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Sage Withrow
@SWithrow13
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We’ve known that long-forgotten has-been action movie star Steven Seagal has cheerfully embraced his role as a mascot for Vladimir Putin’s regime; what you may not have known is that there’s an excellent chance you’re now in better shape than Seagal is. Apparently, the only thing that’s under siege these days is a buffet table.
OG Extreme Ownership
@jockowillink
With Afghanistan still fresh in the nation’s memory and D-Day upon us again, I’ve been thinking about a piece of paper that weighs more than most leadership books ever written.
On this day in 1944, the night before the largest amphibious invasion in human history, Eisenhower sat staring into uncertainty. The weather was bad. His intelligence was incomplete. Thousands of ships were moving. Tens of thousands of men were preparing to climb down cargo nets into a black and angry sea. If the invasion failed, history itself would have bent in a different direction.
So Eisenhower wrote a little known note. Not because he expected failure, but because he understood command.
In a few short lines he accepted responsibility for a catastrophe that had not yet happened. No caveats or qualifiers. No carefully crafted language designed to spread blame across a dozen desks.
If the operation failed, it was his fault.
That was it. That was the entire note.
What strikes me is not the courage required to launch D-Day. Everybody understands that part. What strikes me is how completely alien that level of accountability feels today.
Somewhere along the way we built a culture where authority became a right and responsibility became optional. Everybody wants the title, the influence, the prestige. The moment things go wrong, however, the hunt begins for circumstances, systems, misunderstandings, subordinates, budgets, politics, weather, timing, or anyone else willing to stand still long enough to absorb the impact.
Eisenhower understood that command is not a reward, but a burden. The rank exists because somebody must stand at the end of the line and say, “This belongs to me.”
That little note may be one of the most important leadership documents ever written because it captured a truth that every generation eventually has to relearn: the higher you climb, the fewer excuses you are allowed to make.
The men who landed on those beaches carried rifles.
Eisenhower carried all of them.
With Afghanistan still fresh in the nation’s memory and D-Day upon us again, I’ve been thinking about a piece of paper that weighs more than most leadership books ever written.
On this day in 1944, the night before the largest amphibious invasion in human history, Eisenhower sat staring into uncertainty. The weather was bad. His intelligence was incomplete. Thousands of ships were moving. Tens of thousands of men were preparing to climb down cargo nets into a black and angry sea. If the invasion failed, history itself would have bent in a different direction.
So Eisenhower wrote a little known note. Not because he expected failure, but because he understood command.
In a few short lines he accepted responsibility for a catastrophe that had not yet happened. No caveats or qualifiers. No carefully crafted language designed to spread blame across a dozen desks.
If the operation failed, it was his fault.
That was it. That was the entire note.
What strikes me is not the courage required to launch D-Day. Everybody understands that part. What strikes me is how completely alien that level of accountability feels today.
Somewhere along the way we built a culture where authority became a right and responsibility became optional. Everybody wants the title, the influence, the prestige. The moment things go wrong, however, the hunt begins for circumstances, systems, misunderstandings, subordinates, budgets, politics, weather, timing, or anyone else willing to stand still long enough to absorb the impact.
Eisenhower understood that command is not a reward, but a burden. The rank exists because somebody must stand at the end of the line and say, “This belongs to me.”
That little note may be one of the most important leadership documents ever written because it captured a truth that every generation eventually has to relearn: the higher you climb, the fewer excuses you are allowed to make.
The men who landed on those beaches carried rifles.
Eisenhower carried all of them.
Look, Peter.
I know you are trying. I appreciate that.
My family fought in the Revolutionary War. The recent ones are buried in Arlington.
I am here to tell you there is no such thing as 50 percent American.
You either are, or you ain’t.
You are. Balaji ain’t.
Tibor Rubin was not born in America. He won the Medal of Honor. Lord Haw-Haw was born British. He broadcast for the Nazis. Soil decides nothing. Direction decides everything.
