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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Senior Military Leaders – Officers and Senior Enlisted – Have Decided To Very Publicly Smack Tucker Carlson Around

Senior Military Leaders – Officers and Senior Enlisted – Have Decided To Very Publicly Smack Tucker Carlson Around

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Like every guy else on this site who has served in a uniform, as a DOD or Service civilian, or in the US intelligence community, we’ve all served with women. And not just in support positions regardless of what the official designators were. In the wars we’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past 20 and 18 years respectively, no matter where we put the phase lines on the map, there were no defined lines that indicated where the fighting would and wouldn’t be. Women Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, despite being designated in combat support roles for almost the entirety of these wars, often saw as much combat as their male counterparts. Every convoy of supplies, every Civil Affairs Team-Alpha mission, every Medical or Veterinary Operation could, at any moment, go from being a support or enabling mission to a combat one.

Similarly, women working within the US intelligence community, as well as in other agencies within the Interagency that deployed forward also often served in harm’s way. And lots of them – those working for the State Department, USAID, USDA, US Department of Energy, etc – went forward despite knowing they, like their male colleagues from these agencies, would NOT be authorized to be armed despite being deployed in a war zone! And yet they went. And the civil service women from the Interagency all went because they volunteered as part of what was referred to as the “civilian surge” to better enable and enhance the US military’s ability to successfully conduct Phase IV Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I fought hard to have two women on my small team of cultural analysts – one a former student I’d recruited and the other a former Army intelligence NCO. I got my former student and was glad to have one woman on the team*. Why? Because we were deployed in a high context communicating, near-far relationship, honor-shame society that was also Muslim. This meant that women, and being able to talk to them, to have them talk to us and tell us what they needed – as women in general and as mothers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc in specific – was largely impossible without a woman on the team!

I once did a ride along on a MedOps with one of our Civil Affairs Teams-Alpha (CAT-A) and my former student did not come along. And we didn’t have a female medic or interpreter with us either. It took over half the day before anyone without a Y chromosome would come talk to us. Eventually someone sent a five year old girl to ask for something figuring that that was somehow not improper. Once we were able to get her what she needed for her mother, that broke the ice and the Civil Affairs medic was suddenly swamped by women. The first thing that was decided at the post mission after action review was that from now on a female CA Soldier, a female medic, and a female interpreter would be on the list of required personnel for these missions.

In Afghanistan they actually built all women teams – known as Lioness Teams – to go do this type of work with Afghan women. There was some discussion of doing this within our brigade, leading to the cringeworthy suggestion that since we were the Iron Brigade they should be called the Iron Maidens, but it was ultimately decided to simply ensure women were on all the essential missions because we didn’t have any female personnel who had gone through the specialty Lioness Team training. Here’s the link to a great, though infuriatingly sad, documentary on the Lioness Teams done by Frontline at PBS.

So I’m very glad to see a number of senior military leaders – officers and senior enlisted – visibly and vocally push back against Carlson’s offensive stupidity. Here’s a sampling I came across without even looking. If the WordPress formatting isn’t showing you the full, embedded tweet with the video, just click on the links to see and hear for yourselves.

Command Sergeant Major Michael Grinston, the 16th Sergeant Major of the Army:

US Training and Doctrine Command Deputy Commanding General LTG Ted Martin:

US Space Command Senior Enlisted Advisor/Command NCO:

GEN Paul Funk, Jr; Commanding General Training and Doctrine Command (who has also been using his social media feed to retweet and amplify other’s similar statements):

Major General Pat Donahoe, Commanding General Maneuver Center of Excellent and Ft. Benning:

MG John R. Evans, Commanding General US Army Cadet Command:

MG Dennis LeMaster, Commanding General US Army Medical Center of Excellence:

 

Statement made by GEN James McConville, US Army Chief of Staff:

I found these without really looking and I’m sure there are more out there. The US military is not perfect when it comes to dealing with women who are Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines, but the responses of the senior leadership to Carlson’s stupid agitprop is encouraging and reassuring. I would also suggest that this open support is possible because of who is president. The senior uniformed leadership knows that if they publicly push back on Carlson’s stupidity that they won’t be called out on it by any of the political loyalty officers that Trump had appointed to senior positions in the White House, at the DOD, and at the Services.

