CDR Salamander - Someone Called a Code-Red on LaNeve

As opposed to taking this moment to celebrate, once again, the success of Italian-Americans in the face of widespread discrimination, it appears the signal went out to dirty up General Christopher LaNeve, USA, acting Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and by all appearances should be nominated to take that position, pending Senate confirmation.

This isn’t something done by some rando anon typing away on X or Substack, but in the pages of The Wall Street Journal by a serious journalist we’ve known for a long time, Lara Seligman and her co-author who, no offense, I don’t know from Adam’s off-ox, Dan Lyon.

If you are not familiar with the good General, Lara & Dan’s article can give you the details, but that is not what I find interesting. What I want to find out is what the miasma soaked opposition has to throw at him.

Let’s focus on that.

You have to start with the title. Right away, this won’t be a bunch of hagiography.

This, literally, had me laughing to the point Mrs. Salamander demanded to know what I found so funny. She did not agree, but I digress.

The use of “Hardline” is interesting. Generally speaking in American English, the opposite of “Hardline” would be “Moderate, Flexible, or Accommodating“.

If you let your googlefu guide you, this the type of result you find:

• Moderate Four-Star General: Colin Powell, USA.

• Flexible Four-Star General: Nothing. All I get is reference to the Zwilling Four Star Flexible Boning Knife. Seriously, that was the top return.

• Accommodating Four-Star General: Nothing. It does not exist. It was stupid to ask, but for my readers, anything.

It is also funny how, “…close to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth…” is a resistance twofer:

1. Not self-described Secretary of War, but the passive aggressive “Congress has to change…” stylebook requirement of Secretary of Defense.

2. The use of “Pete Hegseth” in order to set the reader’s mind right as they proceed to the fainting couch that the mere mentioning of his name gives All the Right People™ the vapors.

Now for the charge sheet in the main body.

Two years before Gen. Christopher LaNeve found himself in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s inner circle, he was a division commander known for strictly enforcing the rules, banning cellphones during physical training and insisting that troops use only military-issued gear.

It was the kind of hard-line approach that didn’t endear LaNeve to the rank-and-file at the 82nd Airborne Division, many of whom booed when he appeared at the All-American Week events during his last year as commander, according to current and former members of the unit.

Ummm…I think “…strictly enforcing rules…” is pretty much an officer’s job, especially in garrison. Why the other two items are even up for debate is silly. To describe either as, “hard-line” is more of an indictment of the rest of the Army more than it is of LaNeve.

We’ll return to the All-American Week incident in a bit.

I think we know which (R) Senators these are.

Some Republicans have signaled privately that they aren’t sure he’s the right fit for the job, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations.

They are going to have to make their case in public. I don’t think they can make the sale. Yes, there are some Senators leaving office this year by choice, or after being defeated in primaries by Trump-backed challengers, but these are not the types who would use an appointment to Chief of Staff of the Army as a way to strike back at the President. Wait…some may be. We’ll see.

When reading the following, all I could think of is Generals Pershing, Marshall, Patton, and Eisenhower laughing:

LaNeve is less experienced than most of his predecessors: He has been a four-star general for only three months, since Feb. 6 when he was confirmed as vice chief of the Army. Most chiefs serve at least 18 months in a four-star role before assuming the top position.

NB: yes, I know, the rank issues, but AI can’t generate five-stars properly

President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose Marshall as Army Chief of Staff over thirty-three more senior generals. That was not a one-off.

The big Louisiana Maneuvers, staged in August and September 1941, served as a proving ground for Marshall’s officers. Only 11 of the 42 generals who commanded a division, a corps, or an army in the maneuvers would go on to command in combat. Just one of the prewar army’s senior generals, Walter Krueger, would be given a top command in World War II.

His “plucking board” was legendary.

One of the best, if not the best, Chief of Naval Operations (the Navy version of the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army) was Admiral Arleigh Burke.

Then President Eisenhower picked up on his habits from WWII in selecting Burke:

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Arleigh Burke as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in 1955, Burke was a two-star Rear Admiral. In a highly unusual move, he was promoted directly to four-star Admiral, bypassing 92 active-duty flag officers who were senior to him on the Navy Register.

This is also a silly critique.

Unlike many in the Army’s top ranks, LaNeve didn’t attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Instead, he received his commission as an infantry officer through the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University of Arizona in 1990.

…and the point is?

The present Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, USN, is the graduate of a public university, North Carolina State University, and wasn’t even in NROTC. He is a graduate of Officer Candidate School.

