I went to the Naval Academy to defend freedom, not to dismantle it (1 Viewer)

[Rogue Valley]

I went to the Naval Academy to defend freedom, not to dismantle it

Stripping the library of books undermines our Navy—and mimics regimes we spent decades confronting.

www.defenseone.com

4.22.25
I didn’t join the Navy to fight for a country that bans books. I joined to defend one that never would. I went to the U.S. Naval Academy because I believed in the values laid out in its mission: to develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically. I graduated proud to swear an oath to support and defend the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. And that’s why I am appalled by the recent decision to remove nearly 400 books—many addressing issues of race and gender—from the shelves of the Academy’s Nimitz Library. This is not just an overcorrection. It is a betrayal. Removing books on identity, race, and gender under the guise of making the institution less “woke” doesn’t just insult the intelligence of midshipmen. It undercuts the very foundation of the officer corps: moral judgment, independent thought, and the courage to act with integrity under pressure.

To those defending this decision, I ask: What are you afraid of? That critical thinkers will graduate from Annapolis and lead with empathy and nuance? That future commanders might wrestle with the moral weight of their orders instead of following blindly? If so, I would argue that’s not a weakness. That’s exactly the kind of leader our Navy—and our nation—needs. F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” The best officers I’ve known live that test every day. Removing difficult books from the shelves of Nimitz Library doesn't protect future leaders. It hobbles them. What’s most painful is the silence. From too many alumni. From Navy and Academy leadership. From those who should be standing up for the values they claim to hold dear. But I’m done waiting for someone else to say something. To the midshipmen at Annapolis: Keep reading. Keep thinking. Challenge ideas—even your own. That’s not disloyalty. That’s courage. That’s leadership. And to the Naval Academy: Don’t fear discomfort. Fear the day we commission leaders who only know how to follow.

Captain Jon Duffy is a retired Naval officer. His 30-year career included the command of two warships and a squadron of destroyers, as well as policy positions in the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, and on the National Security Council in the White House.

Hear hear

Autocracies don't want their military officers to think and reason, only to blindly follow orders. This closed-minded modus operandi has served to decimate the Russian military in Ukraine.

 

[Callen]

What is happening under the guise of getting rid of DEI , whatever that is is is disgusting. There will be so much that the next Administration will need to do to try and unwind this harm.

 

[Girlpower]

I went to the Naval Academy to defend freedom, not to dismantle it

Stripping the library of books undermines our Navy—and mimics regimes we spent decades confronting.

www.defenseone.com

Captain Jon Duffy is a retired Naval officer. His 30-year career included the command of two warships and a squadron of destroyers, as well as policy positions in the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, and on the National Security Council in the White House.

Hear hear

Autocracies don't want their military officers to think and reason, only to blindly follow orders. This closed-minded modus operandi has served to decimate the Russian military in Ukraine.

You don't want the military to follow orders but to make their own decisions?

So a president orders a strike somewhere and you want the military to go, "hold on now, we aren't going to blindly follow that order we are going to have a discussion about it first to make sure it's a good order, we will get back to you Mr. President."

lol

 

[Oozlefinch]

I went to the Naval Academy to defend freedom, not to dismantle it

Stripping the library of books undermines our Navy—and mimics regimes we spent decades confronting.

www.defenseone.com

Captain Jon Duffy is a retired Naval officer. His 30-year career included the command of two warships and a squadron of destroyers, as well as policy positions in the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, and on the National Security Council in the White House.

Hear hear

Autocracies don't want their military officers to think and reason, only to blindly follow orders. This closed-minded modus operandi has served to decimate the Russian military in Ukraine.

And how much were we allowed to think prior to that?

For me, the problem was never "DEI" itself, but how it was absolutely out of control in the military.

