Falling From Grace

It's said that grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.

America's amazing military is cycling back down to the depths.

I know a retired Army 4-star, Paul Gorman, who came out of his tour in Vietnam thoroughly demoralized. He was ready to take his retirement as a colonel and get on to the next phase in his life, whatever that turned out to be.

But he was persuaded to stay, and along with many others, he helped rebuild the US military into something we could be proud of again (mostly - obviously, there're some not-so-good things too, but that's a different part of the story).

The point is that Gen Gorman is alive today, and looking even more askance on recent developments than he did when he decided to go against a lifetime of voting straight Republican in order to vote for Hillary in 2016.

NYT:

Gen. Mark A. Milley was never meant to be President Trump’s top military adviser.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had sent him to the White House in late 2018 to interview for the top American military post across the Atlantic, with its grand title: supreme allied commander Europe. Mr. Mattis wanted someone else, the quiet and cerebral Gen. David L. Goldfein of the Air Force, to be Mr. Trump’s next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

With the president souring on Mr. Mattis, his recommendation quashed General Goldfein’s chances. During the meeting, the president — who already liked General Milley’s brash demeanor as Army chief of staff — asked which job was better. And General Milley went for the top prize: by law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the nation’s top officer and the senior military adviser to the president.

But in the last several days, after accompanying the president from the White House to a church in his camouflage uniform as National Guard troops in helmets and riot gear deployed across the country, General Milley has quickly become the face of what could amount to the American military’s fall from public grace, to levels not seen since the Vietnam War.

“Milley (he’s a general !?!?) should not have walked over to the church with Trump,” Michael Hayden, the retired Air Force general who has directed both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A., said on Twitter, noting that he “was appalled to see him in his battle dress.”

General Milley’s decision to join Mr. Trump “was an egregious display of bad judgment, at best,” said Paul D. Eaton, a retired major general and veteran of the Iraq war, who now serves as a senior adviser at VoteVets.org. “At worst, Milley appears confused about the oath he took to support and defend the Constitution — not a president. I suggest the general get quickly unconfused, or resign.”

General Milley, his friends say, has agonized over the events of the past week. But he has also managed to persuade Mr. Trump not to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops across the country to quell protests, a line that a number of American military officials say they will not cross, even if the president orders it.

It is largely because of General Milley, administration officials say, that Mr. Trump has not ordered it yet despite his threat to do so.

The general went face to face with his boss on Monday during a heated discussion in the Oval Office over whether to send troops into the streets, according to people in the room. He argued that the scattered fires and looting in some places were dwarfed by peaceful protests, and should be handled by the states, which command local law enforcement and the National Guard.

General Milley won the immediate battle in the Oval Office meeting on Monday. But shortly after, he was right in the middle of a different war — the kind of political war where the military does not belong.

Defense Department officials say General Milley believed that he was accompanying Mr. Trump and his entourage to review National Guard troops and other law enforcement personnel outside Lafayette Park; that he did not know the park had just been cleared of peaceful protests by security forces using tear gas; that an Australian news crew had just been beaten by baton-wielding police on live TV; that frightened teenagers were sobbing two blocks away.

Milley didn't know what 45* was getting him into.

It's easy to shit on Milley for being "naive", but we have to understand that a guy like Milley has spent his entire professional life steeped in the values of Honor and Discipline and Duty. When he encounters a guy like 45*, who has no honor, Milley can almost be excused for not always stopping to consider that he'll be used and abused at 45*'s whim - almost be excused.

- snip -

Once Mr. Trump arrived at St. John’s Church, holding a Bible, and it became clear that the moment was only a photo op, General Milley disappeared from view. He is nowhere to be seen when the president motions for other officials to join him for a photograph, in which he is now flanked by his press secretary, defense secretary, national security adviser and attorney general.

But the damage had been done.

“Ridiculous. General Milley, who I respect, is embarrassing himself,” Michael McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, tweeted.

Pentagon officials say General Milley was horrified afterward, and he has not appeared before cameras since.

I guess we can only hope that Mark Milley learns from this - adapt, improvise, overcome - and maybe he is learning, because shortly after that walking cluster fuck, this came from his office:

note: "We all committed our lives to the idea that is America - we will stay true to that oath and the American people."

Hope is always justified.

Optimism not so much.