Open thread!

* Of the women who served in the US Army Human Terrain System, two lost their lives during their deployments as a result of enemy action. Both of these were peers of mine – they were also the field social scientists, read research and analytical directors and technical leads, for their teams. Nicole Suveges was blown up in Sadr City in Iraq in late June 2008, we had been emailing just the day before about an HR issue of all things. Paula Lloyd, who I did not know, died in early January 2009. She had served through the rank of Staff Sergeant in the US Army before going on to get her advanced degrees. Paula was attacked in early November 2008 by an Afghan local who doused her with gasoline that had been concealed in a container used for cooking oil and lit on fire while accompanying and assisting an Army patrol in Afghanistan. She ultimately died of her burn wounds two months later.

My former student, one of the best ones I ever had, came through her deployment successfully.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  4. 4.

    Emma from FL

    Carlson is one of those trolls that fall under the stupid/evil classification. And Pay-per-Wiew. You’d make a fortune!

  8. 8.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Nice collection, Adam! I’ve been seeing these roll by on my Twitter feed.

    The two generals with Biden and Harris had their promotions held up under the former guy because the Secretary of Defense knew he wouldn’t like it.

    And yes, with all these high-up accounts tweeting women in the military, I’m sure that who’s President makes a difference.

  9. 9.

    germy

    Not to go all Freud on Tucker’s ass, but from what I’ve read of his personal bio, his mother left the family when he was a boy.  Basically walked out on his father and left young Tucker.

    Does he carry some resentment/hatred of all women?  Maybe seeing HRC run for president was triggering for him.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    My response to this is to point to the veterans memorial wall in the park near me. It has pictures of every veteran from the town it’s in and the war they served in. The oldest war was the Spanish American War, and it’s the only one where there weren’t any women serving. Every war since WWI had women serving, and they were 100% volunteers. And that’s just in that one town. If you back further in time, you find women serving with honor- and in the face of resistance- as far back as Molly Pitcher.

  14. 14.

    germy

    This afternoon, the Department of Defense issued a press release attacking this show: “Press secretary smites Fox Host.” Like we’re a hostile foreign power. Remarkable. We’ll respond at 8pm ET on #FoxNews

    — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 11, 2021

    No thanks.  I’ll be watching the president.

  15. 15.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @germy:  Meh, he was more normal (conservative normal) before he moved to Fox. I think he’s just playing the hits the audience demands. I think that’s more reprehensible than being a true believer but ultimately it’s a distinction without a difference. As far as his mom leaving, it gets even weirder when his dad marries the Swanson heiress. They had Swanson added to Tucker and his brother’s names.

    Also check out HBO’s The Lady And The Dale miniseries. Tucker’s father, Dick, is featured pretty prominently and he’s a total fucking dbag. We can agree Tucker never had a chance to be normal but he is very smart and it seems like his super-douchebaggery coincided with his Fox payday.

  16. 16.

    VOR

    I’m actually choking up reading these tweets from senior military people. They are very clear in their support of women in the US armed forces. Eat that, Tucker.

    So what’s Carlson’s motivation? How does this own the Libs? Or is there someone with a vested interest in driving women out of the military? I’m willing to believe he is doing this just because he’s a dick.

  18. 18.

    A Ghost to Most

    Carlson is one of many selfish Americans who have no concept of duty to country. It’s pointless to call out their lies, because facts don’t matter to fascists. Only power matters.

  21. 21.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @VOR: His motivation is the same as all hucksters, to get our attention. This latest bit is the verbal equivalent of painting his arse blue and shoving it out the window.

    Once he’s got our attention, he can translate that into bucks.

    The Kardashian Rule: Infamy = Fame = Money.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    I discharged from the navy 48 years ago. Women didn’t serve on ships or as combat troops but there are women’s names on the Wall. Same in WW II, women died serving this country, unlike fucker carlson who’s never served one fucking second. Pompous, arrogant asshole, wouldn’t know honor if it came up and kicked him in his tiny balls. And it should, repeatedly.
    And Adam, as you point out, women are proud to serve, and I’d bet any one of them could kick his dumb ass till there was nothing left to kick.

