I never served; I get it, and so a lot of people will chime in with a “You never served, so you should shut up” comment whenever anyone who hasn’t served has any opinions about military-related issues. I don’t care. We have civilian control of the military, not the other way around, and our God-given right to freedom of speech is not conditional, so eat it.
The situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln is being portrayed as “dire,” with morale being very low. It does not, and should not, matter at all.
People voluntarily join the military, and God bless them for it. But with that, and all the benefits that go with it, comes responsibility and an understanding that, should circumstances require it, a lot of hardship. Soldiers have been deployed to literal active fire war zones for more than a year at a time and didn’t whine as much as we’re hearing off the Lincoln.
“The food is bad!” they’ve whined. You joined the Navy, not the French Laundry, and you’re in the midst of a military operation. Suck it up, buttercup. It may be your favorite taste, but try eating MREs of whatever you can forage from the frozen ground while being shelled constantly, as American troops had to during the five-week-long Battle of the Bulge.
Could our current soldiers handle what their great-grandfathers went through?
Some could, honestly. The crying about conditions during the Hormuz blockade is from very few people on board and their families back home; then it is amplified by an enemy media looking for anything to give Democrats a boost in the midterms. It’s sickening that the Left would sink to this treasonous level, but it is not surprising.
Democrat media personality Martha Raddatz opened This Week for ABC by saying, “Military families raise alarms over the well-being of sailors on a Navy ship that has been at sea for nearly nine months. This morning, we speak with former Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Arizona senator and veteran Ruben Gallego.”
Mullen was critical of President Trump during the George Floyd riots, and Ruben Gallego is scumbag misogynist Eric Swalwell’s best friend and wingman. Curiously, neither fact came up, oddly enough.
Raddatz comes in with, “Not long enough. That is what President Trump said about the record-breaking deployment of the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier and the 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard after mounting reports this week of plummeting morale and mental health concerns aboard the ship.”
If you’ve dealt with anyone under 30, half of them are normal, and half are coddled crybabies convinced they’re special and suffering from some kind of mental health issue. They cry easily because they’ve been babied by helicopter parents and everything is a “10” on the scale of their oppression. They needed to be toughened up and educated on how they are not special, no matter what their participation ribbons say.
She then continued, “That carrier has been among the many Navy assets now in the Mideast fighting the president’s war in Iran and taking part in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.”
I have never heard of any military action described as a specific president’s war before. Is the failed state of Libya, with its open-air slave markets, “Barack Obama’s failed state of Libya”? Nope.
But that’s neither here nor there. If we needed to fight an actual war against a capable enemy, we have a lot of people in our military who break down when their shoelaces get knotted. In other words, we could not win it. We have the numbers, we have the equipment and the know-how, but we don’t have the demand for excellence or the willingness to push people beyond what they think they’re capable of so they learn they can be better than they are.
We don’t do that in the military as much anymore.
Instead, we have half the people who served on disability for the rest of their lives because someone yelled at them once, or they’re a cook somehow weaseling $8,000 a month for life for reasons that can only be described as the military wanting to be ripped off. I wonder how many of these soldiers are being contacted right now by lawyers telling them how they can get disability? I’d bet a lot.
We need changes in the military, first and foremost in attitude. The USS Abraham Lincoln was probably not a lot of fun, but you don’t join the military for fun. Duty has to mean something. If it doesn’t, we might as well quit right now. I hope Pete Hegseth focuses on thickening skins as much, if not more than, anything else.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, D.C., and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, "Outrage, INC.," which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F***ing Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on X at @DerekAHunter.