Yes, it was there even in the 1980s when I first joined. And in 2007 when I rejoined. But in the 2010s it started to get out of control. Instead of just a single lecture every year on each subject, we started to get more and more of them. As well as adding in mandatory online courses we had to do about the same subjects. And it seemed like every couple of months more and more was added.

And I really saw how that was increased when in 2012 I went from active duty to the reserves. Now one thing about the reserves, it really is in many ways "condensed active duty". All the requirements of active duty in a month, crammed down into two days. And in 2012, we would on average get one of those DEI classes for about one hour a weekend drill. And mostly it was one we had already done, but there had been changes made in the months prior to make that old "annual class" obsolete, so we had to do it again a few months later with changes.

In 2012, a weekend drill was about 10-15% administrative stuff (including DEI classes), and 80%+ actually training and doing our jobs. And for the next decade I saw that change. Until it got to the point that pretty much every single drill after 2018 was nothing but DEI classes. It quite literally had become almost impossible to actually "do our jobs", because almost every hour in a drill weekend was spent doing classes. And some of them we were quite literally doing every single month!

And that is quite literally what a weekend drill had become, nothing but Sexual Harassment Awareness, Gender Discrimination, LGBQ Sensitivity, Racial Equity, and stuff like that. Over and over and over again each month because it seems like in the last month something about the class (prepared and sent down from the Pentagon) had changed so we had to do it all over again. It literally got to the point that if I was not the one assigned to teach such a class, I along with the other senior members of the unit would simply sign the roster claiming we had been there and dipping out to actually try and do our jobs.

I still remember one drill weekend in 2019 when all of the E-4 and below were doing all day classes, as myself and everybody from E-5 to O-3 was in the motor pool doing a PMCS on every single vehicle. They had not been done in months, because there was simply no time in the training schedule to do the 2 hours of Preventative Maintenance required by the Army along with all the DEI "horse pucky" the DoD required. So myself and the rest of the leadership were doing it as the "Privates" were doing the same freaking DEI classes they had done the month before. Because there had been some minor change, so the Pentagon ordered we teach it all over again.

And as there were never enough computers available for everybody in the unit, if there was an on-line class we would have to do that on our own time after drill. So quite literally I was often doing another 4-5 hours of unpaid online classes a month as a requirement.

I was actually grateful when I retired in 2021. And the thing is, I could have and was planning on serving into 2025. But by 2021, I was just so sick to death of all of that nonsense. For the last several years, I had actually done very little of "my job", drill weekends had become a complete joke of doing almost nothing but the same DEI classes ad nauseum over and over and over again. And quite often we had to do it again because a single slide changed in a freaking 45 slide Power Point presentation. When the Pentagon passes down a requirement to reteach a class to active duty, you have an entire month to slip in the new 60-120 minute class sometime in the month.

But in the Reserves, it got to the point where every freaking drill weekend was almost nothing but those mandatory classes.

 

[Fledermaus]

You don't want the military to follow orders but to make their own decisions?

So a president orders a strike somewhere and you want the military to go, "hold on now, we aren't going to blindly follow that order we are going to have a discussion about it first to make sure it's a good order, we will get back to you Mr. President."

lol

"Autocracies don't want their military officers to think and reason, only to blindly follow orders."

No. The military shouldn't blindly follow orders.

Nuremberg taught us that.

 

[Girlpower]

"Autocracies don't want their military officers to think and reason, only to blindly follow orders."

No. The military shouldn't blindly follow orders.

Nuremberg taught us that.

So military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand.

You sure that is going to be effective during war?

How long to they get to discuss it before they have to make a decision whether to follow an order or not?

 

[Oozlefinch]

You don't want the military to follow orders but to make their own decisions?

Wow, do you have a really bad idea of how the military is run.

No, I do not expect the military to simply "blindly follow orders". In fact, the military itself does not want their members to blindly follow orders. That is why in the UCMJ there is actually no such requirement.

Feel free to look it up, there is absolutely no requirement in the military to just "follow orders". In fact, we are actually encouraged to not follow them at times. There is a reason Article 92 is written as it is.

