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Soldiers behind Trump during speech were screened for loyalty & appearance

j brown's body

j brown's body

"A Soros-backed animal"
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"Soldiers appearing near President Donald Trump at a Tuesday speech at Fort Bragg were reportedly screened for their partisan politics and physical appearance.

Ahead of Trump’s visit to the North Carolina base, service members were asked to alert superiors if they had political differences with Trump so they could be removed, Military.com reports, citing internal 82nd Airborne Division communications.

"If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out," one note to troops obtained by the outlet said. Another allegedly focused on the troops’ physical appearance, bluntly commanding, “No fat soldiers.”

...During Trump’s visit, a vendor was also reportedly allowed to sell campaign-style Make America Great Again merchandise to troops, and the crowd of soldiers booed and cheered at Trump’s partisan speech, all of which broke with the military’s tradition and regulations around remaining non-political."

Link

Maybe it's just me, but dividing the military between MAGA and everyone else seems like a bad idea.
 
This will make it difficult for people to trust the military.
 
Something I noticed as I looked thru the various online articles about this little kerfuffle - there were very few Black soldiers in the audience, also didn't look like there were any female soldiers.

from the Military.com article
The soldiers roared with laughter and applauded Trump's diatribe in a shocking and rare public display of troops taking part in naked political partisanship.
[. . .]
Internal 82nd Airborne Division communications reviewed by Military.com reveal a tightly orchestrated effort to curate the optics of Trump's recent visit, including handpicking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance. The troops ultimately selected to be behind Trump and visible to the cameras were almost exclusively male.

One unit-level message bluntly said "no fat soldiers."

"If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out," another note to troops said.

Service officials declined to comment
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When a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute has a criticism of Trump and the COs at Fort Bragg, one might think the show was little more than another example of Trump's need for worship.

Kori Schake, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who worked at the State Department and the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush and at the Pentagon under former President George H.W. Bush, said in an email -- “It’s terrible,” she wrote. “It’s predictably bad behavior by the President to try and score political points in a military setting, and it’s a command failure by leaders at Ft Bragg not to prepare soldiers for that bad behavior and counsel them not to participate.”
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If we were in normal times, this unit’s commander would have his heels locked in front of his immediate superiors.
 
j brown's body said:
Maybe it's just me, but dividing the military between MAGA and everyone else seems like a bad idea.
Click to expand...

This is absolutely nothing new, the exact same thing happened both times that President Obama came to my base.

In fact, both times were "closed affairs", where he only met about 100 soldiers each time. Each of them pre-screened to be sure all interactions would be positive. Everybody else had to stay at least 200 meters away from the location, and as it was in our chow hall it was closed for the entire day so we had to go to the other side of the base to eat.

Not sure why you think this is anything unusual.
 
Somerville said:
also didn't look like there were any female soldiers.
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Well no duh, it's Fort Bragg. The home of multiple Infantry units. At a base that is primarily Infantry, the vast majority are going to be male. Much more so than say a base like Rucker that is dedicated to Army Aviation, or Fort Bliss that is dedicated to Air Defense. You would see the exact same thing if this was Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune, but not if it was at MCAS Yuma or MCAS Miramar.

And you would see even less females if this was say on Okinawa. Where the male to female ration of the military is probably close to 20:1 (if not higher). Something like 95% of those on Okinawa are Infantry.
 
StillBallin75 said:
No other ****ing President requires this level of affirmation of his feefees.
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Wrong, I saw the exact same thing over a decade ago whenever President Obama came to our base.



This happened twice when I was there, both times like this. In our chow hall, with a very small and screened audience.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Wrong, I saw the exact same thing over a decade ago whenever President Obama came to our base.



This happened twice when I was there, both times like this. In our chow hall, with a very small and screened audience.
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Why are you comparing "a very small and screened audience" with no TV camera crews with a stadium filled with Trump acolytes and several TV crews?
 
Somerville said:
Why are you comparing "a very small and screened audience" with no TV camera crews with a stadium filled with Trump acolytes and several TV crews?
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Right, no camera crews. Other than the camera crew filming it.

This is how things like this have always been. It was like that in the 1980s when Vice President Bush visited my base, it has been like that at any base where a high ranking politician comes and gives a speech. Large or small.

