Empire of Dust: The Decline of the American Military

How the US Armed Forces became an international laughingstock.

“Have you seen this shit?” My friend asks me over a drink while he’s tending the grill, flipping a few filets and ribeyes we picked up at Publix earlier.

“This shit” is a reference to a video uploaded by a US Sailor that’s been making the rounds on social media, which shows a Navy ship taking on water as the seaman jokes about the ship sinking. My friend, a retired Army Aviator, frowns as the video ends. Then he says, “What the fuck, man? I feel like the whole military has become a joke since I got out, it’s embarassing.”

I feel like I’ve been having some version of this conversation with just about every veteran I’ve come across in the last ten years.

“Glad I got out,” they always say.

“I would never enlist if I was 18 years old today,” is another all-too-common response.

And my personal favorite, “I’d be too fucking embarrassed to wear the uniform in 2024. Everyone would think I’m a cuck.”

America has been in decline for years, Covid just accelerated the process enough for everyone to notice. We’ve been demoted from Weimerica to DEImerica. And nowhere is that made more evident than in the military, which I’ve always seen as a microcosm of society at large.

Wars between global powers are won on the seas. The ability to project power across the globe is done more by our nation’s Navy than by troops manning foreign garrisons or missile silos ready to launch “mutually assured destruction.” Aircraft aboard carriers can quickly respond to threats anywhere in the world, and it’s our fleets that keep global shipping lanes (relatively) secure so that all those container ships and petrodollar vessels packed with crude oil can get to their destinations safely.

This comes at a great cost when you’re firing million-dollar missiles at Houthi rebels armed with an AK held together by duct tape and dreams. But what about near-peer threats from China or Russia? If either got the upper hand on the open ocean, they could effectively shut us off from the rest of the world.

No more microchips from Taiwan. No more cheap Temu knockoffs made by child labor in Guangdong. No more anything that relies on imports/exports.

Earlier this month, we saw the sad state of the US Navy put on ignominious display as Russia and China conducted naval wargames closer to our waters than they ever would have dared in decades past. It wasn’t pretty.

Three Wasp-class amphibious warships experienced serious mechanical problems at sea in recent months, establishing “a pattern of unpreparedness,” according to Dan Grazier, a senior fellow for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center. A pattern which, according to The Stars & Stripes, “projects a message to other countries that the U.S. Navy might be unprepared for a fight rather than a powerful fleet ready to strike.”

Meanwhile, the USNS Big Horn (T-AO-198), the only replenishment oiler with the U.S. Navy currently Deployed to the Middle East, has run aground off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea and suffered serious damage. She’s since been towed to a port in Dubai for repairs.

As of this writing, according to USNI, “maintenance for the surface Navy force - cruisers, destroyers, amphibious warships and Littoral Combat Ships - is about 2,700 days behind.” With some quick back-of-the-hand math, that works out to a little over SEVEN YEARS.

The Navy has no contingency plan for repairing ships damaged in combat. It can’t even maintain its fleets during peace-time operations, critical repairs of the nature naval warfare inflicts would take years to fix in the current environment. In fact, it would take almost as long to make them seaworthy again as it would to simply build new ships.

What’s stunning is we’ve identified this for the past five years with little movement. Something like half the subsurface fleet is laid up waiting on repairs because there aren’t enough shipyards to repair them.

This becomes even more insane when you realize the problem isn't really that we don't have skilled labor, but that the Military Industrial Complex won't hire skilled laborers because they’re not diverse enough. Constantly pushing "old White men” out for DEI initiatives. At least the young, inexperienced workers are cheap though. That’s what really matters, keeping wages down to save a few bucks so the CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries can buy another yacht that’s not built by unskilled DEI hires.

A quick Google search. Our ships are going to fall apart.

$24.43 an hour.

The average hourly wage for a shipyard welder in Newport News, VA is $24.43 an hour. That’s almost two dollars an hour below the national average, which becomes even more important when you consider that the average house there costs $300,000.

