Posting #4: Tuberville's story about "woke" and force readiness

Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama whose only experience for being elected a senator was having been a well-known football coach at a slew of high schools and colleges (including Auburn University), is now notorious as a US senator for something more: obstructing the promotions and nominations of senior military officers.  The story he tells is that the military has become “woke” and so needs to be punished by its civilian masters.  Though some people may not be able to remember why Tuberville has been enforcing this blockade since February 2023, they might be aware now because the military has become especially vocal about the threat to national security the blockade poses.

After more than six months of the blockade and no amount of cajoling could get Tuberville to relent, on September 4^th, 2023, the civilian Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force together published an op-ed in the Washington Post, claiming that Tuberville is recklessly endangering national security with his hold.  The Navy Secretary, Carlos Del Toro, went so far as to say in an interview that Tuberville was “aiding and abetting communist and authoritarian regimes” with his obstruction.  If the blockade is not lifted by the year’s end, DoD reports, 650 of the 850 most senior military officer promotions and nominations will be affected.

Here's the situation.

According to the US Constitution, as part of its civilian oversight duties, the Senate is required to confirm the promotions of all US military officers above the rank of O3/Captain/Lieutenant Commander and the President’s nominations to various military-affiliated positions.  Typically, this means hundreds of promotions and nominations need to be confirmed every year.  To avoid having to confirm every officer individually, which would take months, the Senate’s practice is to more efficiently confirm by unanimous consent or the “Agreement on any question or matter before the Senate that sets aside a rule of procedure to expedite proceedings.”  What this all-or-nothing method also means, however, is that a single senator can hold up the confirmations in refusing consent, in refusing unanimity. 

Several other senators have recently used this tactic.  As payback for the indictment of former President Trump in Florida for the “mishandling” of classified documents, first-term J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) is slow-walking President Biden’s nominations to Department of Justice positions, with no end in sight.  Joe Manchin (D-WV) has vowed to block every nomination to the Environmental Protection Agency until what he terms “government overreach” in climate policy is squelched.  Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) similarly promised to slow-walk hearings on any nominees to Health and Human Services until President Biden produced a plan for lower drug prices, an obstruction Sanders ended recently.

But what the first-term Senator Tuberville has done is defied a norm that has prevailed for a long time. (Dare I use the overused word of our times, “unprecedented”?)

Tuberville’s obstruction of military nominations and promotions has meant, for instance, the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy currently have no permanent commander in place, some officers are serving in two positions at once (the one they are leaving and the one they are ostensibly going to), the United States has no military representative to NATO, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be without a Chairperson come October 1^st, when General Mark Milley will, by law, have to leave the position.  Other nominees awaiting the Senate’s confirmation include the commanders of United States Space Command, Northern Command, and Cyber Command, and most of the senior commanders in the Pacific who deal with China, the Indo-Pacific commander and commanders of the Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces, Pacific Submarine Forces and Pacific Special Operations.  That’s a lot of institutions without legal leadership but it’s also a large number of people who have been left in professional purgatory.

Tuberville’s obstruction also means that the lives of military families are severely impacted: do they stay where they are or relocate at great personal expense to the next duty station without knowing the promotion and change of duty station will happen? Or do they incur the personal expense of storing their household goods and live in temporary housing? (My family once lived for months in a hotel while waiting for housing abroad.) Does the servicemember’s partner seek employment at the new place?  And what about school for the servicemember’s children?

Before leaving for college as an eighteen-year-old, as an Army dependent I had moved a dozen times and attended nine different schools.  (My family kept moving after I’d left.)  As far as I know, though some of my career-Army father’s duty stations were shorter than a year, he knew about the changes so that my parents had time to purchase a house in the new location and get the nine of us enrolled in school.  I can recall only one time, when my father returned from Vietnam, that we moved in the middle of the school year, and we left that duty station after fewer than six months.  This frequent moving is incredibly stressful on family life.  Being in Tuberville-limbo must be even more so.

In fact, in their op-ed, the secretaries cite the “corrosive” impact of Tuberville’s recklessness on more junior officers and their families and the problems such civilian thoughtlessness and disrespect will pose to retaining those officers.

