Very true. It is never a matter of liking a leader but respecting them. Respect is earned not given. I respected a couple of people I reported to that I didn’t particularly care for socially but they earned their respect from me due to their knowledge and professionalism. Having a beer on shore with them was not real comfortable but I’d gladly get underway with them once the anchor was up. Conversely I reported to a few that had the title but little else, we didn’t last long together.
In actual practice the best leaders are respected as well as pretty popular among their coworkers because everyone likes working for people that know what they are doing and can get their point across without making an ass of themselves.
If you did I believe you would find the vocabulary used a bit more sophisticated and extensive than that.
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Precisely which is why the retired SEAL I know said,“Gallagher needs to STFU.”
Agreed. However, my post wasn’t about liking. The post was to counter K-Captain’s argument that not all members of the SEAL community are unanimous in their thoughts. For mariners, it could be “liking” as you said, or “respect” as T’ng1 opined, or “ship handling” [I’ve seen some very skilled ship handlers, and some atrocious ones!!LOL], or engineering prowess below decks. I wanted to distill it down to a level that he’d and the rest of the forum could associate with.
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Paine’s writing “Common Sense” stirred a way of thinking and inspired many people in many nations. Like many of those who wished the states to be free from the king he was an anarchist, political activist and community organizer. But like many people with bright ideas later he started believing his own press releases and went over the edge. I’d suggest Common Sense, Rights of Man and his other writings to anyone as reading for the thoughts of that time, still relevant today.
In one of his later letters he and an author of the US Constitution were very clear that the US Constitution does not provide for a democracy, only 3 branches of government. Those 3 branches are free to chose whatever they want whether fascism, socialism etc. If the voters elect fools the government becomes whatever the fools want.
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Your retired Navy SEAL friend is entitled to his opinion just like everyone else is. I think it is safe to say all professionals have had times in their careers when a supervisor, client or co-worker made a comment or accusation about an event that you thought was untrue & it was better to suck it up & STFU. Sometimes you just have to take one for the team & move on. But not for a FREAKING MURDER CHARGE where you are going to kiss your wife & kids goodbye & spend the rest of your life in a 4x8 cell!!! And for $200,000 in retirement money that you killed for, were shot at & watched your buddies get blown to bits over? Hell NO! I’m on the phone & email with Payroll or my bank if I find a $30 discrepancy. If someone tries to take $200k from me they’ll see every time they open their front door because I’ll be on their sidewalk in front of their house with a bullhorn carrying a sign around my neck. I don’t know where you & your SEAL buddy are from but that is still a lot if money in my neck of the woods. STFU over life in prison & av $200k error my ass.
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Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I’m surprised this thread is still going. I’m still getting over a food coma, and binge watching “The Crown” with my wife. I had a dream where Audrey Meadows and Jackie Gleason from the old Honeymooners TV show played the Queen and King of England, and Art Carney the abdicated King Edward, and it was basically the same show!
You’re right HP. I read through article too quickly. He wasn’t pardoned. he was paroled after 3.5 years. Different thing.
From SP:
When your managers are publicly screwing up, show no remorse or inclination of admitting to wrong doing & no indication of changing, why the heck wouldn’t you publicly scold them?
I countered with a suggestion of the way I would handle the situation. His observation was:
One of the many things I learned from working on FOC vessels with all or mostly foreign crews is a CE or Master can’t just fire everyone until they get the crew they want. The CE & Master would be gone by the end of the week & companies will send other CE & Masters who know how to manage what they have. Maybe that is what Trump is doing?
My follow up question is, How would you, or anyone here, handle the situation you have described?
I think that’s a more accurate characterization of Paine than @Jamesbrown’s military adventurist. I don’t see him as a warmonger. His militancy was focused on the absurdity of power being granted on the basis of heredity and on the frivolous trappings of the monarchy which is why he lent his support to the french revolution.
Whoa, I didn’t describe him AS a military adventurer, I agree with anarchist political organizer rabble rouser and also that his early work was influential and pivotal. I was just pointing out that he wasn’t a dove, and that his comments on English adventurism were for effect, rather than principles.
He was high on his own sense, lacked pragmatism, and lost a lot of good will by always insisting he was the only person to be listened to on any subject. His influence was a significant and important one, but it was also one that decayed like radioactive half-life after 1776. I always think of Eric Hoffer’s quote with him, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
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He is OLD. He is of the time when SEALS were under the radar, never seen or heard from just felt. Kinda like Delta still is. Back in his day they didn’t make movies about SEAL and the Navy didn’t use them as a recruitment tool. A SEAL going on Fox news to whine about how wasn’t treated fair just didn’t happen. But then, there was no Fox news back then. It was a different world.
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I can understand people jumping on grenades to save their buddies or running into fire to save a fallen comrade but copping to a murder charge or giving away $200k so some old fat admirals & generals in the Pentagon can lean back & boast about having “order & discipline” in a 20 year war taken care of? I don’t think so, assign that job to one of the 11 other brave patriotic souls in the picture, I rather be free & keep the $200k.
My original post was only intended to point out a great irony in response to @Sand_Pebble’s observation about the current state of US military adventurism; not to start a debate on Thomas Paine’s character. In that spirit, I offer no comment on Mr. Hoffer’s character but I will say this: his quote could serve as a condensed version of US history.
