A Call from the Ranks

By Carlo Piero Guercio

---

I am compelled to make absolutely clear that these words and opinions are my own and should not be taken as representative of the service community as a whole, much less as the official policies of the United States military.

I speak only for myself, though I know that I am not alone in my concerns.

- CPG

---

I’ve been asked if I would like to write something about being an active duty servicemember in the current environment.

Upon even the briefest reflection, I can say that this has been on my mind now more than at any other point in my career. By “this” I mean the moral implications of serving in the Armed Forces of the dominant superpower in the world in a time when, by any objective measure, that society is changing into an authoritarian state.

It feels somewhat illicit to even be writing these words as there is a strong and deeply ingrained tradition against military members speaking out on political matters…and honestly, it is amazing how much we succeed at not bringing politics into the workplace.

A fundamental principle of our society – as I have understood it all my life – is that the Armed Forces should be under civilian control and apolitical. This is an essential differentiating factor between us and the countries which we are obliged to study and at times occupy, whose histories are filled with coups d’etat and violent seizures of control by one faction over another.

We were different and, despite some very real flaws, we enjoyed being a democracy that changes power peacefully and according to the results of lawful elections.

I am not naïve. I know that the protections and rights about which we boast have always been applied unevenly to different members of our society based on class, race, gender, sexual preference, sexual identity and, I suspect at times, just general vibes.

The accident of birth that saw me born middle class, white, male, cisgender, and straight, to a family able to trace its roots back to the earliest European colonization of the Americas, will, if I allow it to do so, limit my vision of our country and how it treats its people.

It is easier to believe that police are as professional and decent towards everyone as they have almost invariably been with me, for example. A large part of the reason that I am able to see outside of my own experience has been because of the real privilege of serving with and leading servicemembers of backgrounds different to my own and getting to know their experiences and understanding.

Why Woke Works

And that has always been one of the great benefits to service, that young people of every background and ethnicity were obliged to work with those different to themselves and form bonds of affection and respect that crossed traditionally stark barriers.

So much so that it is an obvious trope in stories about military environments – you will have a friendship between a small Jewish kid from Brooklyn and some rangy cowboy from Amarillo or some such. As silly as it is when rendered in heavy-handed artifice, I have seen many such friendships bloom and deepen and endure over lifetimes.

It is a common and delightful joke to see a liberty group of a handful of junior enlisted servicemembers coming from wildly different communities and aesthetics mixed together in a military unit. B-boy, cowboy, chola, goth, punk, emo, every stripe of expression will step out together.

It’s absurdly endearing when you see it in practice.

That is something that I find particularly galling in the current rhetoric surrounding the military – the notion that the consideration and efforts to understand the experiences of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coasties, and now Guardians was some loathsome, burdensome requirement imposed from outside of our community.

---

“These are the exact leaders being targeted for dismissal by this administration under the onionskin racist and misogynistic guise of DEI elimination. They are pushed aside in favor of those who delight in deadnaming and feigning confusion over what is appropriate or allowed other than their own predatory buffoonery.”

---

Honestly, I welcome those efforts to educate us on terminology and concepts of discrimination in order to form a common lexicon, though of course like any required training it is often tedious.

But the vast majority of the time the efforts to understand the experiences of those we lead who exist outside of the acknowledged default of traditionally celebrated Americans have come from a sincere desire of those who hold positions of power and responsibility to better understand those they lead.

I’ve seen this many times in person. I’ve been at the table with a general as he asked good and sincere questions to a trans airman about the process of transitioning and what that looks like, how it feels, and how it affects them.

I’ve seen crusty old chiefs and master sergeants shift to using preferred pronouns immediately and consistently without issue.

No one has convinced me that woke is at all a thing other than an antonym to ignorance. And in my experience it is certainly not responsible for what I have seen as among the most considerate and thoughtful gestures from leadership towards those they lead.

These are the exact leaders being targeted for dismissal by this administration under the onionskin racist and misogynistic guise of DEI elimination. They are pushed aside in favor of those who delight in deadnaming and feigning confusion over what is appropriate or allowed other than their own predatory buffoonery.

If you are a leader of military personnel and find the effort of treating those under your responsibility with consideration and empathy too much to ask, find another line of work. We will all be better off without you.

Competence over Politics

In considering leadership in the military, it is important to acknowledge that it holds a different weight in the military than outside of it. Even heads of companies that hold real influence over their employees’ lives cannot order them to their deaths.

But the longer that I have been in the more I have become increasingly convinced that positions of senior leadership, certainly those at the command level and above, are achieved and held as politically as any others, and this does not always match the perception from outside.

---

“I’ve always cherished the knowledge that while of course still imperfect, moreso than in other fields, a servicemember from a traditionally marginalized group will have their abilities recognized and valued more often in our community than outside of it.”