So who can afford to live off of $24/hour? Welfare fundies collecting food stamps and living in Section 8 housing. Which is, coincidentally, the exact demographic the shipyards in Newport News have been focusing on hiring for the past few years. Everywhere becomes an affordable locale if you don’t have to pay rent.

From an article dated August 2021, “Huntington Ingalls Industries, America’s largest military shipbuilding company, recently announced that The Apprentice School at the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division is participating in a four-year effort to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion in registered apprenticeship programs.”

“As part of the recently announced $13 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Labor, The Apprentice School is joining seven other strategic partners that will work with Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit that works to make the nation’s workforce and education systems more equitable.”

Here’s the girl boss running The Apprentice School’s DEImerica program, Latitia McCane, in case you were wondering if she looked exactly as you’d expect.

According to a DoJ investigation reported by USNI only a few days ago, “Shipuilder Newport News Shipbuilding, Va., informed the Department of Justice of faulty welds that may have been made intentionally on non-critical components on in-service Navy submarines and aircraft carriers.” Didn’t take long, what’s it been, three years since they started the DEI push through The Apprentice School?

The reason they stuck to non-critical components is because any weld that is considered critical to the structural integrity of the vessel is X-Rayed to make sure it was done properly. So the diversity is our greatest strength crowd stuck to only the welds they knew wouldn’t be X-Rayed.

If you conceal your belligerence as incompetence, you can get away with all kinds of sabotage these days. Newport News is the new Boeing.

Then there’s the Air Force, which openly admitted to trying to eliminate White guys from their officer ranks. According to a report published by The Daily Caller:

“The Air Force finally handed over a trove of documents pertaining to its sweeping “goal” of reducing the number of white male applicants in a popular officer program after spending months stonewalling requests for their release.”

It goes on to say…

“Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown — at the time the highest-ranking member of the Air Force — issued a memorandum in 2022 that the branch was updating its racial and gender demographic goals for applicants seeking to become officers, in a bid to prioritize “diversity and inclusion.” Internal documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation include a slideshow from 2022 where the Air Force outlines racial and gender quotas and details how it hopes to “achieve” a reduced number of white males in its Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) officer’s applicant program.”

Huh, I wonder why White men aren’t enlisting anymore.

“Telling a group of people they’re not welcome has completely unexpected outcome. EXPERTS BAFFLED!”

The modern military is as out-of-touch with the average White man as Kamala’s campaign ads.

This whole process began decades ago, but if you want to know how things got so bad, we’ve only got to go back to 2020 and talk about the thing that everyone is trying to pretend never happened. I’m talking about when we shut down our entire country, ruined people’s livelihoods and forced their family members to die alone for a virus that’s now so common we treat it like what it actually was all along: a fucking flu.

I don’t work for one of those fancy platforms like The Atlantic or The New York Times that’s owned by BlackRock and gets all their information fed to them directly by the FBI and the CIA, so my HUMINT (Human Intelligence) gathering basically consists of just reaching out to other folks and hoping they’ll give me the time of day. 

One of those folks is Sam Shoemate, who I recently had the pleasure of interviewing. For those of you who that name doesn’t ring any bells for, he served as a Chief Warrant Officer in the Army and managed to find himself in the national news spotlight after being targeted by a Three-Star General over “mean tweets.” Sam puts out some great info for both vets and current Active Duty, so check him out on X for more “offensive content.”

“An Army three-star general and a West Point associate professor used government resources in an unofficial investigation to hunt down and punish an anonymous active-duty whistleblower who criticized Army leaders and the Biden administration on social media, according to private emails and text messages obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.”

“Army Training and Doctrine Command Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais and Army Maj. Jessica Dawson — who is also an “information warfare research scientist” at the Army Cyber Institute — used their official authority and access to government resources to track down the whistleblower and get him identified publicly and punished by his chain of command.”

Despite a complete lack of evidence, they repeatedly accused Shoemate of being a “counterintelligence” and “insider threat” in a seeming effort to trigger action by the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division (CID).

