I remember being told by an elementary school teacher,’ “it is more likely you will pick up more bad habits than good ones, so be careful of your associations.”
The honorable Four Star General John Kelly has gone the Full ‘Trump’ Monty. Kelly decided to dash his reputation against the rock of history by name calling Florida Representative Frederica Wilson, referring to her as an “empty barrel. “He is now complicit in covering for President Trump, who has called Wilson, “wacky.” Trump, is a confessed predator of women and teenaged girls, “grab ‘em by the p…y” and I can go into the dressing rooms of teen beauty contestants because “I’ve seen it all before.” Worse of all he [Kelly] publicly and brazenly broke the sacred military code of honor and lied in a press conference a week ago.
General Kelly, I believe, has served in either active or inactive duty for 46 years and none of that devotion to duty and country could overcome being contaminated by Trump’s venom.
In a few short minutes, he countermanded his every Corps and core belief. Respecting women, but he works for Trump, respecting Gold Star families, but he works for Trump, honoring a fallen soldier, but he works for Trump and I go back to the Marine’s first core value, Honor. A portion of that code reads, … “A U.S. Marine must never lie, never cheat, never steal, but that is not enough. Much more is required. Each Marine must cling to an uncompromising code of personal integrity, accountable for his actions and holding others accountable for theirs…
Maybe as a civilian, who never had a relative die in war, although many members of my family served, I have no right to question military authority, or at least those seem to be the new parameters set by General Kelly.
We are in the middle of a shameful episode in America military history, a decorated General ignoring years of Constitutional civilian control of the military. The saddest part is that General Kelly knows better, and the American press had better not back down. I recall an incident in September of 2007, General David Petraeus was asked by Congress for his assessment of the widely agreed disastrous Iraq War effort. The liberal advocacy group MoveOn. org had been writing and having protest all over the country promoting withdrawal from Iraq, and was afraid a report from Petraeus calling for further escalation would hurt the country.
In a now famous headline MoveOn. org posed the question, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” for which, they were excoriated as shameful and disgusting. That was ten years ago, and we are still in the Middle East. General Petraeus did indeed betray us by giving away classified information for sex. The press allowed itself to succumb to the protestations of the conservative right and stood behind the pillorying of MoveOn. This time the press needs to stand foursquare in the sunshine of the 1st Amendment and question, demand, and badger if necessary to get the truth. By the way General Kelly, the honorable thing would be to apologize to legislator Wilson, remember General, a Marine is, “accountable for his actions…”
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