Posted on 10/06/2017 9:29:04 PM PDT by pboyington
Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone is a sign of the times.
Spenser Rapone is a tenfold beacon in the night, a thousand blaring klaxons showing the nation and the world just how far our glorious army has fallen.
Spenser Rapone is a disgrace to the army, to the famous 10th Mountain Division where is currently assigned and to the United States of America. His continued presence in the US military is a slap in the face to every grunt, tanker, zoomie, swabbie and gyrene that gave their lives for this country.
Rapone literally came out of the gulag last week, when pictures of him surfaced online, which portrayed him at West Point wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt and holding his cap with a sign inside that read, ‘communism will win.’
The pictures were only the beginning. We learned Rapone is pro-Antifa, was mentored by an Islamist professor at West Point, supports Black Lives Matter, believes General Mattis is a vile, evil ‘f**K, advocates violence against the US government, was kicked out of the 75th Ranger Regiment as an enlisted man, and is currently serving as a platoon leader in the 10th Mountain Division.
In today’s army, Rapone is a shoo-in for chief of staff.
Apparently, one dinosaur at West Point, representing what used to the ethical standards of the academy and the army as a whole, made a formal complaint about Rapone to the authorities at West Point in 2015.
In a signed statement, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Heffington wrote, “From his various online rantings and posts, it appears that DCT Rapone is an avowed Marxist, which is completely out of line with the values of this nation and its Army. Moreover, CDT Rapone’s posts indicate that he hates West Point, the U.S. Army, and indeed this country. One post dated 16 November 2015 states, ‘F*ck this country and its false freedom.’ He also … even implicitly justifies the actions of ISIS and blames the United States for terrorist attacks.”
Heffington continued, “Never in 18 years has any soldier spoken to me or treated me with such extreme disrespect as CDT Rapone did…His utter contempt for my rank and position as an Army officer was blatantly obvious…”
Both the army and West Point each put out statements last week, parroting the fact that Rapone doesn’t represent the values of the US Army in 2017, yada, yada, yada. Just what are the values of the US Army today and why was nothing done about Rapone at West Point or for that matter, at Fort Drum, his current duty station, where it was apparently common knowledge that Rapone is a militant anti-American communist who wishes to sabotage the US military?
The army says Rapone is under investigation.
Whatever…
Spenser Rapone’s investigation, brought to you by the same US Army that claims a 37 year old mommy made it through Ranger School.
Uh huh…
The mommies of Pointe du Hoc…
Perhaps Major General Scott Miller and his merry men from Fort Stockholm Syndrome, Georgia, are in charge of this cluster as well?
Rapone should immediately lose his security clearance and be given a dishonorable discharge at a minimum.
But, I’m betting my former captain’s railroad tracks that nothing, nada, nichts will be done to Rapone, for the main reason the army is saturated with leftists and new age groupies who think that there’s nothing wrong with this guy’s conduct or beliefs and with feather merchants who don’t have the intestinal fortitude to do what is right.
In the Pentagon, moral courage is absent without leave.
Does anyone in the army have the intestinal fortitude to do a Ron Luciano and give Rapone the Kiwi Express right out on the street where the communist SOB belongs?
The army of 2017 is not the army of Patton, MacArthur, Ridgway, Gavin, Collins, Beckwith, Cavazos, Hackworth, Schwarzkopf, Leide, McCaffrey and Waller.
What kind of army is it in 2017; an army that walks on eggshells, that marches to the beat of the PC drummer, that is so focused on fulfilling some social engineering agenda that it has jettisoned common sense and its mission like an empty fuel pod over the Solomon’s.
Spenser Rapone, Bowe Bergdahl, Chelsea Manning – multiple indicators that the merde has hit the ventilateur, that the army has a major problem and that the lean green machine is decaying by the hour.
The army is in a free fall and the situation is even more dire than those dark days in the early and mid- 1970’s, when the army was reeling from a myriad of problems: a hostile public who never understood the sacrifices made in Southeast Asia and the heroism of its soldiers there; from drug problems, criminals gangs and race riots in the barracks.
The army was broken after Vietnam, but most of its senior leaders were stronger than those today, and they upheld the values of the institution. With the help of young officers and NCO’s who had survived Vietnam, they vowed to rebuild the army and create an all-volunteer, highly-motivated, modern force which, if called upon to fight a war, would go all the way and never look back.
General Fred Franks, who commanded VII Corps in the Gulf War and who lost a leg in Cambodia in 1970, referred to an almost religious devotion among the army’s leadership to rebuild it. Franks called it ‘the hot blue flame that burned brightly.’
After Vietnam, the problems in the army were mainly at the bottom, unlike today, where the army and the military is a fish rotting from its head.
In the 1970’s, under leadership from people like Bill DePuy, Shy Meyer, Donn Starry, Glen Otis and Dick Cavazos the army developed a new doctrine for war known as air land battle, and received new equipment most commonly known as the Big Five: the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley, the Apache, the Blackhawk and the Patriot. The army now had equipment that outclassed most of what the Soviet Army and its Warsaw Pact allies possessed.
Most importantly, the army had a new breed of soldiers; they were volunteers who wanted to serve; they were tough, smart and better paid. Some wanted to make it a career, others wanted to earn enough money to go to college. Some were there for the mere adventure. Under the leadership of Vietnam vet NCO’s; men who knew what went wrong and more importantly, how to insure the mistakes never happened again, the army was reborn.
For 20 years the new US Army trained like a gladiator for its day of reckoning. That day came in 1991, when it destroyed Saddam’s legions in a defeat not seen since Agincourt.