Pat Wier, a civilian defense attorney and Navy reservist, said a CID investigation would require an assumption or designation of a serious threat and called Gervais and Dawson’s trumping up of accusations for exercising free speech rights “wrongful.”

“His alleged actions did not rise to the level of a serious crime, or any crime at all,” Wier said.

Gervais and Dawson ran their unlawful investigation for almost a year, enlisting help from a network of online associates consisting of progressive current and former members of the military who disagreed with the whistleblower’s political views.

Their efforts led to the doxxing of Shoemate’s identity and an Army two-star general’s former aide filing an inspector general complaint against him, a weaponization of the IG system in retaliation for critical, and often satirical, social media posts highlighting the concerns of enlisted personnel from a social media account Shoemate ran under the pseudonym “Terminal CWO.”

That complaint then sparked an investigation into the whistleblower by his chain of command (what is known as a 15-6 investigation). The investigating officer found that the suspected whistleblower, Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Samuel Shoemate, had violated Army Regulation 600-20 by “posting derogatory and disrespectful images/memes on multiple social accounts … towards different Senior Officials and Military Leaders.”

It also found that Shoemate violated Uniform Code of Military Justice Articles 88 (Contempt towards Senior Officials), 89 (Disrespect toward Superior Commissioned Officers, 133 (Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer and Gentleman), and DOD Instruction 5400.17 Official Use of Social Media for Public Affairs Purposes.

The investigating officer recommended “appropriate adverse administrative action and/or appropriate UCMJ action” against Shoemate. He ultimately was given a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand — essentially a letter of reprimand. He retired from the Army on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

Despite Dawson’s repeated suggestions he was a “counterintelligence” or “insider threat,” Shoemate had a flawless military record. His 2019 Officer Evaluation Report (OER) said he “lived, and reinforced, the Army Values, daily.” It also said:

“[Shoemate’s] conduct within the unit was always above reproach, and he fostered an environment that empowered Soldiers, free from sexual harassment or discrimination of any kind. His desire to develop a robust and cohesive team was evidence in the respectful way he approach every interaction and conversation with each member of the team.”

This was just part of a broader effort by career politicians cosplaying as servicemembers to conduct an ideological purge of anyone right of Mao in the rank and file.

Regarding the decline in the military since the early days of GWOT (Global War On Terror), Shoemate said, “It’s all gone downhill. Force Readiness, Force Lethality, leadership quality, morale. We’ve seen it all across the services, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force—the Marine Corps has done a lot better job of maintaining standards and holding onto their culture—but even they’ve been impacted.”

One thing he mentioned that I found particularly telling of the personal agendas and serious integrity violations unfolding behind closed doors is how he described the enforcement of the Covid vaccine mandate:

“You’d have O-5s telling company commanders and senior enlisted leaders that they better ‘Get all their guys to get the shot, by any means necessary.’ This was never passed down as a written order, of course, because it’s unconstitutional and it violates the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). It’s not a lawful order. So it was always spoken, with an implied threat that if you didn’t get onboard, your career was effectively over.”

For anyone at the Staff NCO or Officer level, this is extortion. You’re being threatened with your career being ended, your retirement and benefits put in jeopardy, your reputation destroyed and any hopes of getting a good job as a DoD-adjacent civilian contractor gone.

For someone who’s only doing four years and getting out, it’s not that big of a deal to not be able to reenlist, but anyone above E-5 has already dedicated roughly a decade to their profession. This isn’t just their livelihood, it’s their entire life. You can see why most of them caved in under pressure and went along to get along. I’m not justifying their cowardice and lack of integrity, I’m just diagnosing the disease that’s causing the symptoms.

Junior enlisted troops didn’t really question the Covid vaccine mandate because, to them, it was just another shot they had to get, like the vaccines you receive for Anthrax and Smallpox before going on a deployment. I remember getting these shots, half the time you didn’t know what they were for, all you knew was that you had to get them or you’d be in trouble.