Looking over the horizon, the prolonged uncertainty and political battles over these military nominations will have a corrosive effect on the force.  The generals and admirals who will be leading our forces a decade from now are colonels and captains today. They are watching this spectacle and might conclude that their service at the highest ranks of our military is no longer valued by members of Congress or, by extension, the American public.

At a time when military recruiting quotas are not being met and retention is a challenge, will these future colonels and generals—and their families—trust civilian oversight to treat them with respect?  Not deference—just respect?

So here’s why Senator Tuberville is putting up this barricade to prevent so many officers—and counting!—being promoted and being lawfully confirmed by the Senate so that they can do the jobs they’ve been nominated to do.  His objection is not to the officers, their qualifications, or their projected positions.  Except that they are in the military, the officers have nothing to do with Tuberville’s complaint.  His beef is with one person, the Secretary of Defense.  Consequently, Tuberville is opportunistically using—some say “holding hostage”—the officers-in-waiting to protest a Department of Defense policy.  The policy is to reimburse the travel costs of servicewomen (and their dependents) to access reproductive healthcare—including abortion and fertility treatments—when their duty stations are in states that have severely curtailed or abolished such healthcare. To be clear: except in the case of rape, incest, or risk to the life of the mother, Department of Defense medical facilities are prohibited by law from performing abortions or from using funds to perform abortions.  The policy, consequently, does not pay for the performance of reproductive healthcare, only the travel expenses.

In the year of its existence, few seem to have sought the reimbursement, with DoD officials and anonymous servicemembers citing the fear of having to tell a superior about seeking an abortion being what stops them.  Two-hundred and thirty thousand servicemembers are eligible, according to the report, but 

troops are nervous about seeking the benefit because they say it could compromise their privacy and open them up to retaliation….in interviews, some service members said they would feel uncomfortable providing that information to their superiors because of the stigma in the military around pregnancy and getting an abortion. Others said they would be wary of using the policy due to concern about backlash from commanders or colleagues. An Army officer stationed in Missouri—where all abortions are prohibited except for “medical emergencies”—anonymously comments that “I’m worried that they [the troops] are still going to face retaliation because someone in their chain of command might not agree.” 

Certainly, one can imagine that Tuberville’s very public blockade would heighten anxieties about the apparent inter-military stigma of using the assistance.  One might also imagine that many DoD policies are used infrequently yet still are available.

Based on his Wikipedia page, Tuberville personally objects to abortion.  On his website—“Coach Tommy Tuberville: U.S. Senator for Alabama”—he says in his very abbreviated “Pro-life” section that “You can count on me to be a voice for the voiceless and champion for the God-given rights of the unborn. I’ll stand against all efforts to use taxpayer funding for abortions.”  

 But on the same site, under “National Security and Defense,” Tuberville also touts himself at great length to be a keen advocate for the US military:

We must make sophisticated, sustainable, and serious investments in our armed forces to give them the tools they need to protect the nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be outpaced in spending or development by those who wish to do us harm. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am committed to maintaining robust funding to increase the depth and lethality of our armed forces. 

Judging from the length of these two sections, Tuberville appears to be more avid about the military than about the “unborn.”

What happens when these two principles—pro-life and pro-military—come into conflict? Especially when women make up nearly a fifth of the US forces and need dependable reproductive care?  What does the law say? Tuberville has accused DoD of violating the law by pledging to reimburse the travel costs of servicewomen (and their dependents) who seek out-of-state reproductive healthcare.   Before instituting the policy, however, DoD sought the legal advice of the Attorney General of the United States.  Citing a 1981 Peace Corps case, a case involving the escorting of female prison inmates to healthcare facilities to receive abortions, and the fact that DoD, “ does, in other contexts, offer accommodations to mitigate burdens on health care access caused by service members’ assignment locations,” the Attorney General concluded in an October 3, 2022 memo that

The Department of Defense may lawfully expend funds to pay for servicemembers and their dependents to travel to obtain abortions that DoD cannot itself perform due to statutory restrictions.  DoD may lawfully expend funds to pay for such travel pursuant to both its express statutory authorities and, independently, the necessary expense doctrine.      