Being American does not mean you never stumble. Americans do un-American things the way mortals sin. We are human. We fall for propaganda. We swallow media lies. We make mistakes. Sometimes, in the worst moments, we secretly dream of escaping somewhere quieter.
This is a Christian nation, and the standard for being American is the same as the standard for being Christian. Are you walking toward the light, or into the darkness?
Nobody is asking you to turn your back on your culture. Nobody is asking you to change the fundamentals of who you are.
There are sins I fall into repeatedly. Sins I cannot seem to shake no matter how hard I try.
Does that make me less Christian? No.
What would make me less Christian is refusing to name the sin. Petitioning others to leave the church. Promoting the sin. Sneering at the people who walk the straight path while I stumble.
The bar for being American is lower than the bar for being Christian. But a bar exists.
Do you acknowledge your differences? Are you walking toward a better America, or away from it? Do you take time to honor the people who died for American ideals?
Are you here to squeeze out money or fame or power for yourself? Our are you hear to contribute to all?
What makes Balaji un-American is not even his commie utopian propaganda. That is a symptom.
His real sin was posting that anti-American horseshit ON MEMORIAL DAY.
That’s the closest thing to a litmus test we have.
If you stopped and said a quiet prayer on Monday. You’re probably American.
If you do not have the decency to keep your mouth shut about fleeing the country on the most reverent day of the American year, while Gold Star families are weeping over folded flags, you ain’t. You are a tourist with a passport.
Welcome to America Peter.
Connecticut is #1 at being #50! Actually new study shows CT ranks 46th for economic outlook and 48th for economic performance. Take a bow @GovNedLamont and @CTDems; it's hard to destroy a state ... but you did it! #ALEC @Taxeconomist @ctcapitolreport https://t.co/dgjiPTtVnN
This is why Americans are the deadliest fighters on earth.
I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport. I asked him the obvious question: Marines or Navy?
Navy, he said. His face fell a little. He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest he can’t carry a weapon.
He’s hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains are Navy officers, so that’s the only door in.
I laughed. I feel a little bad about that.
Then I explained to him what “Devil Doc” means. The Marine Corps doesn’t have medics. They use Navy Corpsmen.
I told him: when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple of Purple Hearts and tell him Devil Docs “aren’t real Marines.”
Be prepared to duck.
Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy Corpsmen and Navy chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat qualify. Full stop.
My dad was Air Force. Not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service, he’d say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. Then they’d find out he was a medic, and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence.
Dad hated being honored. He had one line he used to deflect it:
“I didn’t do much. Save your praise for my cousin the PJ.”
That always broke the ice.
PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots out.
They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.
The math doesn’t math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties to rescue one air force jet jockey?
What the padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy that has nothing to do with rank, and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.
Have you deployed?
Have you seen combat?
In every firefight there are men who move toward the guns and men who hang back. And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down, bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head, there is exactly one word he screams into the radio.
“Medic.”
Here is the catch, and it is the whole reason America fights the way America fights.
That Marine is willing to push forward into fire BECAUSE he knows the Corpsman is coming. He knows the medevac birds will land in the hot LZ.
He knows the Devil Doc will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes to that.
And, if the medic can’t help, if he has what Dad called “injuries incompatible with life,” he knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rights and deliver him to heaven.
The F-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing. He knows the PJs will move heaven and earth to reach him, and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell on earth on the way in.
This is the quiet math underneath American violence.
Our warriors are the fiercest on earth not because they are more aggressive, not just because they are better trained, or better equipped, though they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know, in their bones, that when they key the mic and call for help, help is coming in hot.
Take that away, and you don’t have the U.S. military anymore. You have a security force.
I’m noticing a lot of foreigners who seem to not understand why we’d risk hundreds of lives, spend millions of dollars, and sacrifice several aircraft to rescue one guy. And the reason they don’t understand is also the reason people can’t be made American by a piece of paper.
I’m up in the middle of the night and am about to go back to sleep. But seeing the news of this pilot being rescued after one of the most daring rescue operations in history has me motivated beyond belief.
