Niger
Over at Charlie Pierce’s place Robert Bateman provides background on the attack in Niger. He also reports on the duty specialties on those who were killed: Staff Sergeants Bryan Black [Green Beret & Medic}, Dustin Wright {Green Beret & Engineer], Jeremiah Johnson [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Specialist], and Sergeant La David Johnson [Light Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic]. That makes it look like a “hearts & minds” mission, not combat.
Lawrence O’Donnell provides some background on John Kelly.
Rachel Maddow reports on the inexplicable Trump travel ban decision that preceded US Niger exposure. Fox & Friends attacks her reporting and Trump repeats the attack on Twitter.
Back to Congresswoman Wilson. She wears the hats in memory of her grandmother. While Trump may find honoring your elders to be “wacky”, but it is a rather mainstream concept in most religious beliefs. She explained her relationship with the area in Africa where the soldiers were killed. She is certainly more familiar with the area than Trump, and possibly Kelly. She has visited as part of her desire to find and release all of the girls kidnapped from school by Boko Haram. She supports our involvement in the area.
On a personal note: General Kelly’s suggested script for the call to Mrs Johnson was the dumbest damn thing I could have imagined. Wives and mothers will accept sympathy, but you don’t try to convince them that it was anything other than a tragedy. That script might be acceptable to two old soldiers, one of whom may regret a child’s decision to follow him into the military, but don’t try to sell that to a civilian. Also, the printing of Sgt. Johnson’s name obviously wasn’t large enough for Trump to read. Just contact the volunteers at Arlington, they know how to do this.
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So Congresswoman Wilson was apparently in Mrs. Johnson’s car because she’s a personal friend of the family who had known Sgt. Johnson since his childhood, when she’d been principal of his school and then head of an after-school program that he participated in, rather than out of a desire to “play politics”. That makes Trump’s attacks on her look even more horrid. Not that the MAGAts will care. Their God-Emperor Donald the Trump has spoken, so that’s all, because they have faith, faith I say, in their duly selected God-Emperor.
Trump doesn’t know the difference between the personal and the political and neither he nor Kelly know how to talk to women. This White House has been acting like a cat covering crap on a tile floor since Trump made the claim about contacting all of the Gold Star families.
This is one of the many known processes of the Office of the President. There has always been a procedure in place to handle this, but Trump didn’t set one up, just like he didn’t set up the Easter Egg Roll until the last minute. He doesn’t know anything about the Presidency, and hasn’t asked for help from former Republican staffers to set up these operations. He’s an incompetent schmuck.
I have a feeling that somehow General Kelly managed to avoid notification duty when he was a junior officer. He must have been a lieutenant after Vietnam but before Iraq. It seems like he’s never delivered the notification for the survivors of a combat death. There’s a packet they give an officer who’s been appointed to the duty, probably the worst duty an officer has to perform — if he has any human feelings. I once served under an officer who seems to have been much like General Kelly. His father was a career officer and seemed to have been something of a martinet, so of course the kid grew up thinking that was how you were supposed to treat other people. He was actually a pretty good officer, but if constant criticism bothered you. you probably wouldn’t enjoy working for him.
Writing letters to the families of members of your unit, even when you know them, is a damn hard thing to do. There is no way to ease their grief, and trying usually makes it worse. We had a lot of unaccompanied tours to isolated locations in my command, so letters sent out on the next available aircraft was the best we could do. Even then, you had to assume that your letter was possibly the first notification a family might receive because of the classified nature of some of the things we did. The unit commander wrote the ‘official’ letter, but you wrote a personal one if he worked for you. It comes with the stripes. You just hope that the notification was made before your letter got there.
I mentioned in a comment some time ago that I lost a member of my team who was also a friend since childhood. His Mother asked me to write & give the eulogy. I knew him better than anyone outside his immediate family. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And our unit missions were mostly covert, which made it even more difficult.
It’s one reason why this has made me so angry. What Trump & Kelly have done, is completely dishonorable, immoral & unethical! I expected nothing less from Trump! But Kelly dishonor’s his uniform, the oath to protect the constitution, & anyone who served with him. He should be stripped of all honors & commission’s he’s ever received.
Vets are already calling Kelly a ‘Blue Falcon’, the polite version of ‘buddy fucker’ for his conduct. You don’t attack the family of a KIA [killed in action]. Trump has attacked the Khans last summer, and now the Johnsons. Attacking Gold Star families is as low as it goes. Kelly is even more loathsome because he knows the pain and did it anyway to protect a politician. Even George W. Bush knew enough to keep his mouth shut when he was attacked by families of the fallen.
La David Johnson made E-5 [Sergeant] in three years. That is fast. His primary specialty was light vehicle mechanic but he qualified to wear the maroon airborne beret. He was assigned to a Special Forces unit. He must have been a hell of a soldier.