So what?

It seems to me that DoD’s response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade is a readiness issue, an issue of paramount importance to the US military.  Most of the critiques of Tuberville’s ploy have been about the three hundred officers waiting for confirmation and what that limbo has done to the units waiting Senate confirmation.  But I would say that the policy is also a matter of readiness for the servicemembers themselves.  That is, the military needs to be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, which means its servicemembers do.  Readiness is why they practice war and train for fitness incessantly.  Consider this, though.  In addition to having updated wills and bank accounts and dependent ID cards, servicemembers who are single parents and are being deployed are required to arrange a caregiver for their children and to have a Family Care Plan.  The same applies to married servicemembers who are parents and are being deployed at the same time.  Like the war and fitness practice, these requirements are in the name of readiness.

Also revealing is that the first of the US Military Health System’s (MHS) three-pronged mission is to ensure the “health-related readiness of US armed forces,” and this mission has meant evolving to be responsive to the needs of the military community. As two RAND researchers explain in 2019, “Delivering services to ensure the medical readiness of troops required [of the modern-era MHS] the implementation of policies and creation of health care capabilities to provide preventive and restorative health care services to military personnel” (emphasis added).

Here’s an example of the evolution in MHS policies.  Healthcare for military families was extremely limited until mid-World War II, when it became apparent that “a large demand for maternal and infant care among young draftees” required this need to be accommodated for readiness.  Draftees would be less committed to their mission if they thought their loved ones at home were uncared for.  In 1966, DoD began offering CHAMPUS (Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services), a kind of private sector insurance program that reimbursed civilian health providers for tending to family members of active-duty servicemembers.  In the mid-1990s, CHAMPUS was replaced with another, more extensive health insurance program, TRICARE.  Servicemembers themselves, however, have been provided direct care at tens of military hospitals and ambulatory care clinics, whose mission is to ensure they are ready to deploy. 

Understandably, there have been immense advances in medicine and the healthcare of servicemembers, improving readiness.  People in combat now survive injuries and wounds and burns that as recently as the Vietnam War would have led to their deaths or paralysis.  Prostheses have been designed that can withstand huge pressures and can mean a servicemember can stay on active duty.  Medications have been developed to mediate all kinds of ailments and conditions that previously would have disqualified Americans from continuing to serve.  DoD has responded to these advancements, not only by providing some of these enhanced technologies in military hospitals and centers (like Walter Reed National Military Medical Center or the US Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center), but also in accommodating the need to travel to other medical providers by granting leave and reimbursing “reasonable” travel expenses.  The new policy, then, does not differ dramatically from other medical options available to active-duty servicemembers. 

The new policy contributes to readiness also by addressing equity and its effects on morale, a concept referred to in the Attorney General’s memo: “This perception [that some servicemembers’ healthcare needs are accommodated and other’s, not] may affect not only service members’ individual medical readiness, but also morale.”  “Morale,” according to the Department of Defense, “is the confidence, enthusiasm, collective pride, and willingness to persist in the activities of the group” and knowing that others in the group think and feel the same.  “Research has shown,” the report continues, “that higher Morale is linked with increased readiness and retention within military environments.”  The women servicemembers I referred to previously who were too afraid to ask their superiors for the leave time to access reproductive healthcare suggest low unit morale and subsequent low readiness. 

This situation is reminiscent of servicemembers who had been sexually assaulted by another servicemember having to be judged by their unit commanders and so staying silent. (See the documentary, The Invisible War).  As Brynn Tannehill comments in the September 14, 2023 New Republic,

At the lower levels, the military policy [to grant leave and reimbursement] is necessary given the grim realities of where the DOD is now. It has a significant problem with sexual assault that appears to be getting worse. It also has major problems with recruiting, and 30 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds specifically cite fear of sexual assault as the reason why they are uninterested in military service. Almost one in five members of the military are female, so abandoning efforts to recruit women would likely exacerbate existing manpower shortfalls. 

