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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14 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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    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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  3. AnonymousMay 29, 2026 at 6:06 PM

    Issue gear vs Gucci gear has been a point of contention for decades. In the GWOT era, Marines pulled to some joint or specialized missions were told to ditch their issue gear and train / deploy with high speed gear like high cut helmets / plate carriers / Safari holsters / 1 point slings etc instead of the issue PASGT / Interceptor / SERPA holsters / 3 point slings.

    When these Marines returned to their parent Battalion, SgtMaj would have heart attacks because their holsters did not look the same in formation.

    The discipline was great, but it was because of mission focus because nothing focuses effort or creates more pride than a challenging mission deployment. Once OIF and the hard missions like Fallujah were over, deployments became another form of garrison overseas with units running CrossFit competitions to keep Marines from getting fat and discipline suffered.

    CNO hates endless deployments, but wisely picked deployments with challenging mission sets could work wonders for both discipline and recruiting.
    Bet the discipline of the 82nd soldiers is much better for those who are deployed.

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    1. AnonymousMay 29, 2026 at 7:51 PM

      It's really aggravating when the gucci gear is in fact being used and authorised by high speed units, but Sgt Maj says no because we've always done it this way.

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    2. ComNavOpsMay 30, 2026 at 6:00 AM

      "wisely picked deployments with challenging mission sets"

      You understand that all my comments about deployments apply ONLY to naval forces, right? I have no idea about ground force deployments, good or bad. So, with that in mind, what are you thinking would be an example of a "wisely picked deployment with challenging mission sets"? I've never been able to think of one but maybe you can.

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    3. ComNavOpsMay 30, 2026 at 6:08 AM

      "It's really aggravating when the gucci gear is in fact being used and authorised by high speed units, but Sgt Maj says no because we've always done it this way."

      You understand that SgtMaj is responsible for the ENTIRE unit, not just an individual who transferred in from some other unit where they had different gear, right? He's responsible for all of his men and the maintenance of their gear.

      I'm not defending the military's gear selection but standardization exists for a reason and that is to ensure that EVERYONE is trained and proficient with whatever the standard gear is and that EVERYONE can use and knows how to maintain ALL the gear. Standardization is what ensures that. Of course, if there is a clearly superior civilian version then the military should change the standard and acquire it but, as we all know, that takes forever.

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    4. GeorgeMay 30, 2026 at 6:18 PM

      Some examples of well picked deployments with challenging mission sets and some examples of deployments only for the sake of filling a training and exercise schedule:
      Good: Deployment of the 82nd and 31 MEU to CENTCOM for Iran support. 22 MEU support to Libya operations in 2011. 15th MEU surge for invasion of Afghanistan in 2001/2002. Carriers in support of Epic Fury or operations in SCS.
      Deployments that should be scheduled for Reserve unit rotations to give Reserves a purpose to train for: Norway exercises like Northern Lights. Commonality training like Panama or Honduras. Bilateral training with Egyptians and Lebanese for stability operations. Commonality training with any "allied" naval force. Humanitarian missions in the Americas or any "stability" operation or NATO exercise.

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    5. ComNavOpsMay 31, 2026 at 7:22 AM

      What you're citing as deployments are simply missions. A deployment, as the term is used on this blog, refers to a several month cruise with no specific missions or objectives - you just sail around waving the flag and see what happens. We have no disagreement, only a difference of terminology.

      Delete
  4. Bob NageleMay 31, 2026 at 8:56 PM

    At the end of the post, you stated:

    "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]"

    I disagree. He may well have some things that he should be held accountable for, but I don't feel that this memo is one of them, at least not without a lot more information. Here's why:

    Recall that 2023 (when this memo was written) was in the middle of the Biden Administration, and the entire civilian upper part of the chain of command (and probably a fair amount of the upper military part) was totally "all in" on this view. LaNeve may well have been given a direct order to sign this memo. Even if there was no explicit order on this particular thing, it was obvious that this sort of thing was exactly what the upper part of the chain of command wanted, and there may well have been implicit pressure on him. My understanding is that military officers must obey lawful orders, even if they disagree with them. So the information in the article could be just as well explained by the idea that he merely followed the direction and orders of the civilian leadership (as he must) rather than that he actually agreed with it.

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    1. ComNavOpsJune 1, 2026 at 8:46 AM

      "LaNeve may well have been given a direct order to sign this memo."

      Had he been given a direct order to shoot a random person on the street would he be obligated to obey? Of course not! Merely being given an order does not require blind obedience. Now, random murder is clearly an unlawful order. It gets a good bit murkier when you are ordered to sign something you believe (if he did) will degrade the combat effectiveness and readiness of the US military. To do so would be dereliction of duty. Suppose he were ordered to disarm every soldier before sending them into battle? Obey or not? And so it goes.

      Setting aside the legality of the order, a commander ALWAYS has the right AND RESPONSIBILITY to resign rather than execute an order he believes will harm the US. Recall the Revolt of the Admirals. This requires courage and a willingness to sacrifice one's own career, if necessary, but that's EXACTLY the character quality we want in officers.

      So, if given the order to sign something he felt was wrong, he had the option to legally contest it or to sacrifice his career. He did neither. That's an apparent failure that most certainly requires explanation and it's very difficult to see what explanation could justify his inaction.

      We've discussed this as if he actually was ordered to sign but we have no idea whether that was the case. If he wasn't ordered and signed willingly because he believed it was a good thing then that's an even bigger question about his judgement.

      We want officers with the integrity and courage to do what is right even at the cost of their career. Was that him? I have questions.
      Either way, he has questions to answer for.

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    2. Bob NageleJune 1, 2026 at 3:39 PM

      "Setting aside the legality of the order, a commander ALWAYS has the right AND RESPONSIBILITY to resign rather than execute an order he believes will harm the US."

      Yes, he could have resigned. I was actually thinking of mentioning that. Now, the article doesn't specify what was actually in the memo that he signed. You may disagree, but I don't believe that merely having gay people in the military is harming the US or the military. Certainly not nearly as much as the drift and decline in discipline that he fixed in the division. So I would ask, given the good that he did, which was unambiguous in our view, would you really want him to die on THIS hill, thus preventing him from doing that good?

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    3. ComNavOpsJune 1, 2026 at 5:01 PM

      "I don't believe that merely having gay people in the military is harming the US or the military."

      In the abstract, I would agree. In reality, the accommodations made for not just gay but all the different "flavors" of non-standard genders have most certainly harmed cohesion, discipline, efficiency, effectiveness, and combat readiness. That's not even debatable as we've witnessed it happening and have seen the results.

      "not nearly as much as the drift and decline in discipline"

      That "drift and decline" is directly the result of the entire gender/woke movement in the military. The military's attempt to accommodate every variation and their fear of offending any variation is what directly led to the loss of discipline.

      "given the good that he did, which was unambiguous in our view, would you really want him to die on THIS hill"

      It depends on the answers to the questions I have about some of his actions. If this was the only "bad" thing he did and he did it unwillingly and unenthusiastically, perhaps I accept that. On the other hand, if he enthusiastically supported the movement then he was, in part, the problem and lacks the judgement, mindset, and integrity to continue serving at his level. At the moment, I'm inclined against him but I lack all the facts and any of the answers so I withhold final judgement but he certainly has actions to answer for. That's all the post called for - a review of his actions.

      Delete

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