 

[Oozlefinch]

So military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand.

No, that is where Article 92 kicks in.

What, you think the military is some kind of top-down autocracy or something?

 

[Fledermaus]

So military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand.

You sure that is going to be effective during war?

How long to they get to discuss it before they have to make a decision whether to follow an order or not?

Did I say military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand?

No.

Read Post #7 and #8.

 

[Girlpower]

No, that is where Article 92 kicks in.

What, you think the military is some kind of top-down autocracy or something?

So the military shouldn't blindly follow orders but they should?

What exactly are you folks trying to say here?

Either they do or they don't.

 

[Girlpower]

Wow, do you have a really bad idea of how the military is run.

No, I do not expect the military to simply "blindly follow orders". In fact, the military itself does not want their members to blindly follow orders. That is why in the UCMJ there is actually no such requirement.

Feel free to look it up, there is absolutely no requirement in the military to just "follow orders". In fact, we are actually encouraged to not follow them at times. There is a reason Article 92 is written as it is.

So soldiers can just decide when they want to follow orders or not and are encouraged not to follow them according to you?

 

[Fledermaus]

So the military shouldn't blindly follow orders but they should?

What exactly are you folks trying to say here?

Either they do or they don't.

No, the military shouldn't blindly follow orders.

Orders that are of dubious origin, of dubious legality, etc. should be questioned.

Lest we fall back into the "just following orders" mode that occurred during the Holocaust.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Trump TruthSocial rants to bastardize and rally the MAGAs against another career member of service in 5... 4... 3...

 

[Fledermaus]

So soldiers can just decide when they want to follow orders or not and are encouraged not to follow them according to you?

Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the inability to grasp what others tell you.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Did I say military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand?

No.

Read Post #7 and #8.

To be honest, whenever I see things like "Very" in the political leaning of an individual, I have come to expect that their entire mindset is based around little but their politics. And their answers will change based on those internal politics.

When their side is in power, then yes they demand anything passed down be followed without thought. Dissent will not be tolerated.

But when their side is out of power, then you are going to see demands for dissent. Because nothing of the other side should be allowed in any form.

Then you get those like me. Very much in the middle, and seeing that both sides are differing shades of insane.

Of course, I am also aware that 99% of those with "Very" or something like it likely never actually served themselves. So in the end, they do not really know what is going on, they just have a fantasy in their mind of what is going on. Such as things like DEI, where that is 99% driven by the Civilian Leadership inside the DoD, and not actually the "Military" itself. Just as most are not even aware just how big the DoD itself actually is.

As in, for every 2 members on active duty in the US military, there is one civilian DoD Federal Employee. They are the ones that dictate things like DEI being done to the point it has gotten out of control. Some nameless GS sitting in DC where their entire job revolves around DEI. It sure as hell is not the military, they are sick to death of it.

 

[Bodecea]

You don't want the military to follow orders but to make their own decisions?

So a president orders a strike somewhere and you want the military to go, "hold on now, we aren't going to blindly follow that order we are going to have a discussion about it first to make sure it's a good order, we will get back to you Mr. President."

lol

You never served, did you?

 

[Bodecea]

So military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand.

You sure that is going to be effective during war?

How long to they get to discuss it before they have to make a decision whether to follow an order or not?

The military swears an oath to the Constitution first and foremost. You never served. You don't understand.

 

[Oozlefinch]

So the military shouldn't blindly follow orders but they should?

What exactly are you folks trying to say here?

Well, if you had actually served in the military, that would have made sense. But as you likely never did and have a distorted idea of what the military is, this is to be expected.

But do you even know what the UCMJ is? Or Article 92? Here, let me quote it for you and let you think on it for a bit.

