January 05, 2012 12:25 AM UTC

On a weird night in Iowa, a Soldier makes a decision.

•  
• by: SSG_Dan

( – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)

…the military blogosphere is posting like mad over CPL Jesse Thorsen’s endorsement of Rep Paul, in full uniform.

The not-cool part of this is the fact that he participated in a partisan political activity in uniform:

Army soldier rallying for Paul violated military ban on political activity

Ron Paul spent Tuesday heralding his support among members of the military, but one active-duty supporter may be in trouble after lauding Paul on stage while wearing his Army uniform.

Army Cpl. Jesse Thorsen spoke during Paul’s speech at his headquarters in Ankeny, Iowa, Tuesday night. Paul invited Thorsen to speak on stage after a technical glitch cut short an earlier live interview on CNN.

Guidelines laid out in the federal Hatch Act specifically prohibit uniformed members of the military from making political speeches or taking official roles on political campaigns. Members of the military are permitted to attend political rallies, but must not be wearing their uniform while in attendance. On stage with Paul, Thorsen was wearing green Army fatigues.

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

The regulations on this are crystal-clear and leave no “grey area”:

b. For members of the Armed Forces, AR 600-20, 1 February 2006, Appendix B and

DoDD 1344.10, provide regulatory guidance on political activities. For Army civilian

employees, the Joint Ethics Regulation, Chapter 6-201, lists permitted and prohibited

political activities.  

    c. A Soldier on Active Duty or Civilian DoD employee may:  

         (1) Express a personal opinion on political candidates and issues as a private

citizen, but not as an Army representative.  

         (2) Make monetary contributions to a political party favoring a particular candidate

or slate of candidates.  

         (3) Attend partisan and nonpartisan political meetings (Soldiers can attend

meetings only when not in uniform).  

And yet, there’s CPL Thorsen in ACUs, standing on the podium with a Presidential candidate, giving an endorsement.

This soldier is not some newbie out of basic who’s been mesmerized by the cameras and lights to give a boost to a fringe candidate. He’s a ten-year vet, and has heard the regulation above so many times I doubt that he could ever forget it.

That’s why this incident is so powerful. There’s no doubt in my mind that CPL Thorsen knew the rules, and chose to make this appearance in uniform despite the risks to his military career.

He can’t come out in uniform and denounce the non-stop wars we put our military in, so he did the next best thing  – he endorsed the candidate who did.

The cluster bombs are being dropped in milblogs across the interwebz over the level of offense this represents. Almost all agree that the Uniformed Code of Military Justice will allow his commander to (at least) take some of his free time and maybe a stripe or two, but I hope the worst he suffers is some “colorful” language and maybe some time spent running a buffer over the 1SG’s office.

Why? While I clearly agree that he violated military regulation and I absolutely support an absolute wall between the military and political activity, CPL Thorsen took the opportunity to say the military has had enough of the wars we’ve sent them on. Because he’s going to suffer some consequences makes it all the more powerful.

Consider this column from an AFPAK vet in TIME:

As the twitterverse and blogosphere criticize him for endorsing a presidential candidate in uniform, we must ask ourselves as a society why the uniform means so much to us, yet so little to him? More importantly, if we as a society truly do value the sacredness of the military uniform, what are we doing to show it? Put yourself in Corporal Thorsen’s shoes as he walked along Ron Paul’s podium, and consider this:



“If this uniform means so much, why do so many service members take off our uniforms to find ourselves jobless and homeless?

If this uniform means so much, why didn’t you or your child put one on, so that I didn’t have to leave my family for three tours of duty?”

I’m not condoning this line of questioning but simply asking our nation to consider this event as a small glimpse into the ramifications of having an all-volunteer Army at war for 10 years. Our veterans are tired and they feel like the world went by without them while they were at war or training for war. We must recognize that, in each of our returning veterans, there is an internal struggle to reconcile the utility of their life’s work over the past decade with the hardships they’ve endured. Our society’s ambivalence gives veterans the prerogative to define their worth of service – and thus the American uniform – on their own terms.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/…

In the end, once the Article 15 is read and CPL Thorsen decides to accept his punishment, I’m sure the first thing he’s going to think is this:

“I’m a Corporal in the United States Army who’s deployed to The Suck too many times. What are they going to do to me that hasn’t already done?”

And I hope his next thought is “TOTALLY worth it.”