Truly, the US military is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this morale/readiness issue.

(I know this is getting long…but hang with me!)

The story of US Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is instructive about morale and readiness.  Army Captain Duckworth flew Black Hawk combat helicopters in Iraq, and in 2004, her helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.  In the ensuing explosion and crash, she lost both of her legs and the use of one arm, so wears a prosthesis and is mobile with the use of a wheelchair.  With the aid of fertility treatments, Duckworth gave birth to her first child at the age of fifty and her second, at fifty-three.

Duckworth has a lot to say about the conservative attempt to undo DoD’s guarding of women’s bodily autonomy.  In response to their trying to insert an amendment into the National Defense Appropriations Act that would squelch DoD’s policy, she tells her own story.  She starts with a question: “When, exactly, was the moment that military women like me no longer had the right to bodily autonomy?”  She continues with her own experience in preparing to deploy to Iraq:

When I fought in Iraq, it was so early on in the war that full logistics weren’t yet set up. We were still living in tents, had no shower facilities and no personal hygiene facilities other than the wet wipes we’d get in care packages. So when it came time for me to deploy, Army doctors issued me birth control patches so I could control my menstrual cycle, since for the first two months that I was set to be downrange, there would be no female sanitary support. In other words, because I wouldn’t be able to get tampons, pads or the like for those early days yet still needed to fly my missions, it advantaged the military for me to control my reproductive cycle.  I was happy to do it, because it was for the good of the Army, the good of the mission and thus the good of the nation. But looking back, especially after this week, my takeaway is that our country was just fine with me seeking reproductive care when it suited them—but only when it suited them. Because today, we live in an America whose representatives waver even on the basic question of whether women should have access to the kind of care they readily supplied me when it fit their needs. To me, this Republican amendment effectively punishes women for their willingness to put on the uniform.

Duckworth’s takeaway is about morale and its connection to readiness.  She is skeptical, not confident and enthusiastic, suspicious about collective pride, and dubious about willingness.  The amendment to the policy, she says,

is both morally corrupt and militarily short-sighted, as how could it not impact the future recruitment and retention of our Armed Forces if women understand that if they wear our nation’s colors… That if they follow orders and are stationed at whatever base they’re told they’re needed at their fundamental rights may remain forever out of reach?

Tannehill echoes Duckworth’s warning.

Giving in to Tuberville’s demands would create significant problems for the military. What happens when a service member is raped, becomes pregnant, and is denied leave by her commanding officer to terminate the pregnancy? Or is so junior that she cannot afford to seek care elsewhere? What happens when these stories start reaching the media? Similarly, what happens when there are complications from a wanted pregnancy that needs to be terminated (e.g., ectopic, molar, or otherwise nonviable pregnancies) after six weeks? Again, what we see in red states is women needing to be at death’s door, bleeding out in their car in the hospital parking lot, before doctors are allowed by hospital lawyers to act. It will happen, and when it does, it will be a nightmare for the DOD in terms of recruiting and public perception of the institution.

Finally, if, let’s say, DoD gives in to Tuberville’s hostage-taking demands, can we Americans trust the senator from Alabama to stop there?  Especially when he uses his political power to try to prevent transgender people from serving in the US military?  When he doesn’t know what are the three parts of the federal government?  When he doesn’t know that General Mark Milley is required by law to step down as the Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? When he was asked about white nationalists in the military and said they were just “Americans” to him?  When he repeatedly told the false story that his father had enlisted in the World War II military at the age of sixteen, had landed at Normandy, and had earned five Bronze Stars? When he has failed to donate to veterans any of his senator salary when he pledged during his campaign that he would donate “every dime”?  When his website continues to tout that “Alabama should also soon be the permanent home of US Space Command” months after it was publicly announced that the Command would remain in Colorado?

If Tuberville objects to being “woke,” can we reasonably assume, then, given these behaviors, that “unwoke” for the Senator means being politically expedient, bigoted, dishonest, uninformed, and, despite his website protesting-too-much, disinterested in our national defense?