Some NCO tells you to go to the Battalion Aid Station, where another NCO yells at you to get in line, and a Corpsman tells you to lift your shirt as he sticks you in the arm with a needle with one hand and ushers the next guy forward with the other, telling him to “hurry the fuck up.”

“The quality of the recruits joining up has really gone downhill. We’re getting young men who can’t run, can’t hike, and have never had any discipline instilled in them by their parents. There’s only so much you can do with that.”

When asked what would be needed to start fixing these problems and undoing the damage done over the past two decades, he said:

“The first thing we need to fix this whole mess is accountability at the flag officer level. But it’s at the rank and file level as well. We need to bring back standards and discipline, there’s a reason why you have to press your uniform and shine your boots. Such simple things, the very things I hated as a junior enlisted soldier, are essential to maintaining a proper fighting force. If we can’t even get them to do basic shit like making their bed and keeping their hair in regs, how are we ever supposed to trust them to do their job in combat?”

But this piece isn’t meant to simply document the decline without offering up any solutions, so I want to end it by looking at what’s being done differently by the only service still hanging on by a thread to a shadow of its former glory.

Let me preface this by making one thing clear: this isn’t a love letter to the Marine Corps. The men and women who now have the honor the title bestows have a lot of work to do to bring the Corps back to something that resembles “the world’s finest fighting force.” That said, they’re fairing a lot better than the other branches, and maybe there’s something to be learned from why that is.

Military leaders say there are so few Americans who are willing and able to serve, and so many civilian employers competing for them (bullshit), that getting enough people into uniform is nearly impossible.

Tell that to the Marines.

After the lowest enlistment numbers in a century, the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force will likely all meet their recruiting goals by the end of this month. The Navy might just barely meet their goals this year for the first time in three years. That’s an improvement over last year, where the Marine Corps and the newly-created Space Force were the only services to hit their goals, with the Corps managing to hit 100% of their goals without dipping into their Delayed Entry Program to stack their numbers.

Something earned trumps anything given away. Because something given has no value. The Marine Corps doesn’t want to mass-produce troops; it wants to remain an elite organization—the Few. The Proud. 

You can see it in the way the Corps advertises itself.

Quality over quantity. 

Consistent messaging. 

The other branches have frequently rebranded themselves, trying to find something that would have the same resonance. The Army went through at least four recruiting slogans over the past 20 years, and then reverted in 2023 to a 1980s-era standby, “Be all that you can be.”

An ever-evolving narrative that tries too hard to be timely, while only succeeding in looking desperate. The Corps on the other hand, offers something timeless, a challenge of one’s mettle. Because the Corps understands something about young people that the pencil pushers at the Pentagon don’t.

Here are some of the reasons the military is having a hard time recruiting Gen Z:

• Recruiters have long known that the single biggest factor in a young person’s decision to enlist is whether the prospect has a trusted mentor — a parent, relative, coach or teacher — who served. If someone they look up to served, they will want to follow in their footsteps to be more like the person they admire and respect. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 80% of recruits are a by-product of the veterans in their community influencing their decision to enlist.

  As these roles become increasingly politicized, the number of role models with a military background has shrunk substantially. Teachers and coaches are more likely to be outspoken critics of the military than among its veterans. Those who did serve are less likely to discuss that part of their lives, as it doesn’t mesh with the views of their peers or school administrators. 

  But what I think is even more impactful on the abysmal recruiting numbers is just how many GWOT vets are telling people NOT to enlist. They’re being blunt and opening up about all the corruption, scandals and bullshit they experienced serving during OIF/OEF.

• Roughly 23% of 17- to 24-year-olds are eligible to serve, and that issue has gotten more dire due to rising obesity and falling academic scores.

• The call to serve is being left unanswered. The kind of young people who would actually contribute to the service by being a part of it have no incentive to enlist.