Art. 92. Failure to obey order or regulation​

Any person subject to this chapter who-

(1) violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation;
(2) having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by a member of the armed forces, which it is his duty to obey, fails to obey the order; or
(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;

shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Lest we fall back into the "just following orders" mode that occurred during the Holocaust.

Hence, the very clearly worded Article 92 of the UCMJ.

Here, once again but with something very critical highlighted.

Art. 92. Failure to obey order or regulation​

Any person subject to this chapter who-

(1) violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation;
(2) having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by a member of the armed forces, which it is his duty to obey, fails to obey the order; or
(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;

shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

That "Lawful" is the ultimate thing that absolutely every single member who serves in the military has pounded into them almost since day 1 of putting on the uniform. And there are a slew of "unlawful" orders that are given all the time. And as such, as a member of the military I can consider them, and decide if I actually want to follow them or not.

And here is where critical thinking is absolutely required. There is lawful, unlawful, and illegal. The first you had better do. The second, you can or can not do at your discretion. But the latter? You had better never-ever-ever do those.

But the political lapdogs on either side of the political spectrum do not see it that way. You should absolutely do anything they tell you to do, and absolutely never do anything they do not like.

 

[Oozlefinch]

And I am aware, much of what I had just said makes perfect sent to those that have worn the uniform, and make no sense to those that never wore the uniform. So here are a few examples.

Your Fox Company Gunny comes up to you and tells you he has a mission for you. You are to get two others and sneak into the Golf Company area and steal their Guidon (the ceremonial flag every unit has). Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

A Lieutenant checking into the unit tells you to go out to their car and grab a folder they left on the seat with important paperwork. Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

You are on a "Joint Service" base with members of 2 or more branches of service and a Sergeant of another branch comes up and tells you that he is grabbing you to do a working party. Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

The entire unit is ordered to take a class on Sexual Discrimination, and you have been tasked with conducting the training. A Major informs you he is not going to attend because he has to get a report done by the close of business so orders you to sign off on his having been there. Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

You are on a FOB, and a mortar attack starts. You duck into the nearest bunker, and minutes later you hear cries from outside that somebody was hit. A Lieutenant not in your unit orders you to go out and assist the wounded. Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

You are not "under arms", and walking through an airport with your cover on your head and cocked back and to the side. An individual of lower rank than you tells you to take it off. Lawful, unlawful, or illegal?

Each and every one of those above is actually rather clear, to anybody that actually served in uniform. And the funny thing is, I can almost guarantee that most who never served will not see the clear distinctions between them.

 

[Risky Thicket]

So military orders should be debated by the troops beforehand.

You sure that is going to be effective during war?

That's not the way it works. War is organized chaos.

The ones who give the orders are not the ones who die. Up the chain of command much discussion takes place before aggression takes place. That's not to say that the decisions made are always good decisions. There are definitely times when orders aren't logical at the level where they will be implemented.

It may seem simple to understand if you haven't been in the military. It is more complex than it seems to those on the outside. You do your job well and overall you do as you are told. Although you don't always like it, the system it works. It comes down to trusting and depending on each other to do as they are trained to do.

How long to they get to discuss it before they have to make a decision whether to follow an order or not?

That's a big question. The answer is, it depends.

There is so much involved up to the point of implementation. The greater the impact of the decision the higher up the decision process takes place. At surface level, the point of implementation the discussion is more like "Are they ****ing insane? That's not going to work." After the NCOs tell everyone to shut the hell up the discussion may be how to implement something at ground level that was planned and ordered by people far far away.

All of the above depends on so many variables. If the decision is local and immediate your immediate chain of command aren't going to "kick it upstairs" unless they feel they have to clear it with those higher up.

Timing depends on the particular action ordered. Could be damn near immediate to days or more. It depends.

 

[Girlpower]

That's not the way it works. War is organized chaos.

The ones who give the orders are not the ones who die. Up the chain of command much discussion takes place before aggression takes place. That's not to say that the decisions made are always good decisions. There are definitely times when orders aren't logical at the level where they will be implemented.

