A combat decorated Army Master Sergeant – and blogger – was brought low by a hyperventilated school board and middle management.
Yeah: It’s chicken sh!t.
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TravestyBy lex, on December 14th, 2009
25 comments to Travesty |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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That is just flat out wrong. So much for some peoples vow to ophold and defend the Constitution, or at least the Bill of Rights.
I’ve been following this for a bit. It indeed is absolute BS.
Bad enough that the frikkin’ school board complained to his command.
Worse that his command caved to the frikkin’ school board.
He’s a good man and deserves our support.
Who are the enemies, foreign and domestic?
I don’t think C.J. is one of them.
I love the Army, but CJ has a point, the middle management is screwing the pooch on this. When the school board called his company commander, he gave a good answer. It was when the post folks got involved that the Army started to fuck up by the numbers.
You’re absolutely right, Lex. ChickenSh!t all around.
First, that the school board would stoop to such manipulative tactics and, second, that the Army has become complicit in suppressing a father’s right to opine regarding matters concerning his children. MSGT Grisham’s blog is his voice to the community, and God bless him for it.
Whiskey Delta Army leadership needs to pop tall instead of cowering in the face of the pathetic mewling coming from the petulant few.
Thank God you’ve been piped over the side. The gloves are off…
“Military Intelligence”. Heh, no one else has said it yet, so I reckon it’s up to me: There’s no such thing as Military Intelligence.
Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself, after reading some of the weasel words spoken by the higher-ups.
Knowing what I know about the Huntsville school district, their actions hold no surprise for me. However, the actions of CJ’s (former) command are deplorable and disgusting.
My prayers are with CJ. I wish I had something to offer up for his legal defense but, for now, prayers will have to suffice.
I hate to be the contrarian here, but isn’t there a specific statue which prohibits those serving from directly & publicly criticizing their superiors, including Congress and the President?
I recall seeing references to this back when lefty officers went a little librarian-poo bitching about the Bush administration. It was my understanding at the time that public criticism of one’s superior officers was a court-martial offense. Certainly many war supporters publicly salivated over the potential humiliation of liberal/progressive serving officers.
Would not the Master Sergeant’s comments with respect to Obama qualify as insubordination? That’s the meaning I gathered back when Bush was in office; servicemen/women don’t get to disrespect their superiors in public.
They cannot speak contemptuously of the President. That’s a little different from saying they cannot criticize the President.
Along this lines, I guess you would have to define speaking contemptuously. Is saying that the President is an untruthful person contemptuous?
Casey,
If I remember correctly, this article does not apply to the enlisted, only to the officers.
Right behind Homeowner’s Associations in their attraction of petty tyrants and self-righteous morons are PTAs. As a breeding ground and often launching pads for the careers of petty criminal politicians School Boards seem to rank at or near the top. And why not? – they both offer the perfect platform for tyrannical oppression based policies because “its for the children”.
Not all participants, of course, qualify for such labels as much good gets done in these organizations name. But as a honey-pot attracts disease laden vermin so these organizations attract a disproportionate number of power-crazed wannabes.
Its just so high school – some never think the race for sophomore class secretary is ever over.
So if the local school board doesn’t like my blog they can complain to my employer? That would be a laugh. Why don’t they complain to my church or my kids little league organization at the same time. Makes absolutely no sense. Just because the Master Sgt. works for the American people they can get him in trouble. Classic.
I’ve seen it in the Navy, I’ve seen it on the police dept., I’ve seen it in the private sector, and this is just one more example: Many people in leadership positions (note I did not call them “leaders”) are pathologically unable to let their subordinates decisions stand on matters clearly in their scope of responsibility.
As XBradTC pointed out, the CC made the right call but was second-guessed by the REMFs.
One of the many challenges of leadership is standing behind your subordinates when “the customer” doesn’t like their answer.
I hope he sues the bastards. They richly deserve to be taken down a knotch or two, or 10. They are very small people in over their heads.
@QM – CJ’s trying to raise enough money for the legal retainer. He & Emily are cutting corners everywhere possible, even down to eating one meal a day. Good people who’ve been treated very shabbily by a school system and by the Army. Sometimes I’d like to be Queen & rich for a day…
I’d contribute if I weren’t looking at more legal expenses over my grandkids. I’m hoping to hold things down, but I’m looking at nearly $6K to finally settle things for my grandkids. It’s been going since Nov 2002 and I think I’m finally looking at the end of the road. We’ve already scraped the bottom of the barrel though.
I can’t count the times as a dept. head or XO I had to remind people above me that just because someone from the public made a complaint, it didn’t make the Sailor automatically guilty or a problem. All too often that’s the way it works, though.
O’5s and O’6s are lookin for a star–and busily covering their fannies whilst doing–wouldn’t want to make a mistake while waiting for promotion. So they’ll always serve a lot of chicken–and it ain’t always salad.
I’m reminded of a scene from the movie, The Bridge at Toko Ri. They’re docking a carrier, and need some help to dock her. So they line up all the ADs on the edge of deck, running at full throttle to “windmill” the ship to the dock.
The CAG goes running up to the Admiral –bypassing the carrier’s CO–to complain that the plane engines are being abused and that wind up costing the life of a pilot on a later flight over Korea. The Admiral asks him whether he realized he was bypassing the chain of command and might suffer consequences for doing so. CAG backs down, apologizes and retreats. The Admiral then tells another officer that he’ll have to write an unsatisfactory fitness report because the guy backed down. The lesson being that if you think you have to go around the chain of command, you’d better stick to your guns–because that’s what a true leader would do.
[...] Neptunus Lex calls it a travesty and he ain’t wrong. The rise and fall of a military blogger illustrates the difficulties of trying to restrain modern information technologies with rules and regulations designed for bygone days where paper and the typing pool ruled. no wonder the bad guys are all over us in the cybersphere. There is no way to protect our information now other than through education – the more draconian the rules we implement, the more chinks in the armour will be made – and exploited… [...]
Wow. Color me in awe…
MBinAL, looking at the beverage mug with our host’s smiling caricature on it, makes me think that something similar on his blog might be the way to go for the good MSGT.
MM – Re. Bridges…is it any wonder why we oft times miss those of that generation? Unafraid to clear the air of the stench of bullsh!t, and make the hard and unrelenting decisions often so necessary in life; Harry Truman signing off on two devastating attacks that ultimately spared over a million lives.
That kind of brass in mid-level leadership anywhere, military or corporate, always serves the country well.
Mongo, CJ has a paypal account set up that people can contribute to.
CJ has info on his Legal Defense Fund at his blog. He also has a bank account set up for donations in case you’re not comfortable using PayPal.
The item that is most bother some: “…but this whole thing has really soured me and made me second-guess what I’m doing here.”
If he, or anyone else thinks that it has EVER been any other way, then they are not paying attention. He, like all others that have served in good faith and diligence, are expendable. The medals and honors are to potentate and extend the mythology. Strip away all of the pep rally sentimentalism and all you have left are gardens of stone willingly created by those who “loathe the military”.
At what point does continuing to volunteer become enabling?