A response to Kelly Scole’s letter.

Hi Kelly,

If I misunderstood statements made by Trump, Stephen Miller “Voldemort”, and Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth (those you have quoted), I would also have been “almost speechless”. So, allow me to rescue you from those “vile statements” that seem to threaten you.

I would like to summarize some issues this week to speed up those which we have already discussed to save space and bestow mercy on any faithful but long-suffering readers.

You vilify both Trump and his minion Stephen “Voldemort” Miller. I defended both because I read their words free of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

You blast Pete Hegseth for being a “cocky tin soldier.” Cocky he may be, but he wears two bronze stars and a Combat Infantry Badge. Though he is a graduate of Harvard and Princeton, I do not favor him at his present position as Secretary of War, only because he lacks, in my opinion, necessary experiential depth. I also think the meeting of the generals should not have been so public. That was unnecessarily demeaning.

But criticism of flag officers was well earned. The Pentagon is full of slackers. Take the Bozo Brothers of the Biden administration, Lloyd Austin and Mark A. Milley. Many others come to mind, like the former Commander of our Coast Guard, Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, who refused a direct presidential order from Trump in order to protect the dozen or so gay sailors under his command. At issue was the transgender military ban. Following Trump’s 2017 tweets banning transgender people from the military, Zukunft publicly stated he would not “break faith” with some dozen transgender sailors under his command. In war he would have been arrested, court martialed, and jailed.

And let us not forget the extraordinarily traitorous conduct of General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff! Milley, made two phone calls to his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, in late 2020 and early 2021 to assure Zuocheng that Milley would warn him if Trump intended to attack China. Biden gave Milley a preemptive pardon to save him from Trump’s wrath. An example of where court martial, conviction, and the firing squad would have been appropriate during wartime.

Include also, U.S. Air Force General Charles Q. Brown Jr., fired by President Donald Trump on February 21, 2025, from his position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Another example to highlight the dry rot among those true “military stalwarts” you properly salute, are those real “tin soldiers” Trump and Hegseth are determined to eliminate.

Meet Leonard Glenn Francis (“Fat Leonard”). “The “Fat Leonard” scandal involved Malaysian defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis who bribed numerous U.S. Navy officers with gifts, luxury travel, and prostitutes to direct naval ships to his company’s ports and to overbill the Navy for services. The scheme resulted in the largest corruption case in U.S. Navy history, with hundreds of officials under scrutiny and multiple indictments. After Francis fled in 2022, he was recaptured in Venezuela and eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison in November 2024.”

Also, “Retired four-star Admiral Robert P. Burke was sentenced to six years in prison (72 months) and three years of supervised release for a bribery scheme, a sentence handed down on September 16, 2025, after his May 2025 conviction for conspiracy to commit bribery and other offenses. He was found guilty of accepting future employment from a government vendor in exchange for awarding that company a government contract.

Please Note: I thoroughly support all our armed forces (especially the troops – the “grunts”) of which I was a part for three years (B.C.). As in many churches, it’s the administration in military leadership that is mostly responsible for scandal, failure, and disunity. They should fry for their infidelity. The 850 “fragging” incidents in the Marine Corps and Army during the Vietnam War were largely reactions to woefully incompetent leadership. It’s always leadership and character. You can’t have one without the other.