First off, he’s not a soldier. He’s a Marine.
Enlisted military members aren’t fired, they’re discharged.
I enlisted in 1977, and even that farther back than that the policy was “thou shalt not speak ill of the commander in chief”.
It’s nothing new. He knew what the rules were, he broke them. What is new is that instead of grousing amongst ourselves (I served during Clinton...) we now have social media as a means of voicing our displeasure. He crossed the line.
Not making a right/wrong judgement here, it just is what it is.
You don’t have ‘rights’ in the military. Everyone knows that who has served.
Yes, we are losing our freedoms but a member of the military should know better than to criticize the president on Facebook. This said: I detest the bastard in our Whitehouse.
"review board recommending a less than honorable discharge" That is just crap. How about an Administrative DC.
An Admin sep under honorable conditions seems better suited for this.
Heck, that AF General who called Clinton a "Draft dodging, dope smoking, womanizer... got to retire.
How is this any different than standing in the town square and announcing the same things?
I despise Obama, but rules are rules. And the reasons for those rules are sound; namely, you don’t want your military to become involved in politics. Plenty of banana republics attest to that. So you cut off anyone at the knees who is in uniform and takes even a tentative first step in that direction by criticizing the CIC.
Now if we could just keep Congress from playing with the military like it was some kind of beach ball.
I have high regard for the presidency and none for Obama.
However, in an earlier article, I read that he possibly was doing his blogging on a government computer and as Sergeant So & So of the Marines.
Had he done this on his own time, his own computer, and under simply his name without mention of the Marines, then he’d be in the clear.
Regardless who the president is, a member of the military can’t use a government machine for personal activities, and he cannot give the impression he is speaking “as a member” of the Marine Corps.
If true, this Sergeant had made an error in judgment. I don’t think it rose to the level of court-martial. This was clearly a non-judicial issue in my opinion.
When the military code was written, there was no Face Book or Twitter. These things present a new wrinkle. I think the code needs to be updated and this ruling might be the catalyst.
For my $0.02...I think the Marine would have been okay with his initial criticism as it was in conversation on a forum. I think he did himself no good with his Armed forces Tea Party Face Book page.
Doing what this guy has done never even crossed anyone’s mind when I served. Then again, my C-in-C was Ronald Reagan.
No it's not. The UCMJ is unique to the military and when you take the oath "to support and defend the Constitution and to obey the orders of those appointed above me" you give up your right to criticize the command structure. If you can't take this oath "freely with out any mental reservation or purpose of evasion" you have no place being in the military.
I thought that homosexuality is now permissible in the Marines.
Why would he get kicked out of the Marines if he wanted to screw the CIC?
Are we back to "don't ask, don't tell"?
“ultra-conservative Tea Party movement” Really? ULTRA Conservative? That describes none of the Tea Parties we know, and we know a lot.
I second everything that Marine said on his site.The only thing is he should have kept his service status unknown,then he would have been free to criticize the SOB.
What kills me is a soldier,sailor,Marine or Airman can not have any political opinions about the SOB but he sure is willing to use them as wallpaper in his campaign appearances.
I second everything that Marine said on his site.The only thing is he should have kept his service status unknown,then he would have been free to criticize the SOB.
What kills me is a soldier,sailor,Marine or Airman can not have any political opinions about the SOB but he sure is willing to use them as wallpaper in his campaign appearances.
To the Soldiers and sailors out there in FReeperville I’m sorry I forgot to capitalize your titles.It was not intentional.
Not only that, but it’s bad writing. It’s not “Commander and chief” - it’s Commander in Chief, which *we all know.
Ultraconservative Tea Party? Wrong. It’s normal Americanism. Tell my Dem Tea Party member acquaintances (yes, there are a bunch) that they’re ultraconservative.
This brings to a question if the nonmilitary citizens Of the USA have any protection at all by the military in case of insurrection by a group of persons which the POTUSA would cover for. Being a bottom of the ladder foot soldier in WWII I, as most all of my fellow G.I.s, never had to think about such a turn of events. We were very much aware of minding our talk. However, in today’s scenario I am very disappointed in what I see going on with much of ‘our’ military toe sucking for rank and pay to keeping Obama as legitimate CiC. I often feel that if push -comes-to-shove I would be forced to go against my military ‘protectors’. I do believe there will be a lot of anguish when the full/complete story about Obama and his enablers, including those in the USA government, is exposed.