  24. 24.

    MomSense

    @VOR:

    When I saw Biden’s post on Instagram the other day, I got a little teary eyed. Then I noticed all three of my boys had liked it before I did.  Progress!

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: The reality is that overtly or covertly, women have served in every war ever undertaken in the history of war. During the Civil War one of the Union Soldiers who was serving covertly disguised as a man fought in combat into her third trimester. She was able to pull her deception off because she was serving in the same unit as her husband.

  27. 27.

    germy

    I don’t remember the details, but someone sued Tucker and Fox.  Fox’s defense was that Tucker shouldn’t be taken seriously as a journalist.  His views were hyperbole.  The case was dismissed.

  28. 28.

    zhena gogolia

    Great post, Adam! Love it!

    We’re having brisket tonight based on a recipe you sent me a few years ago — thanks for that too! Simple but very tasty.

  29. 29.

    Damien

    I really think Tucker Carlson needs to try doing the same training day as a pregnant female soldier, on camera. If (when) he fails, the soldier gets a maternity shirt saying “this isn’t the only baby I’ve carried.”

    And Tucker gets a shirt saying “I need meninism because I’m literally weaker than a baby”

  31. 31.

    Martin

    I cannot express how much this pisses me off. My grandmother was an Army nurse in 1942. She did officers training in Florida with Clark Gable. In 1943 the ship she ended up serving on came under fire while they were evacuating wounded US troops and she herself was wounded and spent 6 months in the hospital recovering. Almost 80 years ago!

    When I was a kid she’d take me to the local marine bases here. We’d go to the PX (it was the only place she could get english muffins in SoCal at the time) and they’d salute her at the gate, and the troops came to recognize her. They’d then show me around the planes and helicopters.

    Someone should shove a GAU-8/A up his ass.

  32. 32.

    MisterForkbeard

    @germy: Nice to see it took approximately 50 days after Biden took office for Tucker Carlson and Fox to turn against the military.

  33. 33.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I thoroughly enjoyed watching Amy McGrath kicking him in the balls this afternoon on MSNBC.

    Tucker is a coward and a bully who would meltdown on the first day of basic.

  35. 35.

    Chyron HR

    @germy: 

    This afternoon, the Department of Defense issued a press release attacking this show […] like we’re a hostile foreign power.

    …Yes, and?

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @VOR: I have to say that that was my original response.  A split second later, I started wondering how supportive they are of the women in the military who want to report a rape.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @VOR:

    His motivation is notoriety.  Trump didn’t get in trouble for shitting on the military, and Trump supporters are the only people Tucker cares about.

  44. 44.

    tokyokie

    I remember reading the profiles of the initial KIAs in Iraq, and among them was a Native woman from Lake Havisu. I believe that she was with a military police unit, that was supposedly noncombat, but everybody’s in combat in a war zone.

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Don’t you think he needs to experience a “titty twister”.  I betcha he liked to dish those out in Junior high school.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Was someone just speaking of Senator Duckworth?

    F*ck Tucker Carlson. While he was practicing his two-step, America’s female warriors were hunting down Al Qaeda and proving the strength of America’s women.

    Happy belated International Women’s Day to everyone but Tucker, who even I can dance better than. pic.twitter.com/E4wchht9lA
    — Tammy Duckworth (@TammyforIL) March 11, 2021

  49. 49.

    Martin

    @germy: Women didn’t just help build them. During the war we had deployed so many trained pilots to the front that the job of moving the planes from the factories to the military bases was often done by female pilots – so they were conducting the first flight, and if there was a problem with the plane, they were the ones to find it. 38 died during service.

  51. 51.

    MomSense

    @zhena gogolia:

    OT but did you feel the earthquake last week?  I think it was last week anyway.  For about 24 hours before the quake, my son’s dog was acting so strangely.  He texted asking if my dog was also acting strange.  I think the dog sensed the earthquake somehow.

  53. 53.

