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I wouldn’t say I’m surprised that retired General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is consistently being attacked online by clowns who claim he never served in combat.
It’s part of a long pattern of rightwing extremists shamelessly undermining the military service of veterans who disagree with them, reaching its apex in Donald Trump, who has made it fashionable among his supporters to denigrate the service of his critics and, well, veterans generally.
No, it’s not surprising, but I would say I’m certainly disgusted and more than that: perplexed by the shamelessness and ignorance of these hypocrites.
Five days ago, a disinformation account on Twitter that’s popular among the MAGA masses posted this image about Gen. Milley, which, as of this morning, had been viewed more than 5.5 million times on the site:
It’s perfectly primed to condone and enable outrage among Trumpers. In one fell swoop, it implies Gen. Milley is cowardly, hypocritical, elitist, attention-seeking, and undeserving, creating a permission structure to dismiss his service record as unearned and his expertise as false and unworthy.
But per usual, the lack of curiosity and introspection among Trump supporters offers yet another example of their inexplicable tendency to ignore evidence staring them right in the face — or simply pretend it’s not there.
Military dress uniforms are a walking resumé. If you spend no more than a minute glancing at one (and know what you’re looking at), you can typically sketch out a fairly accurate career bio of the service member.
Since the creator of this disinformation account clearly didn't serve and, well, I did, I’ll explain a few things about Gen. Milley's uniform they obviously don't understand.
See that blue thing above his ribbons?
That's the Combat Infantryman Badge. It's awarded to Army soldiers in the Infantry or Special Forces in the rank of colonel or below who have engaged in direct combat.
You don't earn that by being a senior officer in the rear. There are plenty of senior officers who deployed and never earned a CIB, including general officers.
If you look really close, his badge has a star at the top, which means it's his second CIB. You only get to earn one per war. He engaged in direct combat in both Panama (1989) and the Global War on Terrorism, and thus, he earned that rare star.
Interestingly, as a side note, there have been at least 325 recipients of the extremely rare third award of the CIB, all of whom engaged in direct combat in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. It is highly unlikely we’ll ever see another three-time CIB. For those interested, it looks like this:
Anyway, going back to Gen. Milley, if you look closely at his ribbon rack—and I'll grant you, that photo of him above is a bit grainy—you’ll notice he's earned, among his many decorations, three Legions of Merit and four Bronze Stars.
On his left shoulder are the Special Forces tab and the Ranger tab, meaning he's both a former Green Beret and Ranger-qualified.
There are some other cool things: both the Master Parachutist Badge and Special Operations Diver Badge, the latter of which is a very hard course.
It’s not readily visible in that image, but on the bottom-right side of his torso is the 101st Airborne Division Combat Service Identification Badge, which means he’s completed a combat deployment with the 101st Airborne Division.
But all of that pales in comparison to what you can't see in this photo: on his right sleeve, a quarter inch above the sleeve braid, are 10 overseas service bars. I found a different photo in which these are visible, circled in red:
Each one of those bars represents six months of completed service while deployed in a theater of war.
Gen. Milley spent five years of his career serving in combat zones: Panama, Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
I imagine it must make a lot of these Trump supporters feel pretty damn insecure that a leader who has committed his entire adult life to service in uniform thinks their orange daddy is a coward who avoided military service, but that's not a good enough reason to lie about Gen. Milley’s service record.
This man is a patriot who has spent his lifetime honorably serving our country, and there’s no excuse for tolerating such slander.
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