It may seem simple to understand if you haven't been in the military. It is more complex than it seems to those on the outside. You do your job well and overall you do as you are told. Although you don't always like it, the system it works. It comes down to trusting and depending on each other to do as they are trained to do.



That's a big question. The answer is, it depends.

There is so much involved up to the point of implementation. The greater the impact of the decision the higher up the decision process takes place. At surface level, the point of implementation the discussion is more like "Are they ****ing insane? That's not going to work." After the NCOs tell everyone to shut the hell up the discussion may be how to implement something at ground level that was planned and ordered by people far far away.

All of the above depends on so many variables. If the decision is local and immediate your immediate chain of command aren't going to "kick it upstairs" unless they feel they have to clear it with those higher up.

Timing depends on the particular action ordered. Could be damn near immediate to days or more. It depends.

The question is whether a soldier has to obey a direct order or if they can debate it, not about what happens throughout the chain of command.

If your commander tells you to rush that hill and take it do you have to or can you sit down and discuss it first?

 

[Girlpower]

Well, if you had actually served in the military, that would have made sense. But as you likely never did and have a distorted idea of what the military is, this is to be expected.

But do you even know what the UCMJ is? Or Article 92? Here, let me quote it for you and let you think on it for a bit.

So you are dodging the question which is really a very simple one.

The statement was made that soldiers do not have to follow orders and are even encouraged not to do so.

Do you agree with this or not?

 

[Girlpower]

The military swears an oath to the Constitution first and foremost. You never served. You don't understand.

Fine but does that mean they don't have to follow orders then?

 

[Oozlefinch]

The ones who give the orders are not the ones who die. Up the chain of command much discussion takes place before aggression takes place. That's not to say that the decisions made are always good decisions. There are definitely times when orders aren't logical at the level where they will be implemented.

And when it comes to combat, ultimately it is like playing a game of chess. And like in any game of chess, sometimes they simply have to decide to "make a sacrifice" in order to accomplish the mission.

That is something that especially everybody that has served in the Combat Arms (especially Infantry) is aware of, as well as the Navy.

I have led patrols, where I knew my squad or team was the "bait". And we would have to walk into the potential "kill zone" of an ambush in order to get the other side to light us up so the rest of my Platoon can take them out. Or my Company might be tasked with being the first ones to land in a "Hot LZ", in order to take the brunt of the incoming fire as the rest of the helos are arriving to drop off their people. Or if I am a "Combat Lifesaver", to put myself in harms way to render immediate first aid in the middle of a firefight to a team member that was hit.

And it boils down to a great many things. Like in the civilian world, there are very clear orders and regulations about things like how many hours we can function. Nothing strenuous to be done outside in conditions of extreme heat or cold. Or to not operate our moving equipment for more than 8 hours at a time. And yes, those are actual military orders passed on down from the Department of Defense itself. Or to not operate military equipment with obvious malfunctions that might impair the safe operation of that equipment.

But for the needs of mission accomplishment, each of those can be ignored if the mission demands it. I am well aware of the 8 hour rule when operating motorized equipment. But a hell of a lot of times I was tasked with violating that order because the mission required it. And that the top ranking individual above me (most times the Company or Battalion commander) signed off on it being done because the mission required it.

And not just the Army and Marines. Every Tin Can Sailor that served on a Frigate or Destroyer knows that ultimately, if their Protected Capital Asset (carrier or amphibious transport) comes under attack they themselves may very well place themselves directly in the line of fire between the attacker and that ship. Even being sunk with all hands if required. Because that protected asset must be protected, no matter what the cost.

The same things that causes the ones actually planning and leading an attack to order a half-dozen pilots to conduct a "Wild Weasel" attack on an air defense site. Knowing that there is a high chance that several of those conducting the attack will not return home from that mission. Because in the end, their losses will save more people when they actual attack occurs.