WASHINGTON – After multiple top generals described to WND what they regard as a full-scale “purge” of the U.S. military by the Obama administration, the commander of U.S. Army Garrison Japan was summarily relieved of duty and his civilian deputy reassigned, pending a “misconduct” investigation.
Nine generals and flag officers have been relieved of duty under Obama just this year – widely viewed as an extraordinary number – and several sources put the total number of senior officers purged during the five years of the Obama administration as close to 200.
In response, prominent retired generals – ranging from Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News senior military analyst, to Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a founder of the Army’s elite Delta Force, to Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. Patrick Henry Brady – have all gone on the record with WND, characterizing Obama’s actions as nothing less than an all-out attack on America’s armed forces.
According to U.S. Army Japan, Col. Eric Tilley was suspended from his job by Maj. Gen. James C. Boozer Sr., commander of U.S. Army Japan and I Corps (Forward) for a “lack of confidence” based on the results of an inquiry.
A spokesman for U.S. Army Japan, Maj. Kevin Toner, would not elaborate on what prompted a “lack of confidence,” saying it would be “inappropriate to make public the allegations because the investigation did not lead to findings of criminal misconduct.”
Tilley is to be replaced by Col. Joy Curriera.
Tilley’s dismissal is only the latest in what retired Navy Capt. Joseph John refers to as a “bigger picture” in which some “135 senior officers have been purged.”
“The ‘bigger picture,’” John told WND, “is that the U.S. Armed Forces have been under relentless attack by the occupant of the Oval Office for five years.”
A Naval Academy graduate, John had three tours of duty in Vietnam, served as an al-Qaida expert for the FBI, and was a commanding officer with SEALs embedded on special operations. He was awarded the Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal, five Meritorious Service Medals and 22 medals and unit citations for combat operations in Vietnam, Philippines, Desert Storm and on anti-terrorist operations.
Today, John is chairman of Combat Veterans For Congress PAC (Political Action Committee), which has helped elect 20 combat veterans to Congress.
“I believe there are more than 137 officers who have been forced out or given bad evaluation reports so they will never make Flag (officer), because of their failure to comply to certain views,” John told WND.
“The truly sad story is that many of the brightest graduates of the three major service academies witnessing what the social experiment on diversity … is doing to the U.S. military, are leaving the service after five years,” he said. “We are being left with an officer corps that can be made to be more compliant, that is, exactly what Obama needs to effect his long range goals for the U.S. military.”
In an email to WND, John outlined what he termed “a very few of the most egregious” aspects of Obama’s “attack” on the military over the past five years.
He referred specifically to the Rules of Engagement in combat that were put in place after Obama took office, asserting that the changes resulted in very high casualty rates in Afghanistan, including the loss of 17 members of SEAL Team 6 in one incident.
“The Rules of Engagement precluded the use of suppression fire at a landing zone,” John said.
Echoing what other high-ranking officers have told WND, he said the Pentagon policy of repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” resulted in the first openly “gay” “major military force in the world.” The development has brought about “massive” sexual assaults on “thousands of straight military male personnel that have been covered up,” he said.
He also cited military chaplains’ being prohibited from reading letters in the pulpit from their cardinals during Sunday services as a restriction of freedom of religion.
These and other “social experiments,” he said, have constituted “a massive assault to restructure the military mindset, destroyed unit cohesion, unit morale and is negatively affecting combat effectiveness.”
John also referred to major cuts in the military budget that resulted in, for one example, restricting as many as seven aircraft carriers to port, “leaving them open to another Pearl Harbor-type of attack.”
Physical fitness qualifications for “tip of the spear units” such as the Rangers, SEALs, Green Berets and combat infantry are being downgraded, he said, so “women can be placed into those units.” Likewise, he added, “women have been assigned to submarines and ships resulting in relationships at sea that have broken up military families.”
Some senior enlisted personnel and commanding officers in the midst of six-month deployments, he said, have been removed because they got involved with the opposite sex, which degrades the ships’ battle readiness.
John sums up this way: “The net result of the occupant of the Oval Office’s new policies set for the U.S. armed forces changed and enforced by his civilian appointees at DOD continues to degrade the most effective military organization ever created.”
If John’s comments about Obama sound dire, they are no more so than those expressed to WND in recent days by top generals.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, recipient of the U.S. military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, as well as other top retired officers, say President Obama’s agenda is decimating the morale of the U.S. ranks to the point members no longer feel prepared to fight or have the desire to win.
“There is no doubt he [Obama] is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him” over such issues as “homosexuals, women in foxholes, the Obama sequester,” Brady told WND.