But as I expect most in here have never worn the uniform, they have no idea about this. They also probably believe that those behind those politicians outside of bases are not screened also.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Well no duh, it's Fort Bragg. The home of multiple Infantry units. At a base that is primarily Infantry, the vast majority are going to be male. Much more so than say a base like Rucker that is dedicated to Army Aviation, or Fort Bliss that is dedicated to Air Defense. You would see the exact same thing if this was Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune, but not if it was at MCAS Yuma or MCAS Miramar.

And you would see even less females if this was say on Okinawa. Where the male to female ration of the military is probably close to 20:1 (if not higher). Something like 95% of those on Okinawa are Infantry.
Click to expand...

Women were probably screened out.
 
j brown's body said:
Women were probably screened out.
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How many women do you think are in the XVIII Airborne Corps? Special Forces? 82nd Airborne Division? Those are the units that make up the vast majority of soldiers on that base (which is clearly obvious in that the vast majority are "Red Beret").

As typical, you are once again speaking out your ass.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Right, no camera crews. Other than the camera crew filming it.

This is how things like this have always been. It was like that in the 1980s when Vice President Bush visited my base, it has been like that at any base where a high ranking politician comes and gives a speech. Large or small.

But as I expect most in here have never worn the uniform, they have no idea about this. They also probably believe that those behind those politicians outside of bases are not screened also.
Click to expand...
We’re there “vendors” selling Bush or Obama trinkets at the events that you went to?
 
Oozlefinch said:
Well no duh, it's Fort Bragg. The home of multiple Infantry units. At a base that is primarily Infantry, the vast majority are going to be male. Much more so than say a base like Rucker that is dedicated to Army Aviation, or Fort Bliss that is dedicated to Air Defense. You would see the exact same thing if this was Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune, but not if it was at MCAS Yuma or MCAS Miramar.

And you would see even less females if this was say on Okinawa. Where the male to female ration of the military is probably close to 20:1 (if not higher). Something like 95% of those on Okinawa are Infantry.
Click to expand...
Fort Bliss is the home of 1st AD, not ADA, which at Ft Sill.
 
Last edited:
armycowboy said:
Fort Bliss is the home of 1st AD, not ADA, which at Ft Sill.
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Not in 2007-2012 when I was there. 1st AD only moved to Bliss in 2011. And the 11th ADA Brigade is still there and occupies most of mainside. The 1st AD occupies a new part of the base on part of Biggs Army Airfield.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Right, no camera crews. Other than the camera crew filming it.

This is how things like this have always been. It was like that in the 1980s when Vice President Bush visited my base, it has been like that at any base where a high ranking politician comes and gives a speech. Large or small.

But as I expect most in here have never worn the uniform, they have no idea about this. They also probably believe that those behind those politicians outside of bases are not screened also.
Click to expand...

Cheap tactics. Say the oponent is unexperienced and clueless and win without a discussion...

I wore the uniform and our politicians (as dumb as they are sometimes) seems to have bigger balls so that they don´t need this majesty/dictator - shit. :)
 
j brown's body said:
"Soldiers appearing near President Donald Trump at a Tuesday speech at Fort Bragg were reportedly screened for their partisan politics and physical appearance.

Ahead of Trump’s visit to the North Carolina base, service members were asked to alert superiors if they had political differences with Trump so they could be removed, Military.com reports, citing internal 82nd Airborne Division communications.

"If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out," one note to troops obtained by the outlet said. Another allegedly focused on the troops’ physical appearance, bluntly commanding, “No fat soldiers.”

...During Trump’s visit, a vendor was also reportedly allowed to sell campaign-style Make America Great Again merchandise to troops, and the crowd of soldiers booed and cheered at Trump’s partisan speech, all of which broke with the military’s tradition and regulations around remaining non-political."

Link

Maybe it's just me, but dividing the military between MAGA and everyone else seems like a bad idea.
Click to expand...
Screening military personnel that are around the president is something every president has done.
 
Oozlefinch said:
How many women do you think are in the XVIII Airborne Corps? Special Forces? 82nd Airborne Division? Those are the units that make up the vast majority of soldiers on that base (which is clearly obvious in that the vast majority are "Red Beret").

As typical, you are once again speaking out your ass.
Click to expand...

I didn't comment on how many women I thought were there.
 
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