    Mart

    @Leumas: My first thought was Duckworth. A Senator who nurses her baby on the Senate floor. From Wiki: “after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents, she suffered severe combat wounds, which caused her to lose both of her legs and some mobility in her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war.[3] Despite her grievous injuries, she sought and obtained a medical waiver that allowed her to continue serving in the Illinois Army National Guard until she retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2014.” Tougher than me by a long shot.

  54. 54.

    zhena gogolia

    @MomSense:

    No, I didn’t feel anything or even hear about it! (I get all my news from BJ.) I’m in CT — I’m seeing something about Mass.

    The only time I felt one, it felt as if I had a stomach upset. It was very weird.

  56. 56.

    Catherine D.

    @WaterGirl:

    A split second later, I started wondering how supportive they are of the women in the military who want to report a rape.

    This, also, too.

  57. 57.

    raven

    We had nurses and some women in administrative positions in Vietnam and there were also female war correspondents and photographers.

     
    Inside the Daring Life of a Forgotten Female War Photographer
     

    There were also “Donut Dollies” Red Cross volunteers who took coffee, donuts and goofy “name the state capitol” games to firebases. I was not a grunt so I never experienced it but the former mayor of Athens is a good friend and she was one.
    Dickey Chapelle was one of history’s most fearless conflict journalists—and the first American woman to die on the job.

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    I would also suggest that this open support is possible because of who is president. The senior uniformed leadership knows that if they publicly push back on Carlson’s stupidity that they won’t be called out on it by any of the political loyalty officers that Trump had appointed to senior positions in the White House, at the DOD, and at the Services.

    Um…ya think? ;)

    LOL

    Sorry, Tucker, you sure picked the wrong issue to grace us with your wisdom!

  62. 62.

    raven

    @tokyokie: Piestewa Peak (/paɪˈɛstəwɑː/ py-ES-tə-wah;[4] O’odham: Vainom Do’ag, formerly Squaw Peak), at 2,610 feet (796 m) is the second highest point in the Phoenix Mountains, after Camelback Mountain, and the third highest in the city of Phoenix, Arizona. It is located in the Piestewa Peak Recreation Area within the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, near Piestewa Parkway (Arizona State Highway 51). Piestewa Peak is named in honor of Army Spc. Lori Ann Piestewa, the first known Native American woman to die in combat in the U.S. military,[5] and the first female soldier to be killed in action in the 2003 Iraq War.[6]

    eta the mountain was know as Squaw Peak and that is considered derogatory

  64. 64.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    My great-aunt was a Red Cross nurse in WWI, serving in France. She was an inveterate traveller for the rest of her long life, and was also actively involved with the WOSL (Women’s Overseas Service League).

  65. 65.

    TomatoQueen

    @WaterGirl: ​
     
    My job at SSA is medical records review, so I have occasion to see injury reports, discharge papers, VA disability ratings reports, and VA and other treatment facility progress and treatment records. I’ve been doing this since 2006, and I’ve noticed a consistent pattern of PTSD diagnosis as well as chronic illnesses while in treatment, as much related to the original crime as it is to the lack of support or even further trauma from the chain of command. Another consistent pattern is that if I have ten military claimants in my caseload, seven will be men, three will be women, all three women have PTSD and were sexually assaulted while in the military, and so was one of the men. I’d hoped to see over time some improvement in outcomes, or a decrease in incidence rates, but no. There’s a lot of public-facing lip service paid, but on the ground it’s the same old same old. And of course, all that’s anecdata, and is only from records with claims filed by veterans in the Deep South.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: That was nice!  Now I want to find the tweet someone posted this morning – that said the same thing – only it was John Travolta walking along the street to “Stayin’ Alive”.

  68. 68.

    The Moar You Know

     

    This afternoon, the Department of Defense issued a press release attacking this show: “Press secretary smites Fox Host.” Like we’re a hostile foreign power. Remarkable. We’ll respond at 8pm ET on #FoxNews

    — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 11, 2021

     

    @germy:  Not “like”, Tucker.  You’re being actively run by a hostile foreign power. And damn well should be treated as such.

  70. 70.

    HumboldtBlue

    This was really heartening to watch as it developed today. The call for a boycott of Fox at military installations has reached a crescendo as well.

