If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. And don't count on anything else but that. You have to prepare for the worst-case scenarios. And then in the moment of truth, like Norm Hooten, you need to step up and lead.
503-4:32:13
I have a new name: Miyamoto Musashi. I want to dedicate myself to training and discipline. I want to spend every moment of every day working to improve myself. I now know how far I have to go. — Eiji Yoshikawa, "Musashi"
100-0:34:00
.@SecDef @PeteHegseth You and I are Infantrymen. We were trained for one thing only: to close with and destroy the enemy. Every mission we ever cared about started the same way: looking outside the wire, scanning for threats beyond the perimeter, rifles up, boots tight.
But what if the enemy is already inside the perimeter? What about our most vulnerable dead space? Not low ground in front of us on a range card, the dead space BEHIND us.
There is rot inside the Department of Defense health apparatus. Not theoretical. Not symbolic. Real rot. The systems you are relying on to assess force medical readiness are compromised. The data is either intentionally manipulated or catastrophically mishandled. Either way, it is failing you. It is failing commanders. It is failing the warfighter.
If we keep deploying troops based on false metrics and corrupted data, we are potentially sending the force into battles they are not medically ready to fight. Some will die. Some already have.
This demands a violent break from convention.
Promote Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long to Lieutenant General. Assign her as Director of the Defense Health Agency. Not next year. Not after a study. Now.
Yes, O5 to O9. And yes, it can be done. Under national emergency powers, you can promote her under Title 10 emergency authority to a critical billet in a time of national crisis. The same way Roosevelt bypassed normal channels and made civilian (William Knudsen) a three-star general overnight in 1940 to run war production. Roosevelt did it to cut through the red tape and win a war.
You are fighting a war inside the building. A knife fight in a phone booth.
You need to arm people who will not flinch. LTC Long is that warrior. Her voice has been unrelenting. Her documentation, public. Her sacrifice, unmatched. She fought for the health of the force when it was politically toxic to do so. She never wavered. Not once.
Her health is not perfect, but her mind is sharp. She’s threadbare in the same way warriors get threadbare. In the words of Johnny Cash: she is in good shape for the shape she is in. And she has already walked through fire before, and she can take a whole lot more.
She is thirty days from retirement. Without your intervention, she will be gone. And that will make the right people very happy. The same people who silenced her. The same people who buried the data.
I implore you: Do not let that happen.
Even if you cannot promote her immediately, task her out of her current command. Assign her to the Army Combat Readiness Center or the Aeromedical Research Lab at Fort Novosel. Give her the space to do what she was born to do: protect the force.
You already know the rot at the top. What you need now is what I call a "Reform Roomba". A relentless agent that moves through the halls and corners of the system, vacuuming up the mess no one else wants to touch. LTC Long will be that.
I have wrestled with this for weeks. I cannot think of another officer in the entire force with clarity, guts, and moral gravity to shake the system the way it needs to be shaken.
This will send shockwaves across the ranks. The right kind. It is the most outlandish and sensational recommendation I have ever come up with. But in these unprecedented times, I pray you take it seriously.
I humbly request you get her in the fight. Details on how to do this are below. And prepared for legal scrutiny.👇
Vicious Volk 💥
Parker Volk (@VolkParker57845) dunks on one end, blocks on the other 🏀
Doniphan-Trumbull (@DTboysbball) wins its first game at state since 2014, advancing to the #nebpreps Class C1 semifinals 🪶
📹: @MarkoJerkovicTV
More: https://t.co/9JcVEeAbmT
The best way for us to honor our veterans is to only send our men and women in uniform into harm's way as a last resort, when no other options exist, and actually take care of them and their families if and when they return home. As a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserves, serving as a solider for over 21 years with countless great Americas, this is the actual way to honor our veterans. #VeteransDay