To the media and the haters who’ve been obsessed with palace intrigue stories. Trying to sow division and calling for the heads of our leaders. I hope this news hurts. I hope it hurts a lot.
I have my finger on the pulse of the information machine these days. And what I’ve seen over the past 48 hours is the weaponization of said machine.
Bots, grifters, and partisan hacks all working in unison literally rooting for our failure. Rabid. Drooling. Damn near praying to satan for our own pilot to be killed or captured.
Hyenas, the lot of them. All cheering against America.
While they’ve all been groaning like demons for the heads of our leaders and warriors, people like @PeteHegseth, @SeanParnellASW and others have just been busily…. doing the job to get our guy back.
Nothing I type here will matter at 0300. But when the world wakes up in a few hours, it’ll see the fruits of merit based leadership at echelon. All the way down the chain.
An Airman safely home after evading capture for over a day. An epic rescue that will be remembered for generations. Millions inspired by the shear power and conviction of the United States military. And millions more disappointed by it, because they were praying for our national embarrassment.
I’m not sorry you’re witnessing a competent war machine in action.
I’m not sorry that our leadership will never leave anyone behind.
I’m not sorry for any hurt feelings caused by this.
Because you were never on our team anyway.
God Bless America.🇺🇸
Today the world sees the gigantic balls U.S. combat search and rescue has. Extremely high risk operation we hoped we wouldn’t have to see.
Even if we’re in the midst of bombing you into oblivion, we get exceedingly more violent if you harm a hair on the heads of our pilots.
Just an unfriendly reminder of how a nation with overmatch can behave in situations like this.
Let’s be real here. Europe has spent decades freeloading on American security. Even now, with every NATO member finally hitting the 2% GDP target in 2025.
But beyond the financial contributions, the real rupture is philosophical and the Iran crisis has shown a spotlight on it.
Europe worships process. Endless committees, consultations, and “predictability.” Macron actually calls it a virtue. For Trump, this is paralysis as his style is to articulate a threat, fix a target, and act. The Americans are men of conviction and purpose. Europe on the other hand lives by bureaucratic liturgy and in high-minded abstractions.
Sure, Americans might make mistakes when acting. But Europe never considers what the costs of not acting actually are.
Just look at how their nations are doing on various fronts, especially on the border crisis, and you see the same cancerous rot that undergirds their foreign policy approach play out domestically. It's the same problem on a different scale.
Iran is currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, choking 20% of global oil and spiking prices past $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, the regime is bleeding from strikes, its nuclear ambitions are still alive despite degraded capability, and its proxies are firing missiles at allies and oil tankers. If this isn’t a clear and present danger to the global economy - of which Europe is a part - then I don’t know what is.
Yet when Washington asked to use European bases to finish the job - bases the US has defended for generations, the response was hesitation and hand-wringing. The US did strike from RAF Fairford, but only after warnings that British soil could become a “legitimate target.”
If you cannot agree that a theocratic regime with eschatological ambitions who have shown no restraint in hitting out at Gulf countries and threatening the world’s energy jugular is an enemy worth confronting, then what, exactly, are we allies about?
Europe loves to preen about being tough on Russia. They issue condemnations and speeches and slap sanctions that hardly work to cripple the Russian economy.
Now here was a chance to do something concrete: let the Americans use the bases they already pay for, help clear the Strait, and actually degrade the Iranian war machine that arms Moscow’s proxies. Turmp didn’t ask for boots on the ground or any kind of more offensive action. All he wanted was permission to operate from the infrastructure America has underwritten for decades.
They couldn’t even manage that.
So can you blame the Americans for seeing NATO for what it is? A paper-tiger alliance that expects Washington to bleed and pay while Brussels and London convenes and deliberates.
If Europe refuses to treat Iran as the threat it is while happily letting American power keep the Strait open and the lights on, then the alliance is already dead. Trump is simply stating the obvious and the Americans are becoming very reluctant to subsidize the European delusion any longer.
Being skeptical of the US Government’s account of how the Iran war is proceeding is good and proper for a news organization.