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My $.02 here.
If my brains cells are still intact, wasn’t it Pete Hegseth, who is a Fox News Person, who brought the case to the forefront? And if I recall, Pete has been downrange with the warfighters. So perhaps the narrative is that FOX brought an improper resolution to the public’s eye, in much the same way Walter Cronkite mentioned the VC’s incursion during TET in 1968. (He reported we lost, when in fact we won that battle.) He [Cronkite] was instrumental in turning public opinion against the war. I’m not debating the correctness of turning public opinion, just his reporting of the event, and the resultant cause of it.
So it would appear, again if my recollection is correct, that it WASN’T Chief Gallagher whining to Fox.
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I’m with you!!
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With regards to Walter Cronkite and the Vietnam War…Improper? Cronkite was a hawk before seeing with his own eyes what was happening there.
Blockquote
Walter Cronkite editorial on TET and Vietnam (1968)
On February 27th 1968, with the Tet Offensive a month old, US news anchor Walter Cronkite appeared on television and delivered an editorial claiming that the Vietnam War was “mired in stalemate”:
“Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we’d like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective.
Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khe Sanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.
On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won’t show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that — negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms.
For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.
On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.
This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.”
In terms of the Vietnam War. The message to the nation just prior to TET was that there was “Light at the end of the tunnel”. While the TET Offensive was a disaster militarily for North Vietnam & the Viet Cong when it was over, it clearly showed the war was not over by a long shot. To avoid historical amnesia, try reading the Pentagon Papers if you can do so without getting sick to your stomach.
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Required reading for anyone interested in the subject:
I sat in a couple of unrelated meetings that Adams attended. A brilliant, driven, tragic figure. I also used the book as a text when teaching analysis. The book documents how DoD underestimated the size of the force we were facing by a factor of at least two and possibly three.
Earl
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This Gallahger is a real piece of work.
Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher and other Navy SEALs gave the young captive medical aid that day in Iraq in 2017, sedating him and cutting an airway in his throat to help him breathe. Then, without warning, according to colleagues, Chief Gallagher pulled a small hunting knife from a sheath and stabbed the sedated captive in the neck.
He was a loose cannon out of control before and after this incident.
Further information I discovered seems to indicate he like 150 before him deserved to be stripped of his Trident. If the prosecutor hadn’t been stupid Gallahger would be in prison.
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Yes, I read the version of the events that you repeated. Several navy personnel swore under oath that is what happened & most of them were given immunity for crimes they admitted to taking part in. I also read completely different versions of the events given by navy personnel who were also sworn under oath to tell the truth. Several people swore Gallagher didn’t kill the ISIS fighter. One of the people, a medic, admitted under oath that he killed the ISIS fighter out of mercy because he couldn’t be saved? It is obvious some people aren’t telling the truth. I think anti-Trumpers are cherry picking facts from the story to reconfirm their preconceived narratives based on their political biases & preferences. It wasn’t just a lone rouge prosecutor that acted unethicaly to give overwhelming benifit of the doubt for Gallagher innocents, the corruption went all the way to the top.The military used techniques that most liberals, Democrats & the UN consider torture to get Gallagher to admitt to crimes he said he didn’t commit. When Gallagher wouldn’t sign a confession, sensory deprivation techniques were used on him by throwing him in solidarity confinement for over 3 months & access to his family & lawyer was severely restricted & cut off for weeks at a time. He wasn’t guilty of anything nor was he a flight risk. He is a family man who served 20 years! Only a complete idiot would believe this type of torture could be carried out by a single prosecutor by himself. It involved the CO of the prison, his commanding officer, the judge & everybody above them. With no one else in the picture being prosecuted for the crime that the brass wanted to hang Gallagher with & all the immunity given to attempt to convict Gallagher it is obvious to any reasonable person that the system considered Gallagher guilty until they stacked the deck enough to find him guilty. The whole deck that liberals & Democrats claim was fair & didn’t need Trump tampering with was stacked. And coincidently, when Obama ordered a new deal for Chelsea Manning by granting her a full pardon the same liberals & Democrats said nothing at all or rejoiced because at that time they believe the system that had the same admirals, generals, judges & prosecutors was corrupt. This is politics as usual, I’m so happy that I’m a independent, libertarian who doesn’t have to be an unreasonable hypocrite on almost every political topic.
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Gallagher would have been judged by his peers, rightly so. Sadly, Trump never let Gallagher’s peers make a judgement. Had they ruled in Gallagher’s favor or not we would not be having this conversation as four senior enlisted SEALS give about zero fucks about what some politician or TV channel thinks. Their retirement and reputation is secured already.
That’s great in theory, except that ASN allegedly told CinC that he would ‘make sure’ the board came back with right decision.
The ‘right’ decision appears to be variable. Before CinC got wind of it, ADM Green looked to be hanging Gallagher out to dry. When CinC called out ASN, it became “you stay out of our personnel issues & we’ll give you the answer you want”
The politics at the Pentagon is unbelievable. You guys might think you have an idea about it, really I don’t think you can get unless you’ve lived it. Even at a grunt level, it’s present.
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Agree and well aware but my feeling is…When politics trumps your courage you have lost it.