This email went out today from the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division.
I’ll start by saying this is a VERY poorly worded email. Either have your PAO review what you write, or fire them if they did. Let me be contextual about this right up front. Apparently the CG wants to open the gyms to full capacity and allow the use of cardio equipment. I’m told cardio equipment is banned at the moment, and gyms close when they hit 50% capacity due to 18th ABN CORP policy which is in line with NC state policy.
As far as the food situation, well that’s where the glue sniffing robots-for-leaders have taken over and my jimmies get rustled. I’m told the DFACs have been “take out ONLY” since March. Ok, I don’t know if that’s true, but lets run with that. I’ve been told by many people that takeout is STILL an option, but dine in will be allowed for vaccinated personnel. “What’s the problem then, Danny? You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Well stick with me and I’ll lay it out. First, I run a social media account with 17k followers. Do you have any idea how many hundreds of messages I’ve fielded about the bullshit military folks have dealt with because our military is literally run by morons who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag without doing full IPB and MDMP? (Look it up if you don’t know…) This complaint is my favorite though: “We were put in the quarantine barracks and supposed to have food delivered to us, but we haven’t had anything brought in 24/48/(even)72 hours.” One message even stated the dude had to raid the vending machine in his barracks, which was technically not allowed because he was ordered to remain in his room, but no one showed up and he was starving. Apparently a site in Germany went BLACK (yes, black, that means notta-zip-zilch) on food and they were rationing what they had. This is a thing in a first world, allied country?
Forgive me if I’ve lost all faith at this point! Commanders breaking policy, not feeding their troops, purposely staggering Covid testing timelines so they could retest people who’d tested positive, get them on a bus to JRTC/NTC, then isolate them in the box when they tested positive again after 72 hours. Now, DOD says you have the “OPTION” to take the vaccine, and the messages start pouring in again with troops telling me how they’re being coerced, bribed and bullied into taking the vaccine. So I’m supposed to believe the 82nd is going to do its due diligence and either make sure the troops get something decent to eat with the money the government has already paid on their behalf or receive compensation? Wait, isn’t this the same division that completely ignored the welfare of an entire brigade (3rd) during their train-up for JRTC and tried to keep a mass outbreak hushed up? I received about 50 messages about that.
I already wrote about breaking faith with your troops, but I’m going to say it again: “If you say one thing, then do another, you break faith with your troops and they know you can’t be trusted.” You think you’re making the mission happen at any cost, making hard decisions, doing what needs to be done and those at the ground level “just can’t understand,” but you’re absolutely full of shit.
Let me tell you what I told my daughter: “I could lie to you. I could make things easy for myself and gloss over the hard questions by just telling you something that would appease you but wouldn’t be true. The reason I never went along with the Santa Clause thing is because I didn’t want you to realize one day that it was all made up and your dad had been lying to you your whole childhood. A lie is a lie, and when someone continually keeps lying to you, doing the wrong thing, having a complete lack of integrity, it adds up. Eventually you know whatever they say means nothing. They may or may not be telling the truth, but it doesn’t even phase you because you just expect all of it to be a lie. I’m your dad, and if you can’t trust me, then who can you trust? I may not answer all of your questions, but I’ll say so and won’t lie about it.” You’re leaders of Soldiers whose job it is to lead them into combat. If they can’t trust you, who can they trust? You LITERALLY jeopardize the welfare of our national security with your dodgy, underhanded sidestepping of policy when it’s convenient, and then lying about it when you get called to the mat. So no, I WON’T trust that you have the best intentions when I see shit like this, I WILL call it out, and I WILL do whatever it takes to make sure that some dude isn’t gagging on a fucking MRE cracker, or even worse: [NOTHING].