“They are purging everyone, and if you want to keep your job, just keep your mouth shut,” another military source told WND.
Not only are military service members being demoralized and the ranks’ overall readiness being reduced by the Obama administration’s purge of key leaders, colonels – those lined up in rank to replace outgoing generals – are quietly taking their careers in other directions.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, who was a founding member of Delta Force and later deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, says it is worrying that four-star generals are being retired at the rate that has occurred under Obama.
“Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause,” Boykin said.
“I believe there is a purging of the military,” he said. “The problem is worse than we have ever seen.”
The future of the military is becoming more and more of concern, added Boykin, since colonels who would become generals are also being relieved of duty if they show that they’re not going to support Obama’s agenda, which critics have described as socialist.
“I talk to a lot of folks who don’t support where Obama is taking the military, but in the military they can’t say anything,” Boykin said.
As a consequence, he said, the lower grades have decided to leave, having been given the signal that there is no future in the military for them.
Referring to recent reports that Obama has purged some 197 officers in the past five years, Boykin said the reports suggest these officers were suspected of disloyalty or disagreed with the Obama administration on policy or force-structure issues. As Boykin pointed out, a number of them have been relieved of duty for no given reason.
“Morale is at an unprecedented low,” Boykin added, part of which is due to sequestration.
Sequestration has seriously cut back operational readiness for the military to the point where Boykin said that often they have no ammunition and are unable to conduct training because of the planned cuts.
Brady, who was a legendary “Dust Off” air ambulance pilot in Vietnam and detailed his experiences in his book, “Dead Men Flying: Victory in Viet Nam,” told WND, “The problem is military people will seldom, while on duty, go on the record over such issues, and many will not ever, no matter how true. I hear from many off the record who are upset with the current military leadership and some are leaving and have left in the past.”
Brady referred to additional problems in today’s military including “girly-men leadership [and] medals for not shooting and operating a computer. This president will never fight if there is any reason to avoid it and with a helpless military he can just point to our weakness and shrug his shoulders.”
Brady made similar references in a recent article he wrote for WND in which he said “just when you thought the leadership of this government could not get any worse, it does. Never in history has an administration spawned another scandal to cover the current one.”
The reference was to the recent firing of a number of generals to mask “Obama’s serial scandals, all prefaced by lies – Fast and Furious, Benghazi, NSA, IRS” among others.
WND reported that three of the nine firings by Obama this year alone were linked to the controversy surrounding the Sep. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the CIA special mission in Benghazi, Libya.
In one case, U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who commanded U.S. African Command when the consulate was attacked and four Americans were killed, was highly critical of the decision by the State Department not to send in reinforcements.
Obama has insisted there were no reinforcements available that night.
But Ham contends reinforcements could have been sent in time, and he said he never was given a stand-down order. However, others contend that he was given the order but defied it. He ultimately was relieved of his command and retired.
Now, new information in the Washington Times reveals there were Delta Force personnel in Tripoli at the time of the attack and two members volunteered to be dispatched to Benghazi to assist in protecting the Benghazi compound, contrary to stand-down orders from the State Department.
Another flag officer involved in the Benghazi matter – which remains under congressional investigation – was Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette. He commanded the Carrier Strike Group.
He contends aircraft could have been sent to Libya in time to help the Americans under fire. He later was removed from his post for alleged profanity and making “racially insensitive comments.”
Army Major Gen. Ralph Baker was the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, Africa. Baker contended that attack helicopters could have reached the consulate in time on the night of the attack.
“To understand the insufferable assaults on our military and veterans, who should be exempt from political squabbles but are often at the forefront of Obama threats, we need to understand the psyche of the elite in this country led by Obama,” Brady said.
“It is no accident that the president used the Obama sequester and shutdown to punish the military family,” he said. “It is part of his DNA. In fact it is in the psyche of the entire liberal/progressive establishment – the elite. President Clinton outed himself and this ilk when he declared his loathing of the military. Who could believe progressives/liberals care about veterans and military?”
Army Major Gen. Paul E. Vallely similarly has been very vocal in his opposition to the Obama administration.
Vallely said the White House won’t investigate its own officials but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”
“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into Fast and Furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”
Vallely served in the Vietnam War and retired in 1993 as deputy Commanding General, Pacific Command. Today, he is chairman of the Military Committee for the Center for Security Policy and is co-author of the book “Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.”
Duty personnel seem to back up this concern, suggesting that the firings are meant to send a message to “young officers down through the ranks” not to criticize the president or White House politics.
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