Dear Commandant Berger

 11/10/2021

Dear Commandant Berger,

I’m a retired Major, prior enlisted. Right now it seems to me the Country is in dire straits. It seems that way, because it is that way. We literally cannot stock the shelves anymore. We’re turning into the Soviet Union in some respects, the not stocking shelves thing is the most visible sign.

Right about now you’re asking, “What the hell does that have to do with me? I don’t make economic policy.”

Well, I’m getting there. See, this kinda is your fault. A year ago, during the election regularities, you and your fellow members of the Joint Chiefs were given a tough choice. Now, I really don’t give a rat’s ass about the other services. But you are in my Corps. These are the people that took me in after I was a foster kid, and a little jacked-up. They taught me how to be a man, a gentleman, and a Marine. These are the twenty-first century Spartans.

A year ago, you could have said something along the lines of, “I’m going to resign, unless there is a full and impartial investigation of the election irregularities.” But no. No you didn’t. It doesn’t even really matter if there actually was election cheating or not. The appearance of impropriety and your actions afterward stunk of corruption. You, the man who our peers decided would be a colonel, then a general, and eventually the Commandant, because you’re hypothetically better at being a Marine officer than anybody else, in the entire Marine Corps. You held your nose and jumped in the steaming pile of cow dung, and signed that ridiculous proclamation with the other six or seven (I forget) jellyfish that have four stars where their brains should be. In my opinion, you’re lower than the most shitfaced lance corporal on this, the most sacred of evenings, the birthday of our Corps. I would take one of him, over a thousand Bergers. At least I know those kids will have heart. And by ‘our’ Corps I mean, that shitfaced lance corporal and me. It is not ‘your’ Corps anymore. It is not your Corps because you disgraced me, you disgraced yourself, and you disgraced that shitfaced lance corporal lying in the gutter. (Actually that happened to me when I was a lance corporal once, but we’re not talking about me) You disgraced us all, by not acting like a man, much less a Marine, a year ago.

Then we got that masterful withdrawal from the Stan. Looked like a textbook Berger move to me. I don’t care if you didn’t plan it though. You didn’t do what you needed to do, the most important act for this Country, the most important act any of us could have done since our formation in 1775, a year ago when you let that shit slide. So you get the Stan withdrawal operation ribbon. A dog turd, with a steaming election memo over it. Guess which one smells better?

The formation of our Marine Corps, on this night. Shortly after that, the birth of our nation. Except, if you’d been around in 1775, you would have stabbed Washington in the back, drowned Jefferson in the Potomac and thrown your sword at George’s feet. General Arnold would have turned green with envy. No offense.

And you’re an asshole for getting rid of the tanks, too. But that, I could’ve let slide. That doesn’t mean you’re a traitor, that just means you’re a dumb-ass grunt.