Yo Tuberville – The Military is NOT “Pro-Life”

 “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” (Gen. George Patton)

The Not-At-All Distinguished Senator from the state of Alabama Tommy Tuberville is increasingly butt-hurt over criticism of his unilateral hold on military promotions for high ranking officers – including three Service Chiefs and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs.  As noted in this article by CNN back in July the football coach turned Senator posted on Twitter/X a whiny missive about how he wasn’t the one that started all this.  That HE was the one trying to get politics out of the military.  Really coach?  Because from where I sit YOU have decided to use promotions as a political tool to gain favor (and political donations) with the so-called pro-life crowd.

The latest round of criticism from civilian Service Secretaries seems to have struck a nerve and the Alabama A-hole.  From their letter:

“Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy. They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families. And it is putting our national security at risk,” the leaders write.

Tommy, who like Trump thinks he knows more than all the Generals and other experts decided he wasn’t just going to sit back and take real people of real substance rightly calling him out.  As the article goes on to note:

In an interview with CNN, Tuberville doubled down on his stance and expressed disappointment in Del Toro’s comments to Tapper about him.

“It is concerning that you got people that are in secretary positions like that, that would say something like that in our country, instead of getting on the phone and calling me and saying ‘Coach, what are you doing?’ It just makes no sense,” he said.

Tuberville objects to the Pentagon’s policy of covering travel expenses for those stationed in red states with limited or no abortion services to somewhere that service can be obtained.  An awful lot of service members and their loved ones are stationed in GOPer states, and they are there because that’s the duty station they’ve been assigned to.   They might ask for a different base/post when it’s time for a change of station move but in the end it’s out of their hands.  They go and serve where they are ordered to do so and if that means serving in a state that holds wildly different beliefs than they have, then too bad.

Of course, access to full abortion services via military medicine/hospitals should be available but GOPers are determined to force their moral beliefs on any and everyone they can.  That’s what brought us to Senator Tub-O-Lard’s stunt that’s hurting both morale and military readiness.  And will cost us retention of people the taxpayers have spent a lot of time and money training.  But Coach Tommy (I’ll say it again – he HAS helped his players arrange abortions!) wants a “Pro Life” military, to which I say WTF?

The original title pic had to be replaced.  It was a battlefield pic of rows of dead bodies covered by their ponchos.  I thought hard about including something a lot more graphic, like say photos of beaches and defensive positions filled with ripped open by bullets and shells (Naval guns, artillery, mortars) or grenades lying there by the dozens, baking in the sun.  People SHOULD know the full horror but sometimes you can push people too far.   Hell, I’m offending the sensibilities of some with what I’m writing (and am about to say) so I went with a tamer version where at least the dead are covered up and it still had to be changed out.  My point is this.  War is ugly.  The worst of what humanity does.  It’s to be avoided if at all possible but sometimes it’s the least bad of a sh*tty set of options.  IF things come to war then get it over with as quickly as possible and you do that by killing lots more of your enemy (and faster) than they kill you and others on your side.

You might not like it, but the plain fact is that whether it’s our own armed forces or some other country’s they have a job – and ugly as it is to hear/read and think about it’s the manufacture of cold, dead enemy corpses.  As many and as fast as possible to that the other side sues for peace.

Not a pleasant thought is it?  But that’s the cold, hard reality whether you’re a grunt or in another direct combat arms specialty or in a support role of some sort.  The job in the end is to be ready to, if ordered by the civilian leadership to go out and kill enough of the people you’re sent to war against (and fast enough) to get them to give up and quit.

Pro Life?  The armed force’s job is to prepare to, and when given the order to TAKE life!

The costs are appalling and I could write all night about the toll it takes on the humanity of those who engage in the fighting, and even for those who provide support for those on the front lines.   That’s another one of those  ugly realities of war that people don’t like to have to think about.  We ask a lot, a LOT of those we expect to go to war on our behalf.  F**king with their reproductive freedom and family planning choices isn’t something Tuberville or anyone else has any goddam business doing.  

You’d think that by now Tuberville would have made his petulant, mercenary point and taken an off ramp.  Even the lion’s share of his fellow GOPer Senators wish he’d find some lame way to “declare victory” as he backs down and lets promotions go through.  Not enough mind you to get with McConnel and have Mitch turn go to Schumer and break Tuberville’s hold/FILIBUSTER and in a single day approve all those promotions.  But yeah, they wish he would because they are hearing from people at bases in their states who aren’t happy and the GOP has already squandered it’s one time significant and automatic advantage with the military and the Officer corps in particular.  Tuberville is only making it worse.  Maybe he wants to challenge Ted Cruz for the title of most hated man in the Senate.

Whatever his tiny and uninformed mind is thinking he IS doing damage to our armed forces and military readiness.  Making us look bad with our allies, who are already worried that the U.S. can only be counted on for four years at a time and if Trump or someone like him gets elected then never again.  And it’s not just the well over three hundred (estimated to be six hundred by the end of the year if Tuberville won’t back down) that are being affected.  Each summer a giant game of musical chairs take place as first the promotions of senior officers happen, then replacements are named and replacements for them and so on down the line.  Countless thousands of individuals and families who might have and should have moved this summer and gotten settled into new homes/duty stations and gotten kids enrolled in schools etc. will now have to do all that during the school year.

Coach Tommy is screwing with thousands of families.  Not that he gives a damn.  He’s reveling in the attention from the anti-abortion zealots and ensuring that no matter the damage that gets done he’ll get a second term.  And for Senators, once that happens unless they really, REALLY screw up they are Senators for life.   That’s all Tuberville cares about now.  He made a pile as a head college football coach.  As a Senator he can be feted by bigger and richer bigwigs than was ever the case when he was a coach, and not have to work nearly as much or as hard as he did in his coaching days!

This stunt is his golden ticket for that.  And that ladies and gents is the REAL reason he’s carried on this stunt for so long.