his point by lopping off the head of one concubine only. I am quite confident that should President Trump have occasion to pardon another member of the military, there will be no "investigations" after the fact, nor any public questioning of the commander in chief by those who serve him.

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:

So, in my reading, Spencer admits he wanted something different from the president and was working against him.

Even though fired, Spencer's final letter is here:

Is it just me or did this clown basically give Trump a big parting "FUCK YOU" in that letter?

The Prez needs to clean house NOW of all these traitors or they will continue to try and screw him behind his back.

My idea: if you were hired by the Obama administration, you're done now. Pack your shit. Thank you for your service...BUH BYE.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

The letter is long and verbose because Spencer is an ass. It’s so long he couldn’t even format it correctly for a single page. Instead of writing a speech someone in his situation would ordinarily write a short paragraph thanking the POTUS for the opportunity to serve. Done