Could the US Army of 2017 win a war like that in 100 Hours?
Not a chance in hell. The army doesn’t have the units, nor does it have the armor and mechanized skills and training anymore, nor does it have the leadership at the top.
General Dick Cavazos used to say the army is filled with killer, fillers and fodder.
It’s safe to say the army’s senior leaders today are mainly fodder.
After Desert Storm, the air was gradually sucked out of the army. By the mid 1990’s many of the men who had helped rebuild it were long gone. Political correctness became the name of the game and good people left the service, attracted to a reduction in force financial incentive and also disgusted by big social changes that were already underway.
A leadership vacuum was created, which left a gigantic gap for leftists, communists and radical feminists to push their agenda on an army that seemed to have lost its mojo.
By the time the Iraq War rolled around, feminists had already pushed women into the air cavalry, into support units that would expose them to danger, into coed basic training at places like Relaxin’ Jackson, while social engineers ensured that sensitivity training and diversity became more important than war fighting.
Any warriors or conservatives still remaining in the army departed sometime during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The army was exhausted from endless rotations to combat zones and led by generals who didn’t hold a candle to those from the past. Even its one general who looked like a bright, shining star, David Petraeus, was found to be lacking in ethics and common sense. Soon, the army would meet its worst enemy, Barack Hussein Obama.
The fall of the US Army went into warp speed during the two Obama administrations. More leftists flooded into the military, intent on destroying the army’s conservative values and replacing them with Hollywood style, Silicon Valley start-up ethics. Aided and abetted by General Martin Dempsey, Secretaries of the Army John McHugh and Eric Fanning, and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, transgenders were initially authorized to serve, women were allowed to serve in the combat arms and special operations, male ROTC cadets paraded around campuses in red high heels, male soldiers were forced to conduct physical training in pregnancy simulators, breastfeeding and lactation memos were sent out to worldwide commands, women were put through Ranger School under false pretenses, the Bible and Constitution were taught in DoD classes as sexist documents and white privilege training was conducted.
The leftist/feminist destruction of the army continues to this day.
As the army suffers from one leftist/feminist assault after another, as the Spenser Rapone’s freely advocate sabotaging the army and nothing is done about it, one begins to wonder what it was all for; what was the purpose of rebuilding the army, creating a spectacular force, only to allow it to be destroyed by people espousing agendas that are anathema to the army and the nation itself?
The Rise and Fall of the US Army is a tragedy beyond description.
The final act in the Rise and Fall of the US Army has yet to be played out. But, it will be on a distant battlefield.
It will be.
drain the swamp and we might a chance (a slim one)to rebuild it.
I am a retired Army Officer and this article is dead on target. When President Trump says we have the best Army/military in the world, he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He has not lifted a finger to restore the moral compass in the military other than to see his transgender tweets countermanded by his perfumed prince, Jmes.Mattis over at Defense. Seeing our Army in this condition breaks my heart after all the years I gave it and was witness to so many wonderful soldiers, NCOs and other officers around me. when will Trump fix the military? He won’t so long as he is surrounded by the very people who presided over its destruction.
well, i guess we knew this wuz happenin’. Nobody cared. Drug culture.
334324265434-D CHESS!!! OH THE MADMAN IS REALLY KILLING ‘EM, ISN’T HE?
Wasn’t Mattis forced out by 0bama?
is it true that a high percentage of our soldiers serve only a couple of yrs and then get disability?....
if true, that's the problem right there...
The army of 1991 could defeat this current army.
Amen and Garryowen...
Very well said. Thank you.
I honestly don’t know about the military disability issue.
If the photograph of Colin Kraperhead wearing a Che t-shirt is real, then he and Rapone can start a communist revolution all by themselves.
Right now Colonscopy is ahead in points but Rapone is winning the “in your face” contest by a mile.
Amen and I wasn’t Cav (I was ADA) but my Grandfather who joined the Army around 1910 when he was underage was in the real Cav and then WW 1 as well before my grandmother decided the Army life was not for them. My dad was WW2, father in law Korean War and I had two nephews and a cousin in Iraq and Afghanistan. I did my time from 77-97.
I was Asst S2 4-7 CAV/3AD and then S2 1-1 CAV/1AD
Me and my brothers all learned to whistle Garryowen from our Dad who was in the 7th from 1939 to 1942.
Has the Mad Dog been neutered? How is it possible that Trump can’t find a single military commander with the guys to clean out the vermin at the Pentagon?
It appears that he’s been half neutered. It’s not good..
Trump has done an amazing job considering who he’s had to work with. It might be a matter of DJT doing what Lincoln had to do until he got Grant.
We’d better start marrying technology with some first rate, kick ass officers. We’ve relied on technology to take up the slack for too long.
My son did his basic in Ft Jackson SC. We went to see his graduation. I never served, probably couldn’t have. His service has, to the small extent of my deserving, redeemed me.
Those two days we spent this August were at the same time miserable— and deeply moving. I learned a lot, and I’m grateful God gave me a son who has taught me so much by my just trying to keep up with him.
This much you can bet on: you wait on the army. They don’t wait on you. What I saw that weekend instilled deep faith in our Army. I believe it will turn out right.
That’s encouraging. Thanks for sharing.
I agree. The problem with armies is seldom with the men serving, its with the leadership. Which is why it’s an unforgivable sin for military leaders to do anything that undermines training and the operational effectiveness of combat units, because it increases the risk to the men on the front lines.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.