sherpa Posted Wednesday at 07:06 PM Posted Wednesday at 07:06 PM 13 minutes ago, Wolfgang said: Interesting, so you really think they all got together for those 2 speeches and nothing else? Ya. I do. If it would have been something more, it would not have been publicized, nor would include such a broad rank spectrum. Senior enlisted through flag is way too broad a range to do anything quietly. What I think is that was some pushback about recent changes, and there was bound to be, and the current SECDEF wanted to make sure there was no confusion of the direction.
Trump_is_Mentally_fit Posted Wednesday at 07:24 PM Posted Wednesday at 07:24 PM 3 hours ago, sherpa said: He wouldn't have been my choice, but...... The previous SECDEF, through the absolutely senseless Biden Admin refused the Carrier Task Force Commanders who pleaded to allow them to get offensive against the Houthis. Instead, they sailed around the Red Sea and Persian Gulf defending themselves and commercial shipping absorbing countless attacks that could have bee stopped, (as they almost all have now), at unbelievable and unjustifiable cost to the US taxpayer. If that was directed from above, as it undoubtedly was, he should have resigned. When he disappeared in Puerto Rico he should have been relieved. Almost stopped? Didn't they just blast a ship the other day?
leh-nerd skin-erd Posted Wednesday at 07:25 PM Posted Wednesday at 07:25 PM 1 hour ago, LDD said: It's a good way to pi$$ people off and degrade morale. It’s the military, L, where orders are given and results follow. If it’s like most of these events, some people buy in, some people dial out, some people roll with the flow.
sherpa Posted Wednesday at 07:37 PM Posted Wednesday at 07:37 PM 7 minutes ago, Trump_is_Mentally_fit said: Almost stopped? Didn't they just blast a ship the other day? Give up. Just stop. There is nowhere near the activity from them that there was prior to this administration. That includes the Houthis and Iran, who launched 300 attacks in one night against Israel that the US defended. We were spending billions and depleting weapons at an alarming and unsustainable rate putting up with the Biden policy of absorbing attacks, as well as extending ship after ship, which has an extremely negative impact on retention. It is pure ignorance to suggest that we are anywhere near that policy idiocy now.
JDHillFan Posted Thursday at 12:34 AM Posted Thursday at 12:34 AM If Hegseth can thoroughly eliminate this sort of thing he should get a lifetime appointment. You really should watch this. 1 2
Tenhigh Posted Thursday at 01:21 AM Posted Thursday at 01:21 AM 10 hours ago, Jauronimo said: You're offended that I glossed over his stint in the Reserves and political activism? Ok then. I think if he wasn't a talk show flapping head he had 0% chance of ever appearing on Trump's radar. Its really the deciding factor on why he was selected. Nothing else on the resume even remotely qualifies him for the position. Talk show host and ring kisser were his winning attributes for the appointment. No, I really haven't seen the lowering of standards in any appreciable way. I've seen a few promotions where people grumbled that it was likely a diversity play. And maybe it was. But every company I've ever worked at, including multi-national companies with strong DEI movements, the ranks above manager are overwhelmingly dominated by white men. Many of which have been semi-competent in my view, benefitting immensely from their identities as they looked like their superiors and shared similar values and backgrounds. I've been in the room multiple times where my bosses felt comfortable enough to share views on certain races, cultures, and genders that would have likely gotten them in hot water if not fired. I know I have benefited from being a white guy who is fun to have a few beers with. If DEI is replacing all the white men with black lesbians, then its failing miserably in my experience. A few true "DEI hires" sprinkled in here and there, per the most salacious definition advanced in PPP, is more akin to tokenization than a movement with any teeth. Have you ever worked for a white guy who had no business occupying the position he found himself in? I know I have. Incompetence and non-merit based hiring pre-dates DEI by millennia. Are we upset about incompetence or who benefits from hiring incompetence? Seems like the latter to me. In response to the "DEI is just a pathway to hire incompetent minorities", I submit the following counter points: - Resume studies that demonstrate that people with "black" sounding names were significantly less likely to get called back than identical resumes with "white" sounding names. - Employment studies which suggest white applicants have more success at every level of education and experience or lack thereof. - Despite the fast track to the good life DEI has supposedly granted anyone who isn't a white man, minority applicants widely believe they need to be "Twice" as qualified or experienced as their peers for similar roles. And for executive positions data supports the idea of more qualified/experienced rather than less. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names https://cepr.net/publications/the-continuing-power-of-white-preferences-in-employment/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/why-black-workers-really-do-need-to-be-twice-as-good/409276/ Many more studies on the topic exist for anyone who is actually interested. If anyone has a credible study on DEI practices and resulting in widespread hiring of less qualified applicants over white men, I'd love to see it. I'm not interested in any one off tweets, thanks. I had similar views on Affirmative Action and DEI as you and many on this board not all that long ago. I had major objections to hiring based on race or identity over merit and I still do. Years later I believe this remains more of a talking point based on a hypothetical outcome of bad DEI practices, and while compelling, I believe this talking point is unsupported by the studies I've read and my experience in corporate America. Maybe its more pronounced in the public sector? Based on the political rhetoric from 40 years of affirmative action and DEI you'd think Fortune 500 companies would look more like the NFL by now. Something isn't adding up. You didn't gloss over it, you omitted it to make a point when you didn't really need to, but we are already in an agreement that he's a crony hire. As for that 'Kay' DEI diatribe, I'll reply tomorrow. It's a lot of words.
