CDR Salamander - Sal’s X-Mutuals Take Over the Pentagon...or Sump’n

First of all, let’s set the stage a bit here.

Back in March of this year, the following was announced to the world.

The War Department has launched a task force to ensure the curriculum at its institutions of higher learning is structured to build warfighters rather than social justice warriors, said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“At the Department of War, we have a duty to ensure that our professional military education develops real leaders, warfighters who dominate into the future,” Hegseth said. “We’re committed to making our own senior service colleges maintain the highest of standards, that those places align with President [Donald J.] Trump’s commitment to the American people [and] that our military will remain the strongest in history.”

…

"This task force will have 90 days to assess whether our senior service colleges ... are actually effective," Hegseth said. "They are going to identify any deficiencies and make sure they're focused on core national security issues. We want military leaders who are critical thinkers, that have studied the principles on which our founding fathers established this republic and that are educated and prepared to win wars."

…

Under the direction of the undersecretary of war for personnel and readiness, the Senior Service College Task Force will review the War Department's senior service college educational standards in advance of the 2026-27 academic year. The task force will assess institutional effectiveness by identifying deficiencies in standards and evaluating the colleges' alignment with the National Defense Strategy. It will also review the curriculum.

Fairly straightforward. Get a group together in March, 90 days gets you to mid-June. Doesn’t say who is on it, but I don’t see where anyone asked. You can assume that these would be idea people, politically aligned with the present administration, who know which end of the tube the round comes out of, and are not insiders to academia. I can see how you would want to keep the commission members in the background while they do their work. However, I do know that they were not wearing masks as they went about their business. I don’t see the big deal.

Monday evening, we got a shrug.

Click the above to get the full quote from the good Under Secretary. Perfect tone.

Why did he feel the need to put this out? Well, late Sunday afternoon, Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp published in WaPo, Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles.

I know most of the time the writers don’t have a say in the titles of their articles, but … really people. What breathless drama click-baity stuff…but it got people reading.

This was a small group of people looking at the senior war colleges. This isn’t Seven Days in May.

As I started to read Dan & Tara’s article, this was when I started to see where this whole thing is going to get kind of fun anyway. Dan has better things to do than read my stuff on a regular basis, but we have had pleasant exchanges on X for almost a decade. Tara and I have been mutuals on X for at least half a decade and have always had pleasant exchanges as well. I do my best to read their stuff when I see it, as it is always worth the time. They’re solid professionals on the Pentagon beat, but, really. I don’t think this is their finest hour, especially considering some of the topics in the previous administration that were not covered at all. I fully realize that one cannot cover everything, but it isn’t like news is quiet this August in the international arena. Perhaps this was pushed by their editor? I don’t know.

It’s a bit of a hash, and in the background you can hear a little axe grinding over the Late Unpleasantness.

The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.

At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Just because an official announcement does not go out doesn’t make anything a great secret. I’ve known people who have been put on this commission or that commission during both (R) and (D) administrations who no one knew they were doing it until a final report came out, or you happened to see them at the end of a table.

Enlighten me otherwise, but I don’t see anything nefarious here. Additionally, in 2026 if you are an idea person and do not have any type of online presence where you bounce your ideas off the ether and yell into the void—then you are a rather unique bird, and I’m not sure you are what the cool kids call a “change agent”.

Welcome to the second quarter of the 21st century.

Neither the Pentagon nor those involved have disclosed the government roles despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.

Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said. Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a “.civ” suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.

Shrug.

This is where it gets even more fun. Rob and I have been mutuals on X for a minute or two, and Kurt and I have not only been mutuals for years, we’ve broken bread, had some drinks, and I’ve had the distinct honor of meeting his wife (who is a saint and a hoot. He married WAY up.)

Yes, I know people IRL. It happens.

So, now I have one mutual vs. two mutuals.

The problems with our war colleges are not new. Heck, we’ve been discussing them here and over at the OG blog for the better part of two decades. We knew a panel had been put together.

I’m not all that happy that once again the Navy does not have a seat at the table, but, well, here we are—again.

I started laughing at the next pull quote as:

1. The below was done to spark competitive conflict between three Bull O6s (Ret.), or…

2. …it wasn’t intentional, but will have the impact anyway. I don’t care what someone may say: all idea people on X are measuring follower count because we are all barely hidden needy attention hounds. (also, follow @cdrsalamander if you do not already).

Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlichter has nearly 620,000.

Another retired Army colonel and influencer, Thomas Anderson, was listed in Pentagon records earlier this year with a “.civ” email address and assigned to Tata’s office, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Post. An attorney, he writes online under the pen name Cynical Publius and has more than 323,000 followers on X. He was no longer listed in Pentagon records late this past week, the people familiar with the issue said.

Thomas, Tom, CV, or whatever we call him after a few gin and tonics, and I are also mutuals on X. Now it’s 1 v. 3.

Rob, Shipmate, you need to up your game. I know you have almost 3X as many followers as I do on X, but Kurt has lapped you five times and Thomas almost three. Get to work. If you ain’t first, you’re last.

It just gets funnier. Sources, people…sources.

The assignments for all three have not previously been reported. Questions have been raised online about influencers’ connections with the Pentagon, including in an article last week by the Bulwark.

…

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman and Air Force veteran, posted that it appears the Pentagon “is using your tax dollars to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points.”

“How many more people that are blue checkmarks on X that are putting out information on behalf of the federal government, and Donald Trump, and the Republican Party ... are actually special government employees?” said Kinzinger.

Bulwark and Kinzinger? What, someone from MSNOW and the little lady from Code Pink wasn’t available?

OK, now we get to the point.

Maness, Schlichter and Anderson appeared on behalf of the Pentagon’s Senior Service College Task Force at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in May, two people familiar with the visit said. The task force was organized in the spring with the goal of rooting out ideology deemed “toxic” or “woke,” Hegseth said in March.

This really should have been earlier in the article. Again, this is nothing new…at all. Regardless of what some people who have lived too long inside a commute of DC may think, there was a huge problem with “Woke 1.0” at our war colleges and service academies.

Then we go to the point where—as a former N1-manpower bubba for a spell—I had a flashback that brought about an eye-twitch and a need to go PT to get it out of my system.

The individuals are assigned as either “special government employees” or “highly qualified experts,” people familiar with the issue said. Schlichter appears in a government database with an “HQE” designation after his name, according to material reviewed by The Post.

SGEs are limited by law to working no more than 130 days in any 365-day period. Those with HQE status can work full- or part-time, with or without compensation, according to government guidance on the issue released in 2023. It was not clear what financial agreements were reached with Maness, Schlichter and Anderson, and when each of their assignments began.

I’m convinced some manpower/admin weenie fed this story to WaPo. Only that type of staff person finds this stuff even remotely interesting.

For some reason—was there a word count that had to be reached?—Dan and Tara started to make this into a grab-bag of issues…strangely involving more of my X mutuals.

Tata’s team has taken on a number of culture-war issues, including scrutinizing war colleges for “woke” ideology and reviewing how the Biden administration adopted covid vaccine mandates for U.S. troops.

And their counterparts in the Obama and Biden administrations didn’t address “culture war” issues? I’m sorry, but everyone is allowed to play this game.

Then there’s the tell.

Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and Army National Guard officer, has attempted to reshape the public discourse about Pentagon affairs. Last year, he imposed new restrictions on Pentagon press corps members that forced dozens of journalists out of the building and later introduced a new, primarily right-wing press corps to replace them.

I’m sorry…I warned my friends in the Pentagon press corps not to play chicken on this topic. They played a game and lost. They shouldn’t stay mad about it; it bleeds into their reporting.

The increased attention on the Pentagon’s influence efforts comes after another conservative influencer, Jennica Pounds, accused a State Department official this month on social media of attempting to entrap her into publishing government secrets. Pounds, writing under the pen name DataRepublican, posted text messages online that showed the official approached Pounds with documents to publish and tout as a journalistic scoop.

Jennica is another mutual of mine. Now it is 1 vs. 4 on my X-mutuals. She has addressed this topic herself. Give it a read, I can’t improve on it.

Back to the main topic, in case you were wondering about money…

After initial publication of this story, Anderson said on social media on Sunday night that he was asked to join the task force after he published an article in February recommending changes to the war colleges. Anderson said he was a special government employee through July 26 with work “exclusively limited” to the task force.

“At no time have I ever received any compensation of any kind from any government source of any kind for anything I write or have ever written on X or in any magazine or other source,” Anderson wrote.

