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The situation with deserter Bowe Bergdahl has caused something else to surface, a brewing simmering low boil kept carefully hidden from the eyes of most Americans. But, now it is boiled over and burning on the stove top.

That conflict is centered around message control. Indeed, so much of human interaction today is centered on message control. Control the message and you preserve your base of power. It is a reality pulled from the pages of "The Prince" by Machiavelli and it hasn't lost its significance a day since he authored his book.

The US military, as publicly respected as it is, cannot escape the desire for control of message but perhaps in the military there resides a bit more of the honest stuff called truth and the guts to tell the truth. But, it tends to be more present in the ranks. The generals often seem to swap that good stuff for more of the cultivation of message control and pleasing their bosses.

What the situation of Bowe Bergdahl has done is raise the temperature on the pot. The Obama administration wasn't content with pulling off a deal for his return. They had to go a step beyond that effort and make it appear like they skillfully brought an American hero home from his years' of selfless ordeal. Of course, everyone who knew anything about Bowe Bergdahl immediately knew what an outrageous lie that narrative was. So, why utter it so recklessly?

The answer is about message control. The willing lieutenants in the Obama staff presumed they could control the message, hence the outrageous statements that included the now infamous one, "the military will suck it up and salute smartly!"

The underpinning of such a statement reveals the arrogance of presuming that swearing an oath, "to obey the lawful orders of those appointed over" and "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," presumes then that those who took this oath are obligated to go along quietly with a lie. But, to presume this is to presume a falsehood. Only due to their necessary closeness to the President is the Secret Service sworn to absolute secrecy. The military is not. Their duty is to defend America, not to remain quiet to the presence of lies.

It is sad that those in the Obama inner circle never understood the essential truth of US military service. There are core values in the US military. True, you never leave a comrade behind. But, even more vital, you never betray your comrades in battle. The men you fight with are your brothers. You will die for them if need be. You will have their back. When you are assigned a duty in combat you will never shirk it because to do so can and often will put their lives at an end.

Obama's inner circle could not understand this because those in his inner circle never fought wars on behalf of the United States and so they lacked this personal experience. Not that I think them cheaper as humans because of this. Instead, I understand why they misunderstood. It is not enough to read of such stuff in a book or watch it in a movie. It has to be personally experienced to truly understand it. It would have been acceptable to get Bergdahl back, but to do so with the truthful narrative that he was a man who's service was without honor, but he was an American anyway and it was good to get him back home. That story would have been acceptable to those in service. But, to portray him falsely as a hero was simply too much to endure.

I'm not in the least surprised that all of Bergdahl's former platoon have refused to honor any agreements to remain quiet and have instead immediately come forward to tell the truth. The White House's narrative violated perhaps the most sacred sense of duty in the US military, to keep true faith with your brothers in arms. To try to peddle Bowe Bergdahl as a man who "served with honor" these White House people spat on every true idea of honor in the military. They offended every sense of integrity of service.

There is a chasm in America, one that has widened and needs to close. The people have to understand that integrity is more important than politics, patriotism is more important than patronage.

That chasm will not close when men working in the White House think nothing of peddling a self-serving lie that Bowe Bergdahl was a hero possessed of honorable military service, and utter it with the misguided presumption to think all in the military would close ranks to perpetuate the fiction. Efforts to initially misrepresent such men with smears of "swift boating Bergdahl," or actually saying to the media from behind the podium that such men who were there do not "have the facts," simply reveal just how committed to the lie these people were, and how meaningless and alien to them is the creed of brothers in arms.

The privates, NCO's and company grade officers most knowing of the reality chose to tell the American people the truth. Not to throw a President under the bus. But instead because to these men the very core of their duty was being undermined by men and women who simply cannot understand what that core is all about. The question now becomes will the people understand? I have no doubt that those who served in the US military will fully understand. But, what about those of the American public who did not or at least were not the family of those who did?

Right now, despite Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the VA scandal, the Bergdahl trade, and even more indications of a federal government run amok, the public seems to still have about a 40% core of people who support this President. Personally, I do not understand the mindset of such people! I suppose they are so wedded to the liberal theme that Obama could commit murder in the Oval Office and they would support him, or conclude that all the negatives are simply Republican fictions. I only wish they were fictions, as that would make them less serious.

Or, perhaps the underlying truth is even more cynical. Perhaps this core of support for a failing President is rooted in a selfish motivation, to ensure the supply of political patronage continues to flow, and the morality of the man with his thumb on the patronage purse is simply of no concern to them. If that is the motivation, then America is beset with an amorality akin with the fall of Rome.

Regardless of the reasons, what these men in the US Army are doing is putting truth first and allow the consequences to be damned! Such raw integrity has merit, but in today's era one can hope it also gains peoples' attentions. There are still men in America for whom truth and integrity remains foremost, and cultivating favors and power means a lot less. And in reminding the people that such men do still breath and hold office, let us hope their message gains traction and undermines the more crass motivations that seem to surround us.

 

-- Ken Stallings


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