Thursday, May 28, 2026

Discipline

No serious observer of US military forces can have failed to see the decline in training and readiness over the last few decades.  The following news article is testament to that decline by the fact that it is even newsworthy.
 
U.S. Army Gen. Christopher LaNeve, a commander known for enforcing strict discipline and later winning praise from President Donald Trump, is expected to become the Army's next top officer, according to U.S. officials.[1]

Isn’t enforcing strict discipline simply a given in a trained and ready military?  It should be!
 
Two years before joining War Secretary Pete Hegseth's inner circle, LaNeve built a reputation at the 82nd Airborne Division for rigidly enforcing rules, including banning cellphones during physical training and requiring troops to use only military-issued gear.[1]

Banning cell phones and insisting soldiers use military gear?!  What kind of nutcase is this guy?  More to the point, how far has discipline fallen if this is even a story? 
 
As you would expect,
 
The approach did not make him popular with many rank-and-file troops. Current and former members of the division said some soldiers booed LaNeve during All-American Week events in his final year commanding the unit.[1]

Anyone who booed should be instantly dishonorably discharged.  That they weren’t,  proves the depths to which discipline had fallen.
 
Fortunately, not all have bought into the fad of non-existent discipline.
 
However, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, a former 82nd Airborne commander who later recommended LaNeve for a senior Pentagon role, said the general restored discipline and traditional military values to the division.
 
"What he did, which I admired, he brought the 82nd — it had drifted away a bit — back to traditional training and traditional values," Kellogg said. "I think the Army had gotten away from the idea of traditionalism and what it means to fight and how to fight."[1]

Here’s where I fault SecDef Hegseth.  If the unit had “drifted away” from training and discipline, which is to say they drifted away from combat readiness, then the previous commander(s) should be promptly court-martialed for dereliction of duty and dishonorably discharged.  This is the kind of house-cleaning I had hoped Hegseth would implement and has not.  Very disappointing.
 
Please note that this post is not about Gen. LaNeve, specifically, but about discipline and training.  Indeed, LaNeve has some questionable actions he needs to be held accountable for.  For example,
 
In June 2023, LaNeve signed a Pride Month memo recognizing LGBTQ+ troops.[1]

The larger, main point is that military discipline has clearly deteriorated, badly, and needs to be reestablished immediately and forcefully.

 

__________________________________
 
[1]Newsmax website, “Gen. LaNeve Poised to Be Army's Next Top Officer”, Sandy Fitzgerald, 28-May-2026,
https://www.newsmax.com/us/christopher-laneve-army-pete-hegseth/2026/05/28/id/1257791/
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 29, 2026 at 7:35 AM

    I will just point out that I've been on the wrong side of the "only use military-issued gear" dilema. The issue boots are shit. They don't stand up to hard use. I bought my own boots. Same color as the issue boots. Better quality. Didn't fall apart on me on a ruck march. I got gigged because I wasn't using issued gear.

    The issue gear in the Army is just barely adequete. Big Army is far behind the curve when it comes to battle rattle. A lot of motivated joes will go and buy their own gear, on their own dime, that fixes these problems.

    I'll give you another example: the issue sling in the Army is a piece of shit. It's just canvas. My buddy goes and buys a Vickers sling from Blue Force Gear. It's a good sling: strong, practical, adjustable, designed by a former Delta Force operator based on real world experience. It's a superior product to the issue sling. He gets NJP'd and it goes into his file because he wasn't using issue gear. (The Marine Corps adopted the Vickers Sling as their standard issue sling, years later, and he was very salty the Army hadn't followed them.)

    The problem is that ever since the GWOT ended we have been back to garrison mode with all of this dog and pony bullshit. Enforcement of standards is less about discipline and more about looking good for KPI. It was different when I was deploying. Back then, we all knew we were going to war, we all knew we were going into combat. We set aside garrison bullshit and focused on training to fight.

    Discipline and morale breaks down without a purpose.

    But what do I know? I wasn't nobody special. I was a regular joe in the infantry, in a regular line unit in the regular Army.

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    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsMay 29, 2026 at 8:17 AM

      "I bought my own boots."

      IN ISOLATION, you are 100% right and I fully agree with you. HOWEVER, context matters and, in this case, the context suggests that discipline in the unit in question had fallen apart and they had lost their focus, combat mentality, and readiness. How do you regain/reestablish discipline? You start with strict adherence to regulations. Later, after the unit has attained proper discipline, regained its combat focus, and is highly trained and combat ready then, sure, you can relax a little bit around the edges and allow people to buy superior gear for certain items - but only certain items. For example, while there may be a superior civilian rifle we can't allow everyone to go out and purchase their own weapons because we can't subsequently support maintenance and munitions for a bunch of non-standard weapons.

      So, you are right ... to a carefully limited extent.

      On a related note, I once visited a Cyclone patrol boat and noticed the standard GPS has the vessel located several miles inland in a park. Right next to the GPS was a cheap, civilian GPS unit that the crew had purchased from a hunting shop and it showed the vessel exactly where it really was. HOWEVER, when I asked whether the civilian unit's signal was protected/encrypted in any fashion, the answer was no (I doubt the standard issue unit was either but that's another matter) so the civilian unit may have proven highly effective in peacetime but might have been useless in war. Again, illustrating that we have to be very careful about the kind of non-standard equipment we allow to be purchased.

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    2. ComNavOpsMay 29, 2026 at 8:19 AM

      "Discipline and morale breaks down without a purpose."

      Spot on! Unfortunately, the military, as a whole, has been without purpose for far too long. Since they had no proper focus, wokeness and other flaws crept into the military.

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  2. ExJuniorSailorMay 29, 2026 at 7:46 AM

    I was stunned to find out that in the Army ( at least the unit I have a son in )daily work schedules, orders etc are all sent out on cell phones. Units are all in "group chats", and info/orders are passed down from the E6/7 level that way.
    The things I've heard over the last two years are beyond cringe worthy. The lack of professionalism, the amount of time wasted literally doing nothing , the lack of time spent doing any actual training, and the incredibly sorry condition of their equipment is beyond belief. As a taxpayer, its absolutely disturbing, and as someone who served at the end of the Cold War when we still had our proverbial sht together, today's military is almost totally unrecognizeable. It's so bad I started a blog series elsewhere talking about it.
    Now, Ill temper that with the fact that it seems as if the Navy/Air Force has had a reasonably good showing recently... but as far as one specific Army unit Im privy to, I wouldn't give it good odds of survival vs a GirlScout troop...!!

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