Two opinions.
I hope that this did not in any way interrupt the pace of instruction in the course. Courses like this are a controlled environment. It needs to be that way. You’re miserable and suffering and cold and hungry and everything f’ing sucks and you have to make complicated decisions that have far reaching ramifications and can cost more lives if you screw up, but all of this is deliberately engineered, to see who you are going to be when the chips are down.
If due care was taken not to interrupt the training, then I am glad to have lived to see the day when we have a CiC who actually gives a shit. I remember walking down the main passageway at my command and seeing the chain of command portraits. President Reagan was my CiC. I remember pausing on that and feeling a sense of comfort; ‘the adults are in charge’.
In point of fact, the Q guys were just like other groups that have been invited into the Oval Office. It is a free gesture that resounds outward to who knows what when the participants tell their tale of not only visiting the white House, but being invited into the Oval office
“I remember walking down the main passageway at my command and seeing the chain of command portraits.”
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My daughter is a high school freshman, and she joined her school’s JROTC. There is a similar set of chain of command photographs in the hallway right next to the office of the retired Chief Warrant Officer who runs the program. My wife and I have gotten to know “Chief” and his wife quite well and we really enjoy each other’s company. Right after the election, I asked when he was going to change the photographs. He told me that if it was up to him, he would already have done so, but he said that he had to wait until noon on January 20th. On that wonderful day, I asked my daughter if he had changed the photos. She said, “Oh, yeah, we were all there with him, and he did it at exactly 12 o’clock.”
The really great thing about it was that they did not have an official portrait of President Trump just yet. So he used a picture from a Blog that I had introduced him to, with Trump standing on top of an Abrams tank, holding a minigun in one hand with an eagle perched on the other arm. Let’s just say that Chief is not displeased with our present Commander in Chief. Being that he is an ex-Ranger, and given both his stories and the views of many other people that I know, I am quite certain that about 95% of present and former special operators feel exactly the same way. Damn, I haven’t felt this good scenes Reagan was President.