Listen to this short speech given by Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, head of the US Air Force Academy, to all 4,000 cadets and faculty and staff at the institution, after words got out that racial slurs had been found written on message boards at the academy’s preparatory school. Donald Trump could learn something from him.
Cue the white nationalists and neo-Nazis whining about how Silveria is a big old meanie who is infringing on their free speech rights.
Reminiscent of the Chief of the Australian Army are few years ago:
https://youtu.be/QaqpoeVgr8U
Particularly powerful in light of the problems the Air Force Academy had just a few years ago with the infiltration of the academy by radical christianist extremists. at both the staff and cadet levels.
hyphenman -- “A few years ago”? It has been goong on for decades, and people have been warning about it that long. The marine corps has also been infiltrated.
Actually the push has been that everyone should stop calling Trump a nazi -- we should treat him (and other conservatives) with dignity and respect, like the general says.
@Marcus, No. 3
I first became aware of the story in 2005, but I don’t doubt that the infiltration stretches back in time much further than that. (Although I saw no evidence between 1974 and 1986 when I served.)
In an interesting parallel, the Israeli Defense Force, for this reason, has been fighting to keep far-right Jews exempt from military service for years.
And, 12 is “a few years ago” in old-fart time. : )
@felcis, No. 4
I would never demean the National Socialist Party by calling President Trump a Nazi. : )
There are a couple other things about this story that bother me. The perpetrators were presumably adults -- they learned this crap from somewhere and their schools failed to jump-start them with basic civilization. But worse, to me, is the authoritarianism embedded in having a general-rank officer (3 stars!) give them remedial lessons in being human. Does it take a dressing-down from a big shot to turn them around? This kind of gross misbehavior originates in lack of leadership at the level of junior NCOs. I guess it’s nice that command authority is making a big demonstration, but I hope there was another, quieter, briefing in which some NCOs came out with truncated careers; they’re the problem. If the NCOs aren’t immediately able to guess who was responsible, they’re dangerously out of touch; and if they are, they’re showing lack of leadership. If the general had said “unless I have a full report and the vandals in front of my desk by 0500 tomorrow, this is going on everyone’s fitness reports and will become a permanent part of your record, which means your career will be downhill from here.” He was saying the right words but it’s bluster.
hyphenman@#5:
It dates back to Doug Coe and the MYCM in 1980, at least.
To Marcus Ranum in #7
Seems well-reasoned to me. No complaints. Good insight.