Again, I had to giggle at the description of something so benign as wet water. Volunteers helping the government improve something that—if you judge the results of the last three decades—is not quite hitting on all cylinders.

While in Carlisle task force members met with students and professors over a number of days and asked questions about the performance of leaders like Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the people familiar with the visit said. Some students were uncertain how candid they should be and whether there would be negative consequences if administration officials did not like the answers, this person said.

The other person familiar with the visit said the task force members had concerns about the syllabus for a class focused on how military officers communicate with Congress.

Then the authors dove into some of the opinion pieces Rob and Kurt have penned over the years…like opinion people do.

If you want to challenge an ossified, defensive, and not-quite-fit-for-purpose-entity, you have to bring in people who are willing to challenge, ask uncomfortable questions, and put their perspective on the table for others to agree with, critique, improve, or throw away. If you are only getting quiet, consensus types, then you will simply continue to do the same thing and make the same errors that got you to this suboptimal position.

Speaking of people who ask uncomfortable questions,

Another military influencer, John Konrad, also defended Pounds while noting he had discussions with the administration this spring about becoming a special government employee at the Pentagon. Konrad, a former member of the U.S. Merchant Marine and founder of the maritime website gCaptain, said that the Pentagon sought him out for a role and he later felt “ghosted.”

Now we’re 1 vs. 5 on X-mutuals. John and I have been communicating for almost two decades at this point. We know each other IRL, and most recently played Statler and Waldorf at the Surface Navy Association gaggle earlier this year.

But wait…can we get to 1 vs. 6?

The Pentagon also brought on Jerry Dunleavy, a journalist with the conservative Just the News, to assist Hegseth’s team with an ongoing review of the fall of Afghanistan. The Pentagon disclosed Dunleavy’s involvement in May.

As for Dunleavy, listen to his August 2023 and November 2024 visits to the Midrats Podcast and buy his book.

Kurt over at Townhall put out a good response to all this.

Once WaPo published, a bunch of other outlets picked it up, regurgitating the original regurgitation. Oh well. I do appreciate that the regime media has now acknowledged me as an important conservative influencer. I got 300 or so new followers for @KurtSchlichter. Thanks for the validation, jerks.

For those of you who missed this non-story, which would be most of you, on Sunday, WaPo decided that the fact that the Department of War (DOW) hired three retired colonels to investigate and report on the status of the military’s war colleges is a major scandal of epic proportions. Move over, Watergate! Guys who served their country continue to do so! The article claims “they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration,” which is true to the extent that we agree with the Secretary of War; it’s funny how they whitewash leftist critics as “those who scrutinize the Trump administration.” We were lambasting lefty haters before this gig; we’ll be doing it after, only now validated by WaPo as key conservative voices. The article’s implication was that we were somehow being paid to tweet DOW talking points, which is false. But it had the predictable effect on the predictable dummies of X, who obediently morphed from screaming that I am a “Zionist Jew lover” and “Epstein protector” to a “fed.” It was all an IQ test, and a lot of people failed.

The article in question is titled “Pentagon Secretly Installs Military Influencers In Civilian Roles.” But even the title is a lie. No one was secretly installed in anything. We were asked to do a very specific job within our military and civilian wheelhouses, and we did it. We didn’t make it about us, which is apparently an alien concept in D.C.

Read it all…and so he doesn’t get mad that I told you to buy Jerry’s book, check out Kurt’s offerings as well.

So, did we actually learn anything from this article from Dan and Tara? I don’t think so, though they did prompt Tata to put out a statement inside a day later. I get the point they are making, but there is nothing more partisan about this Pentagon’s appointment habits than those of any other administration. There is no such thing as a “non-partisan” person in DC—including in the defense arena.

Those who are open about their opinions are by nature partisans. Those whose political opinions are unknown are well-trained partisans. You can do good work with both, but the former are always more comfortable to be around than the later.

Well, that’s my view of the goings-on around the DC natsec community.

It was just amazing to watch such a great collection of my mutuals get their time in the barrel together…and come out the other side just fine.

I’m not saying this Pentagon is a Salamander Enterprises operation…but it has that vibe. I’ll take it.

As for Dan and Tara, they have a hard job, but I don’t think this added more light than heat…but it did raise the profile of the review of the senior service colleges. I look forward to their report.

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