Jauronimo Posted Thursday at 02:23 PM Posted Thursday at 02:23 PM 13 hours ago, Tenhigh said: You didn't gloss over it, you omitted it to make a point when you didn't really need to, but we are already in an agreement that he's a crony hire. As for that 'Kay' DEI diatribe, I'll reply tomorrow. It's a lot of words. Don't bother.
Tenhigh Posted Thursday at 08:08 PM Posted Thursday at 08:08 PM 5 hours ago, Jauronimo said: Don't bother. Great interaction buddy!
Jauronimo Posted Thursday at 08:27 PM Posted Thursday at 08:27 PM 18 minutes ago, Tenhigh said: Great interaction buddy! I replied in the spirit of the post I received, buddy. Quote As for that 'Kay' DEI diatribe, I'll reply tomorrow. It's a lot of words.
Tenhigh Posted Thursday at 08:44 PM Posted Thursday at 08:44 PM 16 minutes ago, Jauronimo said: I replied in the spirit of the post I received, buddy.
B-Man Posted yesterday at 03:57 AM Posted yesterday at 03:57 AM JOHN NOONAN: The Speech the Pentagon Didn’t Want, but the Military Needed. War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s headline-grabbing speech in Quantico this week has irked the professional commentary class but is drawing accolades from those who matter — the men and women on the frontlines of America’s defense. Hegseth’s remarks to every general officer in the U.S. military, which called for a force-wide military reset and realignment back to warfighting fundamentals, were derided in all the usual places. The Atlantic led with “hundreds of generals try to keep a straight face.” The New York Times wrote, “his address focused on the kinds of issues he would have dealt with as a young platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq or as a company commander in the Guard. He talked about grooming standards. . . . He preached the importance of physical fitness . . . [he said] without presenting any evidence, that standards had been lowered across the force over the last decade to meet arbitrary racial and gender quotas” (evidence of that here, should NYT researchers need assistance for future stories). MSNBC’s header proclaimed the speech “was even worse than expected.” Not one of the authors of these pieces was a veteran. None of them fought on combat deployments under the failed military leaders of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And none of them were twice awarded the Bronze Star like Hegseth. My various interactions with military pals are hardly scientific, but credibly tell a very different story than the one bouncing around the usual echo chambers. One USAF fighter pilot and graduate of the service’s elite weapons school, on the cusp of separating from service, texted me that he “may have to reconsider leaving.” Another Air Force colleague, a quiet critic of this administration, admitted, “at least we’re getting serious again.” And an old infantry officer pal, now retired, offered me a relieved “finally.” A more scientific Congressional report in 2021 found that 94 percent of sailors interviewed said the string of high-profile operational failures was related to Navy culture and leadership problems. (Full disclosure, I worked on this report as a Senate staffer). The reaction to the speech was reflective of the wider disconnect between people who think for a living and people who do for a living. It was a microcosm of the 2016 and 2024 elections, with high-wealth, high-status coastal smarty-pants types utterly appalled at the national electorate’s rejection of weird political fads, their plea for common sense, and exhausted need for a return to the basics of good governance. This is a fair summarization of the Biden Administration’s treatment of the Pentagon. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas frames it as a widening ideological dichotomy between the “people who take a shower before work and the people who take a shower after work.” I always liked the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s quote, possibly apocryphal, “I prefer the company of peasants as they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.” In modern America, there seems to be an inverse relationship between educational credentials and common sense. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-speech-the-pentagon-didnt-want-but-the-military-needed/
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