The problem of the appalling poor leadership of our Armed Forces in the second Trump administration is finally being exposed for all the world to see. Both allies and enemies. The current state of affairs shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that doesn’t drink the Trump Orange Kool Aid. However it’s become increasingly clear that morale, armaments and critical fighting platforms like Navy ships has been ground down. The reason can be summed up by paraphrasing a classic line from the movie Cool Hand Luke where the Warden tells the title character ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate a lack of leadership.’
Trump appointed an alcoholic moron to lead the Pentagon because he thought the guy looked good on weekend show on Fox News. Hegseth was undistinguished as an Army Officer and never led troops or was under enemy fire despite trying to make it seem that way – he used to cite ‘serving in a war zone’ but being a Public Affairs officer on a base, or spending time on a different base in another tour training Afghan infantry isn’t being a “Warrior.” Petey Boy has spent his time purging experienced, proven leaders who so often were actual warriors. The whole anti-woke thing being his justification. Pete has spent his time giving lectures and speeches – rah rah bullshit, making videos of himself working out and generally not so much being useless as destructive of morale and our military readiness.
I was an enlisted guy during my time in the Marines. In infantry especially we judge our officers severely. Some can be counted on to look out for those under their command, and are creative both in providing for their needs, backing them up and most importantly finding ways to cross train them to be more capable. Then there are what we’d call Rock Painters. Along the sidewalk leading up to the Company office there are usually big stones lining the walkway. A ‘Rock Painter’ was a new company C.O. who’s idea of leadership stopped at showing a ‘new sheriff is in town’ by having the rocks painted a different color!
While Hegseth has been busy sucking up to Trump with his purges which I should add have created a climate of fear (for those left) and damaged morale important things haven’t gotten done. Add in elevating suckups (both in uniform and civilians) who tell the boss what he wants to hear and too often don’t have the knowledge and skills needed for their new duties and you bet important stuff falls through the cracks. Did I say cracks? Those cracks are becoming chasms!
Try as they have to cover things up we’ve badly depleted our stockpile of key munitions. The type that take a long time to produce. Trump and Hegseth can yell at manufacturers all they want but it doesn’t change the fact that it takes highly skilled people a LONG time to manufacture things like Patriot Missiles, Tomahawks and other precision guided munitions. Yelling might work if an executive is trying to get a secretary to get their limo out front faster but it doesn’t do a damned thing to speed up manufacturing!
Our operational tempo has also become a severe problem. Not only weapons are being expended at a rate much faster than they can be replaced, we are grinding down ships and the crews who serve on them. You’ve seen the news for example about the Lincoln which is finally going to be relieved, but it will be by a ship (the George Washington) already deployed in the western Pacific where we have a permanent task force that requires a deployed carrier strike group to deter China. Given what happened to the Lincoln which was pulled well into what was supposed to be a six month deployment for service in the dumbass Iraq war one has to wonder what moral is like on the Washington.
Ten bucks says morale already sucks and they are only in transit!
Our ships and crews have been over-extended and it’s now clear to our troops deployed at bases in the middle east or on the ships in the Gulf there’s no end in sight for this war. For those on the ships, what happened with the Lincoln gets the most notice because it’s the largest ship that’s been deployed WAY past when it should have come home. No doubt because Team Trump believed its own ‘it will be over any time now’ bullshit. Troops both on land and sea over there know better.
The thing is, the Lincoln isn’t the only ship that’s experienced mechanical problems. Or supply problems. Or morale problems. It will take months, perhaps as much as a year once many of those sailors are back home and their enlistments have expired (meaning they can speak freely) we will learn the full measure of how bad things are. Also, as I wrote about earlier today there are problems with other ships in other places. In fact the George Washington Strike Group will be missing an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer when it relieves the Lincoln. While the USS Benfold was after four days without power, drifting in the south China Sea at the end of August repaired she’s in port in Japan until they can figure out why she (and another such ship which lost power but ‘only for four hours) had such a huge engineering failure.
We are pushing not just the crews but the ships too hard! If all that isn’t enough I read something from Meidas Touch News earlier this evening that made my jaw drop. Before a deployment ships go through a ‘workup’ to ensure they are prepared for months at sea. Common sense procedure. Yet during it’s workup for a fresh deployment the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is ALREADY experiencing problems that indicate like the Lincoln the crew is in for a rough tour at sea:
In a private conversation shared with MeidasTouch, the wife of a sailor currently doing a “work up” aboard the Carl Vinson off the coast, the training and readiness period ships go through before deploying, described conditions onboard that she called “insane.” According to her texts, sailors on the carrier do not have access to warm water to shower, and the water fountains on the ship have been shut off entirely.
“Yep my husband is doing a work up right now just off the coast on the Carl Vinson before he goes back on deployment and they don’t have warm water to shower and the water fountains are all turned off,” she wrote, adding, “Like wtf is going on.”
If after months in the yard getting routine maintenance the Carl Vinson is having such problems during a deployment workup I have to wonder if between DOGE and Hegseth’s purges (and ‘adjustments’ to civilian contractors maint./repair contracts) a lot didn’t get done. Again that goes back to poor leadership – people not up to the task of doing crucial work (like ensuring maintenance and repairs are properly done). But hey – Petey Boy assure us ‘WOKE is dead’ in our military and by god he’s got ‘Warriors.’
I also want to point out something else in the Meidas Touch article. The kinds of problems now making daily news aren’t limited to the Navy. Other branches are being affected by the piss-poor leadership and worried about the readiness of their own units:
The messages also reveal that the problem isn’t isolated to one ship or one branch. In the same conversation, the woman’s friend, who says she is close with an Air Force Major, relayed that his morale is also cratering.
“I know it’s happening on more than just one ship too,” the friend wrote. “One of my close friends is a Major in the Air Force and he told me he hates his job right now. If he wasn’t so close to his 20 years, he would’ve quit already. Morale is basically in the shitter across the board it seems.”
I can tell you from experience that when troops KNOW their leaders have their backs, that they actually care and are doing everything in their power to take care of the troops they will rush the gates of hell if ordered to. However when troops know leadership is incompetent and mostly (if not totally) interested in promoting their own personal advancement/interests morale drops like a stone.
We are seeing the disastrous consequences of Trump/Hegseth style leadership play out in real time. So to the handful of those like some recent Fox pundit defending Trumpty that the troops are weak and whiny I say go live with the ‘complainers’ and experience just a week of their conditions before shooting off your mouth. Or STFU and go away. The cold, hard fact is that our military hasn’t had such poor leadership from the Commander-in-Chief down through too many senior ranking Officers and civilians since the Civil War when Lincoln had too many Generals (i.e. McClellan) and members of his cabinet trying to promote themselves and get rid of him. While Union soldiers suffered and died by the tens of thousands.
At least Lincoln cared and was determined to get proper leadership. The Union troops sensed this and stuck with him. Now? Those in the ranks know their President thinks they are suckers and losers. And their SecDef is more interested in making videos he thinks prove what a ‘Badass Warrior’ he is than their welfare.
I’ll close with a question I’ve raised in prior columns. Leaving inside huge bills for repairs to ships and building more factory space to increase weapons production how many troops are counting the days until their enlistments expire. We are about to lose a LOT of trained and experienced people and replacing them will take time and still more money.
And the reason is simple – they have been enduring the worst possible leadership and will be stuck with it until January 2029 when a new administration is sworn in and competent people are put back in place.