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    @Martin: I learned about the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots when I was traveling to New Mexico two years ago and stopped by the WASP Museum, just outside of Sweetwater, Texas. There were about a thousand of them, all proficient pilots before they became WASPs. Army Air Force commander Hap Arnold believed in them. When he heard that some male pilots were balking at training on the new B-29 bombers, claiming the aircraft were not safe, Arnold made a point of having WASPs deliver the B-29s to the recalcitrant pilots’ base, so as to build up their courage.

    While inspiring, the story of the WASPs is kind of sad. They were disbanded in November, 1944, when training programs had produced a surplus of male pilots. Some journalists like Drew Pearson had agitated against the WASPs, and the Army Air Force sacrificed these brave women. Later, a law giving them retroactive veterans’ status and benefits was signed by President Jimmy Carter. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who flew alongside WASPs in the Second World War, was the chief sponsor.

    The WASP Museum is just four miles off of I-20, and is well worth the visit. They put out a really nice calendar for a donation of $20, which they will ship to those not passing through.

  78. 78.

    Starboard Tack

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    In a meritocracy, Tucker Carlson would be unemployed.

    In a meritocracy, everyone at Fucked Noise, with the possible exception of Chris Wallace, would be unemployable, at anything.

  79. 79.

    Procopius

    @WaterGirl: Thank you. I wondered the same. I retired in 1982, the early days of the All Volunteer Military. My last unit was a transportation battalion, heavy trucks, in Germany. I would guess that at least ten percent of the soldiers were women, although the number might actually have been smaller. Bear in mind these were truck drivers, macho men and women, and they lived in the same barracks, although in separate wings. I have to say I never served in another unit that had as much envy, backbiting, and malicious gossip, but in three years we had one case of sexual harassment: a sergeant who was repeatedly raping a woman soldier who was his subordinate. I’m embarrassed to say he was only caught because he was sexually abusing his daughter and his wife turned him in, but I’m still confident that if any woman had confided in her best friend, under terms of strict secrecy, that one of the other soldiers had harassed her, much less raped her, I would have heard about it. The current reports of widespread sexual misconduct in the military are completely baffling to me.

  82. 82.

    Ken

    @Starboard Tack: In a meritocracy, everyone at Fucked Noise, with the possible exception of Chris Wallace, would be unemployable, at anything.

    Surely a meritocracy still needs someone to clean prison toilets?

  83. 83.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: A friend of mine who’s a Civil War buff wrote the draft of a story about a woman who dresses up as man to attend the University of Michigan in 1860, and has to face the choice of whether or not to enlist when the war breaks out. She does and becomes a Union spy.

    I thought it was *wonderful* – I mean, how often do you sit up till 3 am reading a rough draft? – and begged her to finish it and try to get it published. I don’t think she ever did. : (

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @VOR:

    I’m willing to believe he is doing this just because he’s a dick.

    Everything else aside, he is for sure.

    Now add everything back in and dick really, really doesn’t cover it well. Really I can’t think of anything to call him that actually goes far enough in describing his dumb ass.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:

    I seem to recall that quite a few have said that without the women the Russians would not have done nearly so well in WWII.

    What about Israel? Don’t women serve in combat roles in the military there?

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: Based on doing a keyword search “women of the Israeli Defense Forces” they have their own Flickr page:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/albums/72157623245265101/

    Their own Facebook page:

    https://www.facebook.com/IDFWomenOfIsrael/

    A cheesecake calendar:

    https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/new-calendar-features-women-of-the-idf/

    And several cheesecake photoshoots featured at Maxim including one with Gal Gadot…

    https://www.maxim.com/tag/hot-israeli-army-girls

    The also seem to have a recurring issue with posting their own photos on Facebook, getting reprimanded for it, and then doing it again because they were reprimanded:

    https://nypost.com/2013/06/03/naughty-israeli-soldiers-post-more-cheeky-pics-after-being-disciplined-for-online-snaps/

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Those are much nicer than any photos about male members of any military force……

    I was pretty sure they served in combat roles.

    I was just wondering how many people from Tammy Duckworth’s old units would like to assist fucker carlson into positions that might be problematic for him to get himself out of, considering what she did to earn all that hardware that she carts around every day.

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