  Why would anyone want to make sacrifices to join a military they don’t respect and no longer believe represents their values? It’s going to be really hard to sell getting sent to die for foreign states like Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel that would never do the same for us when our nation’s youth don’t even think America is worth defending. And the sad truth is, maybe they’re right, at least in its current state.

• Those who prove themselves worthy don’t have to question their worth. They are given value by their place among the few. That kind of meaningful fulfillment can’t be competed with, because it’s priceless. 

  Cash doesn’t buy a sense of purpose or pride in belonging. When you rent someone’s commitment, you get what you pay for. That kind of loyalty is only leased, it expires long before its terms. 

  When someone knows they’re only worth $10,000, they’re going to show up with that level of effort. They’re not invested in the organization itself, they’re just there to get a paycheck. 

As the Army and other branches try to figure out how to appeal to a disinvested youth, the Marine Corps consistently hits its enlisted, officer, active and reserve goals, year after year, whether in times of peace or war.

The Marine Corps takes great pride in its history, its battles won, and its culture. Being a Marine is the reason you join the Marines. People who join the Marine Corps hear that the Marine boot camp is the hardest, and in their minds, they can’t ever be satisfied with settling for second best. Marine recruits aren’t joining up for incentives, they are joining to become a Marine. 

General Eric Smith, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, summed it up well by saying, “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine. That’s your bonus… there’s no dollar amount that goes with that.”

This is also reflected in the way the Marine Corps presents itself in recruiting ads compared to the other branches. The other branches seem to advertise themselves as career fields not too unlike the average civilian job. They often tailor their campaigns to the modern world as much as possible and show that everyone has a place in their specific branch. 

The Marine Corps doesn’t do that. The Marine Corps is not promising you anything. The Marine Corps is not for everyone and every place within its ranks is earned.

Marine Corps commercials have always been the coolest. They never make it about the individual but about the Marine Corps as a whole. Who you are doesn’t matter: it’s what you can become that matters, and, if you’re lucky, who you can become is someone worthy of being called a Marine.

They make it very clear what the Marine Corps is all about, which is winning battles and killing the enemies of the United States. That doesn’t appeal to everyone as a career field, but it definitely appeals to exactly the kind of men and women the Marine Corps wants to recruit. 

No one knows where a fighting spirit comes from, why some have it, and some don’t, but the Marine Corps chases the people who possess such a spirit and who already have that burning desire to be a part of something greater than themselves. 

MARINES ARE DIFFERENT 

The joint publication Noncommissioned Officer and Petty Officer of the United States Armed Forces describes the various armed forces, their purpose, and capability. When talking about the Marine Corps it starts by saying that “Marines are different.” 

That’s why the Marine Corps can find enough recruits: it is different. People have tried to sell me things my entire life, and I’m betting that’s the same for most younger folks these days. The Marine Corps didn’t try to sell me anything. They offered me an opportunity to prove myself to them and to become something more. That’s what the Marine Corps offers, and there are plenty of young people out there who want to take them up on that offer.

The Marine Corps was never a career to me, it was a calling. 

You think about the Army using the language of money and math. “If I get this number on the ASVAB, I can do this job that will come with this much of a bonus. I’ll hit this rank within this many years and then land a job in the civilian sector making this salary.”

That’s materialistic thinking. 

I thought about the Corps using the intangibles, the things that can’t be bought. Like pride, purpose, brotherhood and a sense of belonging. 

The Marine Corps is also leading the way in a very unexpected arena: financial management. Earlier this year, the crayon eaters became the only branch of the military to successfully pass a full financial audit. Let that sink in for a moment. 

I think it’s clear that part of the Corps’ success is owed to the fact that it is exclusionary by its very nature. Standards are something to be reached for, not a bar that is continuously lowered until it resides in the basement beneath the floor.

If the American military is to once again become an institution that inspires fear in our enemies and respect in our youth, its leadership must go back to the fundamentals and start making their troops proud of serving with them, instead of consistently making them ashamed to share the same uniform. Either that or part of the Force Design 2030 will end up including their resignation.