---

I have seen real assholes with genuine failings as leaders advance to high positions because they knew how to play the game of advancement, just as I have seen the success of those with real abilities advance in a field where competence mattered over politics.

One of the things I always held as a sublime benefit to Active Duty service is that in most ways, it acts as a meritocracy. I’ve always cherished the knowledge that while of course still imperfect, moreso than in other fields, a servicemember from a traditionally marginalized group will have their abilities recognized and valued more often in our community than outside of it.

If you have never had the pleasure of watching someone with a thick country or urban dialect speak intelligently and with real authority of expertise on an issue, or see a bunch of service academy grads talking, sit up and take notice. I heartily recommend it.

If someone can lead others to contribute to the accomplishment of our mission, that person is valued – even if they grew up poor, came from a shitty family, or otherwise did not receive traditional advantages in their upbringing. I absolutely did receive those traditional advantages growing up, and I delight in seeing those who did not benefit from those advantages achieve recognition and admiration for their abilities in military service.

I am aware of the credible arguments that insist Active Duty service carries with it an implicit endorsement of the policies of the United States government, as we are the tools of its forceful implementation. No one can make an honest study of American history and policy and not come away aware of real failures to live up to the ideals expressed by everyone from Paine to Lazarus about the promise and potential of our society.

Moreso than most other societies, we are separate from the blood feuds and alternating tradeoffs of ethnic cleansings which plague other nations. We have our own, but they are not as deeply entrenched as others.

Kids Die as Rich Get Richer

It is a sincere fear of mine – and to many with whom I have served – that in the performance of our duty we will be advancing and enforcing a system of oppression and exploitation. That case can be made, but until recently, one had to at least squint to see it as such, and even then we had the counter-argument that our aid to the world provided.

Even if our effect or intention was self-serving or oppressive, we could at least point to hungry children abroad being fed by the efforts of US AID or humanitarian efforts in the wake of natural disasters often performed directly by military units.

But we sold that blessing to the richest man in the world in exchange for high fives from idiot edgelords. Hundreds of thousands of people have already died because we allowed the richest men in the world to tear food out of the mouths of the poorest children in the world.

SitRep: FUBAR

We are discussing here not what it has been like to serve, but what it is like to serve in the current administration. In short, it sucks. It really fucking sucks.

No one can serve for long in the rank-and-file military without suspecting that no one will look out for us but each other. Like the unborn, we are a convenient group to champion in the flavor of your choice to advance policy, as we are unable to speak out about those efforts and we cannot form or join unions to represent our needs.

In theory, our leadership and in particular our senior enlisted leadership should fill that role and advocate on our behalf. In practice, leadership excels at nothing more than it does in finding reasons why they can’t help junior enlisted.

---

“This is, apart from anything else, a shameful squandering of precious resources, as we have none greater than the ranks of young people eager to find meaning and purpose and be put to good use. They are brilliant, passionate, and hilarious.”

---

There is no shortage of politicians who passionately and performatively praise our sacrifices, but then do everything they can to undercut our care and that of veterans. In optimistic moments, one would include leadership of varying degrees in that rare understanding and appreciation of what we sacrifice and what we earn through that sacrifice; essentially what we are owed.

This is, apart from anything else, a shameful squandering of precious resources, as we have none greater than the ranks of young people eager to find meaning and purpose and be put to good use. They are brilliant, passionate, and hilarious. The great joy of my service has been the privilege of knowing and leading them.

Of course, not everyone joins with steely eyes fixed on the horizon of patriotic idealism. Many, if not most, enlist because of economic desperation. But even then, they are staggering in their optimism and desire to change their lives and improve the world.

And we toss them away in stupid conflicts of choice and unwinnable wars against drugs and terror that accomplish nothing as much as they generate profit for those already sloshing over with wealth while breaking those who fight them.

A Loss of Faith

I had what little faith I held in leadership fail within the first weeks of this administration assuming power. The prohibition on trans people from serving in the military is a disgrace to our country and it was conceived and performed in gleeful, malicious cruelty.

The trans ban was not the result of a sober and honest study of the effect that including openly trans people in the military had on our ability to accomplish our mission. Rather it was founded in vindictive and willful ignorance by those who vilify a marginal and vulnerable population for their own aggrandizement and the furtherance of a nationalism that I find repugnant.

---

“This ban was ordered in an intentionally cruel and offensive executive order that declared trans people morally unfit to serve. I marvel that the authors did not combust from hypocrisy.”

---

I also believe it to be incompatible with the ideals I have spent my adult life trying to instill in my profession. I know of no one who believed that any of us were unfit to serve if we were transgender, and most of us have served with at least one trans person and found that it did not affect our ability to work together effectively at all.

This ban was ordered in an intentionally cruel and offensive executive order that declared trans people morally unfit to serve. I marvel that the authors did not combust from hypocrisy. I know no one who would believe that to be true, but if you are reading this, I assure you that is not the case and never has been. Trans people are just as flawed and wonderful as the rest of us.

