On September 18, 2015, President Obama announced that Eric Fanning would be appointed as the new Secretary of the Army. Eric Fanning happens to be openly gay. This is an important milestone for the Army, since gay service members were previously forced to keep their sexuality a secret. However, as usual, the right took this opportunity to blame Obama for appointing Fanning to "make a political statement."
I am a currently-serving military reservist, and I follow many military pages online.
"Power Point Ranger," a popular military-themed Facebook page that has over 80,000 followers, posted:
"I care that he was appointed as a political move because he was gay. There are thousands of better qualified candidates. This man never even served as a soldier."
Other comments to this post showed more lack of understanding.
I care that he's not a Vet, was never IN the Army and has used his previous jobs to push the gay/trannie agenda on us. That's what I care about
I'm going to retire when they make it mandatory to be gay.
What I care about is that the man has no experience with the military much less the army... Seriously, WTF kind of choice is this?
Let's back up a little bit. The Secretary of the Army is a senior civilian official within the Department of the Army. The keyword is civilian. The current Secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, is an Obama-appointee and former Republican congressman from New York. Like Eric Fanning, McHugh never served a day in his life. However, he was qualified for the position. He was the ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services committee, as well as being a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 2005-2009. The Secretary of the Army is not supposed to be a highly politicized position. Barack Obama nominated McHugh because he was qualified. The fact that he is a Republican does not matter.
Let's back up even more. Pete Green was the former Secretary of the Army appointed by George W. Bush. Like John McHugh and Eric Fanning, he never served in the military. Pete Green was a Democratic congressman who held many positions in the Department of Defense.
Backing up further, Francis J. Harvey was another Bush appointee who never served in the military.
We'd have to go as far back as 2003 when the last Secretary of the Army actually served in the military. Why the sudden backlash?
Eric Fanning is highly qualified for this position. He served as Deputy Under Secretary for the Department of the Navy, Chief of Staff for the Department of Defense, Under Secretary of the Air Force, and Acting Secretary of the Air Force. When it comes to DoD appointed positions, he is more qualified than our current Secretary of the Army in terms of experience.
So, while right-wing military pages continue to make a huge deal over nothing, rational people who bother to take five minutes to do some research can rest assured knowing that the Department of the Army is in good hands.