In the months since a single senator froze military promotions over the Pentagon’s abortion policy, affected uniformed officers have remained largely silent, wary of wading into a political battle. But as the fallout from Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s freeze in Alabama has grown, more and more of them are speaking out.

Some of the top military leaders have taken the issue to heart and expressed their concerns. They said the damage the holds will do to the military will be felt for years to come as young talented officers decide they have had enough and choose to leave.

We are about to lose a generation of champions, Air Force General Mark Kelly, the chief

by

Air Combat Command, told reporters

this last one

week at a defense conference in Maryland. Kelly said he talks to his NCOs, many with families, and they are people who will take a bullet for the nation, the Constitution. But when it comes to getting their family through this, there is a red line.

One of the unusual things about the Tuberville holds is

That

he punishes uniformed personnel who have nothing to do with creating the government policies he opposes.

Uniformed military leaders typically avoid commenting on political decisions, not only because they do not want to antagonize lawmakers who could block their future military promotions, but also because they do not want to be seen as challenging civilian control of the military, a core tenet of the US government.

But now even the Pentagon’s soon-to-be top military leader is speaking out. Navy Adm. Christopher Grady, who currently serves as military No. Two officers as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs will have to serve simultaneously as chairman starting in October. 1 with the retirement of General Mark Milley if his replacement, Air Force General CQ Brown, cannot be confirmed in the next two weeks. Brown is also subject to Tuberville’s grasp.

We need CQ Brown to be confirmed as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Grady said Wednesday on Air and Space Forces Ace

ociatio

z. conference.

For younger officers left in limbo by the holds, the fact that people can’t plan their moves or get their children to school is what’s hurting them, Grady said. There are cumulative costs associated with this and we must be well attuned to this.

In recent years, there has been a slew of political orders that have had a direct impact on the military. There was former President Trump’s order that transgender personnel could not serve, and then the reinstatement of that service under the Biden administration, the mandate for COVID-19 vaccines and now the response to new state laws restricting access to abortion.

Some orders given to the military by civilians, which the military must then carry out, can make the military appear political, said Mark Harkins, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute. If whatever civilian control has asked them to do, if that order, that rule that they’re following is contrary to what you believe, then you’re going to say they’re being political.

Tuberville announced the measures late last year after the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs that abortion limits should be left to the states, and the Biden administration’s civilian Pentagon head, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, responded by instituting a policy conduct that, according to Tuberville, violates federal law. law.

Under the policy, service members, who are often given no say in where they are assigned, will be reimbursed for travel expenses incurred to obtain an abortion or other reproductive care if they serve in a state that has banned those services.

Tuberville says the policy violates a federal law that says Defense Department funds cannot be used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is threatened.

So in March, Tuberville exercised a prerogative that allows any senator to hold a nomination, except he kept a lid on all nominations for military generals and said he would not lift them until the policy is rescinded.

Retaining military rather than civilian candidates has a bigger impact because civilian posts often go unfilled for months and are filled by a career civilian, said Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

This isn’t the first time general officer promotions have been frozen by one senator. In July 2020, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois put a complete freeze on military promotions in response to reports that Trump interfered with the promotion of Army lieutenant general. Colonel Alexander Vindman, who was a witness in the former president’s impeachment inquiry. Duckworth dropped the guard two weeks later after learning that Vindman had been selected for promotion. However, Vindman retired, citing a “campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation” after multiple delays in his promotion convinced him that there was no viable future for him in the military.

Six months after the occupation of Tuberville, 315 military officers have now been affected, and the impact is even more profound in some services. In the small and still growing U.S. Space Force, at least eight general officer appointments have been suspended, but that represents a third of all 25 senior officers. In the Marine Corps, at least 18 general officers among the Corps’ cadre of 88 are unable to transition to their new commands, or are under-tasked by having to fulfill the duties of their current job while also being responsible for the vacancy that they officially cannot to fulfill. .

It’s disruptive, says Gen. Chance Saltzman, Space Force chief of operations. The people we want in the jobs that we know will add value were not in a position to put them there.

However, the head of the Pacific forces, General Charles Flynn, told reporters

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This week the holds had no impact on his activities. “I don’t see any practical problems this creates in the region,” Flynn said, according to an Army transcript.

Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while military officers are concerned about the holds and their use as a political cudgel, it is inappropriate for them to speak out.

It is not just the president who provides civilian control of the military; Constitutionally, Congress also fulfills that function. We don’t want our military to criticize the president’s partisan actions, so we shouldn’t want them to do so over Congress, Schake said.

On Thursday, Tuberville watched as another officer, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, who would become the first female chief of naval operations, testified about the impact of the holds during her confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Franchetti said that if the wait lists are eliminated, it will take three to four months to get the three-star generals in place, but it will take years to recover from the impact the promotion delays have on lower-ranking officers.

That’s because every officer who is promoted creates an opportunity for a younger officer to advance. The military is limited to the number of personnel it can have per rank. So if you prevent a colonel from being promoted to general, there are younger lieutenant colonels who cannot be promoted to colonel. That affects salaries, pensions, lifestyle and future assignments, and in some areas where the private sector will pay more, it becomes harder to convince those highly skilled young leaders to stay.

And at one point, when asked why she had not been informed of a specific investigation into submarine financing, Franchetti noted that the workload is hampered by the holds because she serves as both vice chief of naval operations as acting head of service.

“I think it’s just my own bandwidth capacity at this point,” she said.

Tuberville made no mention of the election delays, instead saying he looked forward to Franchetti’s service as chief. And he told her to keep the military out of politics and leave it to us politicians.

Kelly, a career fighter pilot who has reached retirement age

been

postponed due to the holds, had sharp words about its impact.

The situation does not inspire confidence among our allies, but it does inspire confidence among our adversaries, Kelly said. In the nation’s capital, the popping sound you hear isn’t stray gunfire. The champagne corks in the Chinese embassy bounce off the walls.