Female Post Commander Fired Over Missing Portaits. Talk About Petty!

In the midst of, and perhaps despite numerous far more pressing matters the Trump administration and DOD in particular are furiously at work stamping out DEI. In practice a key move is to remove women in positions of authority. Let’s face it, for a square-jawed ‘he-man’ dude like SecDrunk… er SecDef Pete Hegseth ‘we can’t have wimmen around in our military/DOD.  Unless they’re HOT and can do secretarial stuff like typing while us real men try to get in their panties.’ It wasn’t major news, but the Commading Officer at Ft. McCoy was relieved recently. Initially the point was made it wasn’t due to misconduct. Some type of shady behavior or moral/leadership failing. Well, it turns out their excuse to dump Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez was three photos missing from a display – portraits of Trump, Vance and Hegseth.  Here’s a question at the outset – were the official portraits to put in the display ever actually provided?

In the title pic you can see the display in question with the three empty spaces at top. If you go into any federal govt. building you will find a portrait of the President, and often the head of whatever department those in the building answer to in the lobby. Other, lesser but important folks sometimes are also shown. I don’t know when it became standard practice to include a VP in such displays of the Command.  I wouldn’t be surprised it it happened during Trumpty’s first term. Both when I was on active duty in the Marines and later a civilian employee of FEMA the VP wasn’t part of any such “Here’s the big boss” display. But I digress.

Not all countries do this but we do, and have long done so. As if anyone entering a federal building needs to see a picture of the President to remind them of who is President. It’s kind of silly when you think about it. And in the old days when lowly grunts in the White House communications office had to send out tons of photo via MAIL to every freaking govt. building (usually multiple ones because portraits weren’t just for building lobbies!) expensive as hell. It wasn’t exactly easy or cheap for large Cabinet level agencies with offices and buildings all over the country (and sometimes world) to do it either. It was a freaking administrative and logistical nightmare. Now all they have to do is send an email with an attachment and let the folks at the various places print out however many copies they need on photo grade paper.

Here’s the thing though. At those installations they have to have the freaking “OFFICIAL” PORTAIT! It’s supposed to be the same damn picture everywhere it’s displayed.  Woe to the person who just chooses what they think is a good picture. It has to be officially sanctioned by the actual bigly officials themselves.  Recently Trumpty raised a huge stink about a painting of him in an official display in the Colorado statehouse claiming it was ‘unflattering.’ This from a guy who PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE every day. I thought the artist did a nice job, and made Trump look more dignified than he deserves to be. But for Trump is wasn’t good enough.  So yes, if I was responsible for updating those photo displays I’d make damn sure to wait for the official one provided via the official channels!

Fox News of course tried to spin this in a couple of nefarious ways in their article about Ramirez’s firing. First was the headline itself saying Trump, Vance and Hegseth had “vanished” from the command board.  I’m pretty damned sure that’s not what happened. As soon as Trump and Vance were sworn in the photos came out of those three spaces because the SecDef post was also vacant. Any normal administration doing a proper transition staffed by COMPETENT people would have, well before inauguration day picked and distributed new official portraits to replace the old ones as soon as the new President and VP had been sworn in. Same for a new SecDef. In the past sometimes the new one has been confirmed by the Senate by inauguration day. Not THIS time as we know.

The point is that the portraits of Biden, Harris and (Lloyd) Austin would have been removed as a matter of course as they were no longer in charge.  So again it begs the question of whether, at least for Trump and Vance new official portraits had been sent out everywhere they were supposed to get sent to?  Ft. McCoy is a place I’d never even heard of until all this came up.  Given the already “Charlie Fox” (ok – cluster f**k) going on at the Pentagon it’s not crazy thinking to imagine the new gang running things in an “Acting” capacity didn’t ensure Trump’s and Vance’s portraits got sent out right away. Or that every Post got them. Maybe someone thought “Let’s just wait until we have a confirmed SecDef and send it all out at once.” Or maybe the folks down in the photo shop in the basement messed up.  I find that a lot more believable than a C.O. saying in effect they were specifically NOT going to allow official portraits of the top three people in the Chain of Command to be put up!

I think Team Trump screwed the pooch, and Fox News knows it which is why they tried to imply that Ft. McCoy is a small fort within (again) Ft. Bragg and therefore should have been easily available. That some officer at the main command would have noticed, asked why those spaces were still empty and upon being told “We never got them” made sure they were provided before the day was out. It will be interesting to see if Ramirez goes quietly, just takes her pension and fades away OR if she claims she asked for the official portraits when they didn’t show up in her own or someone on her staff’s email and never got a response. Especially if she’s “got receipts” as in her own letter(s)/email(s) saying she still hadn’t gotten the official portraits to display at her Post.

So yes, I think Fox was tasked with starting to spin this and if you go to the link to their story I think you’ll agree. The Daily Beast has a better and more informative article on this matter.  It might be more informative but it doesn’t do something it should have done which is challenge the premise of a tweet from the DOD that alleges intentional chicanery at Ft. McCoy. The claim is that the actual portraits were in the frames but had been deliberately turned around to face the wall instead of the lobby!  I don’t buy it. I’ll bet anyone reading this has put a picture into an 8″X10″ frame. There’s a cardboard backing meant to help hold the photo flat against the glass.

So no, someone just took out the old photos at noon on inauguration day and after finding out there weren’t new ones to insert just put the cardboard back back in and hung the now empty (of a photo) frames back up.  I’m sure they let someone in the C.O.’s office know about the matter. And I’ll bet she had a request put in to get new official portraits.  But DEI was a thing well before inauguration day and like any other woman in a prominent position in our military some type of excuse would be found to dump her. Even manufactured if necessary and yes, trying to play a game of “oopsie – we don’t know why this Ft. McCoy never got the new official portraits but the Commander should have tried harder” is just the kind of thing the asshats now in charge would do.

So, another woman of prominence has had her career wrecked so that tiny men like Trump, Vance and Hegseth can feel all “manly.”  I for one hope a) Ramirez DID request official portraits, can prove she did so, and b) fights back.  Of course, she’d be risking her pension and that’s a lot to ask.  Worse, she won’t be the last woman to be publicly tossed aside by Team Trump.

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