CDR Salamander - Fullbore Friday

What were we told in the early years by those put in leadership with responsibility for stewardship of our nation’s security?

Even that was made a lie. This last week, the failure of our nation’s elite in leadership and vision required another child sacrifice, just as it did at Abbey Gate.

You weren’t even born yet when the attacks of 9/11 took place. You weren’t even of legal driving age when your nation was defeated in Afghanistan by a loosely organized tribal society, and forced into a humiliating retreat from Kabul.

You weren’t even of legal drinking age when—in the shadow of the Army & Navy Club where the appointed and important would meet to discuss defending your nation from enemies foreign and domestic—the end result of a quarter century of bad leadership and worse policy decided to walk up to you.

The highly credentialed and peer-reviewed best-and-brightest who brought a whole series of national humiliations at home and abroad during your short life—who to your face will make condescending comments about your home state and make patronizing tut-tuts to your social class—decided for their own self-referential reasons to import millions of people from the cultures you watch attack your nation across the globe.

The same people, for their personal social clout with those who they wanted to curry favor with and ideological reasons, turned your nation’s capital into a dirty, crime-ridden hazard to anyone who did not have a security detail.

In spite of that, you signed up to wear your nation’s uniform. Serving on a deployment that brought safety to Washington, DC, to levels not seen in years, you fell at the hands of an enemy screaming a call that thousands of your countrymen heard before they were killed over the last quarter century: ‘Allahu akbar!’

You fell on the street of your nation’s capital you were ordered to defend, at the hands of a creation of The Smartest People in the Room™ who told you, your parents, and your countrymen to trust them.

They failed, not you. We failed you, as you did your duty.

U.S. service members line the streets of Washington, D.C., during an honor escort—also known as a fallen soldier procession—for U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, Nov. 27, 2025. A fallen soldier procession is a solemn tradition in which military members stand in silent respect as a fallen service member is escorted to their final resting place, symbolizing the nation’s gratitude for a life given in service. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. William Blankenship)

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