Blue Falcon:
Joey Jones Knows Better
A combat-wounded Marine knows that deployments are not interchangeable. He should also know better than to turn concern for fellow servicemembers into a partisan loyalty test.
Let's get one thing out of the way before anybody starts measuring deployment scars.
Joey Jones had it rough.
Really rough.
Jones served as a Marine EOD technician in Afghanistan. He lost both legs above the knee after stepping on an improvised explosive device in 2010.
A Marine working outside the wire in Afghanistan faced a kind of personal danger that most sailors aboard an aircraft carrier will never experience. There is no reason to bullshit about that.
Ground combat and carrier deployments are different.
Fine. Point conceded.
Now what the hell does that have to do with whether the Navy is properly supplying, maintaining, rotating and supporting the people fighting today's war?
“I had it worse” can be completely true and still be completely irrelevant.— WhiskeyLeaks
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed for more than 260 days. Its crew has spent more than 200 consecutive days without a port call while supporting operations connected to the war with Iran.
Families and sailors have raised concerns about food, supplies, sanitation, exhaustion, morale and mental health. The Navy and Pentagon have disputed some characterizations of conditions aboard the ship. Those disputes are worth examining.
But that's the point.
Examine them.
Determine what's true. Determine what's exaggerated. Determine what's broken. Determine what needs fixing.
That is what professional military leadership is supposed to do.
Instead, Fox News personality and Marine combat veteran Joey Jones responded to one sailor's complaints by demanding: “How weak are you?!”
Then he wandered straight out of military criticism and into partisan politics, invoking “Democrat veterans” and “sellout” while attacking servicemembers who publicly criticize their circumstances.
And that's where he loses me.
Nobody needs to pretend nine months aboard an aircraft carrier is the same thing as nine months kicking doors in Afghanistan.
It isn't.
An infantryman or EOD technician on the ground can live with the possibility that the next road, doorway, trash pile or patch of dirt kills him.
A sailor aboard a carrier normally experiences a very different kind of risk.
But wars change.
In a conflict with Iran, sailors and aircrews are not spectators sitting safely behind the war. Naval and air forces are directly involved in the fight, and ships operating in the region exist inside a battlespace involving missiles, drones and other threats.
Different does not mean imaginary.
And hardship isn't a fucking tournament anyway.
Someone else having endured something worse does not make your current logistical, maintenance, personnel or readiness problem disappear.
My broken arm does not become healthy because somebody in the next room lost a leg.
And a carrier deployment doesn't magically become sustainable because Marines endured worse conditions twenty years ago.
Here's something else every veteran should understand.
Servicemembers complain.
Constantly.
We complain about food. Watches. Weather. Berthing. Equipment. Leadership. Liberty. Working hours. Uniforms. The other services. Our own service.
If military complaining could be converted into electricity, the Pentagon could shut down its power bill.
Sometimes bitching is just bitching.
The professional skill is knowing when it isn't.
When complaints start clustering around food, sanitation, broken equipment, exhaustion, family strain, morale and mental health during an unusually long deployment, a competent leader doesn't automatically announce that everyone has become soft.
He starts asking questions.
The professional skill isn't stopping the troops from complaining. It's knowing when the complaining has become a warning light.— That's leadership
Jones could have argued that the reporting was exaggerated.
He could have defended Navy leadership.
He could have said the mission requires sacrifice.
He could even have told sailors that military service sometimes means enduring miserable conditions without pretending anyone promised you a cruise ship.
Those are arguments veterans can have with each other.
Instead, he reached for partisan identification.
Criticize what's happening and eventually you can become one of those “Democrat veterans.” A “sellout.”
No.
Fuck that.
Military service is not a subsidiary of the Republican Party.
Neither is veteranhood.
A sailor doesn't owe Donald Trump loyalty. He doesn't owe Pete Hegseth loyalty. He doesn't owe Democrats loyalty. He doesn't owe Fox News loyalty.
He swore an oath, has a chain of command, has shipmates, and has a mission.
That's enough.
You don't get to preach Semper Fi until your fellow servicemembers become politically inconvenient.
Here's the part that really bothers me.
The sailor complaining about conditions aboard the Abraham Lincoln didn't decide how many carriers the United States needs.
He didn't establish the deployment schedule.
He didn't extend the mission.
He didn't create the replenishment plan.
He doesn't control fleet maintenance.
He doesn't determine strategic objectives in the Iran war.
He is carrying out decisions made several paygrades and several thousand miles above his head.
So if something is going wrong, why is Jones pointing down?
That's what makes this more than an obnoxious television rant.
Calling the sailor weak conveniently transforms a possible leadership problem into a character problem among the troops.
Food problem? Toughen up.
Maintenance problem? Toughen up.
Deployment stretched beyond expectations? Toughen up.
Morale falling? Toughen up.
At some point “toughen up” stops being a standard and becomes an excuse.
There is an old military saying, usually attributed in one form or another to the hard-earned wisdom of professional armies: amateurs talk tactics; professionals talk logistics.
That's because courage cannot manufacture spare parts.
Patriotism cannot replenish a magazine.
Testosterone cannot repair plumbing.
And calling exhausted people pussies does not create another carrier.
If the United States wants to maintain prolonged combat operations, then the United States has to provide the ships, aircraft, ammunition, maintenance capacity, food, personnel, relief crews and planning necessary to sustain them.
That's not softness.
That's warfare.
The question isn't “How weak are you?” The question is: “What the fuck happened to the plan?”— Ask the question that matters
I am not interested in taking Joey Jones's service away from him.
He earned it.
What happened to him in Afghanistan deserves respect regardless of anything he says on television fifteen years later.
But respect for service is not obedience to the veteran.
Veterans can be wrong.
Veterans can say stupid things.
Veterans can let politics overwhelm judgment.
And veterans can forget that the people wearing the uniform today deserve the same basic loyalty we wanted from the people beside us when we wore it.
That's why this one pisses me off.
Jones knows the difference between ordinary discomfort and operational strain.
He knows what prolonged deployments do to people.
He knows that troops don't write national strategy.
He knows that Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen don't get to choose the wars politicians send them into.
He knows better.
The Blue Falcon used to be the guy who screwed his buddies to save his own ass. Apparently we've modernized the concept. Now he can do it from a television studio.
This commentary responds to reporting on Joey Jones's remarks about sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and to current reporting on the carrier's extended deployment. Conditions aboard the ship remain the subject of competing claims from sailors, families, lawmakers and Pentagon officials.
HuffPost: Fox News / Joey Jones / USS Abraham Lincoln
Associated Press: New carrier heads toward Middle East as concerns grow over USS Abraham Lincoln deployment
Reuters: USS Abraham Lincoln deployment and conditions