I have been in the service long enough to remember the cruel idiocy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and I remember the real joy of those who had not been free to do so before declaring their identity and orientation without shame or fear of reprisal.

I have served with many service members who are included in the LGBTQ+ community, and in no case did I find that inclusion to be a limiting, much less a disqualifying factor. If what genitals the person next to you at work has or what their partner may have affects your ability to work with them and treat them with respect and consideration, the failing is yours, and I urge you to examine why that is. You are missing out on knowing some wonderful people.

So the trans ban was stupid and malicious and shameful, but none of that is out of character for the representatives of this administration. Quite the contrary is true in my experience. But I really didn’t expect more from them. I did expect more from our leaders than to step aside and shove out their own fucking people without any resistance. And that failure should shame everyone wearing the uniform of this nation forever. I include myself in that shame.

Malpractice of Mission

As I stated earlier, an apolitical military is an essential principle of our society and like many other such principles, this administration either does not care to consider it or is actively working to the contrary. On many occasions they have sought to co-opt the military for their own aggrandizement to a shameful degree.

No other president under whom I have served would make blatant partisan attacks in a speech to the military. If you were to go back and look at the transcripts of presidential speeches to military audiences, you would be struck by how neutral the address is in contrast with campaign rhetoric. They have almost invariably stuck to subjects which did not endorse their party over the other, and the efforts of the speaker and speechwriters to strike this tone is remarkable.

---

“They openly muse of using us to oppress the urban poor in our cities, somehow missing that many of us come from exactly those communities. We did not join because we hate our fellow citizens; quite the opposite, in fact.”

---

Yet we see a clownish commander-in-chief gleefully and repeatedly bleat vicious attacks on his rivals while his toadies screen the servicemembers around him to give the illusion of universal adoration.

This Administration shows no more care in considering how they employ us as servicemembers. We have Naval assets making strikes of blatant illegality in the Caribbean in service of manufactured and chosen military actions conducted with the goal of distracting from domestic political failures and scandals.

They openly muse of using us to oppress the urban poor in our cities, somehow missing that many of us come from exactly those communities. We did not join because we hate our fellow citizens; quite the opposite, in fact.

They expect us to watch the backs of the untrained amateur goons at ICE as they conduct sloppy and vicious operations designed to terrorize and intimidate American citizens and others who live here productively and peacefully, if not legally. I had not realized before how much pride I took in defending a society governed by law, where masked gunmen cannot kidnap people off of the street. I miss that.

The military should only be used domestically to restore order and respond to disasters in service of citizens and at the request of their elected leaders. Posse Comitatus has been sparingly used throughout our history with good reason.

Refusal to obey unlawful orders is mandated under UCMJ, but it is a grenade whose pin you can only pull once. Any eventual justification will likely not clear the wreckage of a career. It is still vastly preferable to being complicit in war crimes, especially those against our own citizenry.

A Nation Worthy of Our Ideals

None of this is good for our profession or our country. Competence is the first victim of authoritarian rule, which is why we have the Secretary of Defense that we do. (No, I’m not calling him the Secretary of War. That is profoundly stupid.)

The best argument that affirmative action is necessary is the appointment of an unqualified smarm merchant purging competent military leaders because of their skin color, gender, or lack of adherence to a traitorous dogma of blind obedience to a single leader – rather than to a set of shared values and ideals.

It’s not as if they will actually win in this scenario. Authoritarian regimes always eventually eat their own, as no one can be sufficiently obsequent to the party in power for a lifetime.

---

“I have to believe that this fever dream of mendacity is transitory, that we will stop following the worst among us and that we can return to normalcy; that we can then improve upon normality to become a nation worthy of its ideals.”

---

These movements demand internal enemies and they will be manufactured from whatever cloth is at hand. Their corruption will hollow out our military strength until we are unable to defend our nation, so long as they and their cronies profit.

Examples of exactly this abound today and throughout history on the world stage and none result in healthy societies. We have already in recent history had tragedies of needless human loss and suffering because we had those in the intelligence and military fields eager to tell those in power what they wanted to hear. That has never been more the case than now.

There’s plenty of people in uniform who are down with all of this that I have just condemned, but it is nowhere near the majority and its support is not growing. I have to believe that this fever dream of mendacity is transitory, that we will stop following the worst among us and that we can return to normalcy; that we can then improve upon normality to become a nation worthy of its ideals.

I am comforted by the consideration that however entrenched and powerful this movement may seem, it is nowhere near as immutable and reinforced by historical prejudice as that faced by the civil rights movement against segregation and Jim Crow in the last century. Peaceful, sustained direct-action can bring this down as it brought down the version of the same beast our grandfathers faced.

With gratitude and hope,

Carlo Piero Guercio