The critique that might get the most attention—generally because it involves the bi-partisan triggering of,

But LaNeve’s rise wasn’t without controversy. In 2021, he was serving as a one-star general on the Army staff when a group of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol. As the Army’s director of operations, readiness and mobilization, LaNeve was the liaison between the Army and the National Guard, according to current and former officials.

The Defense Department’s inspector general found no wrongdoing by department or Army officials. The watchdog found the actions taken by the Defense Department in response to the Jan. 6 riots were “reasonable in light of the circumstances that existed on that day.”

But less than a month later, a 36-page memo by a lawyer for the District of Columbia National Guard at the time alleged that top officials, including LaNeve, covered up an hourslong delay in the Army’s riot response. The memo, by Col. Earl Matthews, who is now the Pentagon’s general counsel under Hegseth, insisted that LaNeve and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of the Army staff, lied.

“Piatt and LaNeve literally changed facts and recollections overnight. The end product, a revisionist tract worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist, was close hold,” Matthews wrote.

The connections here are exceptionally complicated and will be covered in detail by others. If you want to know how complicated it is, note the connection to Matthews mentioned above, where he is now, and then just do a name search to read the appropriate passages in that 36-page memo.

If it were that bad, then LaNeve would not have been promoted from a one-star to a two-star and then a three-star under President Biden.

That’s my take.

Back to what makes a “hardline” general.

Later, as commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, LaNeve developed a reputation as a stickler for rules that many of his own troops deemed old-fashioned, including gear restrictions and the cellphone ban during morning physical training, according to Army officials and current and former members of the unit who served under LaNeve.

So, a modern general is happy with you playing Candy Crush during PT and wearing that worn out t-shirt you wife keeps trying to throw away?

OK. Run with that critique, if you wish.

What about the booing at All-American Week?

During the unit’s annual All-American Week festivities, LaNeve also banned the longstanding tradition of veterans tossing cans of beer at the soldiers running in formation, and ordered military police units along the route to patrol for alcohol, the people said. LaNeve saw the practice as a safety issue, according to the Army officials.

Again, this is more of an indictment of other Army generals than it is of LaNeve.

Next slide.

Now that the bold-faced items to trigger the left are complete, we have an attempt to get the right in a huff.

At the same time, LaNeve was perceived by some of his subordinates to be pushing Biden-era policies that Trump and Hegseth have decried as “woke,” such as allowing preferred pronouns and training on transgender identity and diversity initiatives, although much of that rhetoric was disregarded at lower levels of command. In June 2023, he signed a memo commemorating “pride month,” according to the letter.

“We appreciate the contributions of the LGBTQ+ Paratroopers and understand that inequity and discrimination undermine diversity’s strategic advantage and our core mission,” according to the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by WSJ.

U.S. and Army officials defended LaNeve’s decision to sign the memo, explaining that the previous administration demanded he do so.

You don’t even want to know all the paperwork I had to do in support of every diversity-related item you can think of in the course of my active duty career. I am sure I have printed out my body weight of paper alone submitting nominations for all the sectarian affinity group awards. You know, the “Outstanding Watchstander of the Year” award by the Left-Handed Lisping Lithuanian Navigators Association, etc.

They are lawful orders. You execute them. Some with more enthusiasm than others, but you do them. Sticklers for rules do that, dontchaknow.

Who would find this problematic and unattractive in a General?

LaNeve later endeared himself to Hegseth with his work ethic, direct approach to problems and his ability to provide an experienced military perspective, officials said.

OK, I did find one real bad thing.

Last year, LaNeve was a strong supporter of the Pentagon chief’s controversial September move to end shaving waivers for almost all troops, according to one of the officials.

I support the return to allowing beards, so I non-concur on this point. Worth torpedoing a Senate confirmation? Probably not.

Since he became Pentagon chief last year, Hegseth has fired or sidelined at least eight senior Army generals, including George.

LaNeve became the main beneficiary of these changes, as some of those pushed out cleared a path for his rise.

Again, this is a bad thing? I like the guy already, you don’t have to keep trying to make me like him more. A lot of us think the decimal point should be moved over one here, and the same in the other services.

At the end of the day, a Commander in Chief is allowed to pick his most senior officers.

“Gen. LaNeve is precisely the kind of leader the U.S. Army needs right now. He’s decisive, focused on strengthening our Army, and not interested in playing politics in Washington. He is a back-to-basics, no politics, no-nonsense General—exactly what President Trump expects,” Hegseth said.

There is not enough “there-there” to get in the way of confirmation, but the Senate in an election year is its own creature.

As a side-note: LaNeve has a son and a daughter who are both serving in the Army. He has skin in the game. That means something when it comes to when we decide to send our men and women into harm’s way.

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