But being skeptical of the USG, while swallowing everything put out by the Iranian regime, is a sign that something else is going on.
Yea kids, a known quantity (and legend) in GWOT SOF who spent more time killing assholes than you have on the phone, who sacrificed and lost more than you can honestly fathom in service to this country is “totally a traitor”…….for leaving his position because he personally disagrees with the course of something.
It is totally possible to disagree with what they are saying, yet still fully understand their reasoning and obligation to a personal moral code.
I continue to have a number of strategic & constitutional doubts about this operation.
Counterpoint: this is awesome, we've waited 47 years for it. USA, USA, USA!
Regardless of Alysa Liu's personal beliefs, her main message is that she’s grateful for the experience and is just having a good time. She’s a national treasure, and we are lucky to have her.
Me @NRO
https://t.co/O9FiL6j2lV
Nobody wants unrestrained democracy. Democracy is not, as progressives claim, supposed to be fast-moving but supervised by elites. It is, as conservatives often note, supposed to reflect popular sovereignty, but filtered through a process of deliberation.
https://t.co/qyxE0I1O7D https://t.co/bHoCUQIajJ
If you want to say this woman's death is a tragedy, that we should pray for her soul as Christians and Americans, then I agree with you.
But the media dishonesty about this officer is an all-time moment in shameless press propaganda.
Does this law enforcement officer have a family? Yes. Did he he get seriously injured by a vehicle just six months ago? Yes. Did he have reason to fear for his life? Yes. Does he have every right to safety while he's doing his job? Yes.
I want our law enforcement officers to do their jobs and come home safely to their family. If you don't like the immigration policy of the Trump administration, attack me. Leave our law enforcement alone.
And it's time for the press to finally tell the truth about this story.
https://t.co/WdAiSc1tcL
"On a freezing December morning in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was reviewing budget proposals when his secretary nervously informed him that a 73-year-old woman named Mrs. Eleanor Mitchell from Abilene, Kansas—his childhood Sunday school teacher—was in the White House lobby asking to see him without an appointment, and instead of having staff politely redirect her, Eisenhower literally ran down the hallway, swept this elderly woman into a huge bear hug, and cleared his entire afternoon to have tea with her in the residence.
What makes this moment so breathtakingly beautiful is that Mrs. Mitchell had taught a scrappy young Dwight Eisenhower Bible verses every Sunday from 1907 to 1911 in a tiny church basement, making him memorize Proverbs and Psalms when he'd rather be playing baseball, and she'd written him letters throughout his military career—through both world conflicts, through his rise to Supreme Commander, through his election—always addressing him simply as 'Dwight' and reminding him that 'character matters more than rank.' Eisenhower told his staff that Mrs. Mitchell once made him apologize to the entire Sunday school class for being prideful after he'd bragged about winning a spelling bee, teaching him a humility lesson that shaped his entire leadership philosophy, and he'd never forgotten how she'd pulled him aside afterward and said, 'Dwight, you're going to do important things someday, but never let success make you forget where you came from or who helped you along the way.'
During their White House tea, Eisenhower introduced Mrs. Mitchell to every cabinet member who passed by, saying with genuine reverence, 'This woman taught me everything that matters—respect this lady,' and she gently scolded him for not attending church regularly enough, which made the most powerful man in the world laugh and promise to do better.
When Mrs. Mitchell left that evening, Eisenhower walked her personally to her taxi, kissed her cheek, and pressed an envelope into her hand containing a check for her church and a note:
‘For the place that built my foundation—thank you for seeing potential in a troublemaker farm boy. Your student always, Dwight.'
What absolutely destroys you is understanding that Eisenhower commanded armies and led nations, but he never forgot the Sunday school teacher who taught him that true strength was moral courage, proving that the greatest leaders never outgrow gratitude and that honoring the people who shaped you when nobody knew your name is the most presidential thing you can do.
This sob story was written about an illegal immigrant who was issued a deportation order by an immigration judge in 2009 and never left.
Oh… and he’s a convicted murderer.
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