Email from a special ops captain who ‘disagrees’ with my ranger article

The answer I sent him was
“100% true.”

Here is a comment that I did not send him. I have been writing for a national audience through 5,000 articles and 85 books for 33 years. I never received such a question before. Accordingly, I conclude it is disingenuous, that is, Captain Coward knows exactly what it is but is pretending he does not in order to deliver a put-down he does not have the guts or integrity to state plainly.

Some of it is a little contradictory,

Well, this is the biggest thing he says. Throughout my Web articles on the military, I have complained again and again that the military has no evidence to back up its many claims about the effectiveness of their training and their units’ performance and tactics and strategies. I don’t think they know what they are doing and the empirical evidence backs me up. He seems to be admitting here that the Army not only does not have any hard evidence of their competence, but that it may not be possible for them to ever get such evidence.

If a drug company seeks FDA approval, they must prove that the drug in question is safe and effective. They must have valid, rigorous, quantifiable data. No data, no approval. I want the military including ranger school, to prove they know what they are doing, that their approach to training, tactics, and strategies are safe and effective. I do not think they are based on both theory and empirical data. Fundamentally, I think, and Captain Coward apparently suspects, that the Army cannot produce any evidence of the effectiveness of their various approaches for the simple reason that their approaches are, in fact, not effective. They are as incompetent as I say they are. Ranger school is, in part, a fraud, and it’s in a life-and-death realm. They need to fix it. Instead they claim it needs no fixing. Thats a lie.

I downplayed the effectiveness and value of it. “Importance” is a little vague.

Above, he said my writing about ranger was “contradictory.” Turns out, this is the only contradiction he could cite. Lame.

I listed airborne, ranger, and West Point in my military biography because current and former military vets would wonder about such things, especially at a Web site where the author criticizes those three institutions. On the same page where I said I graduated from ranger school are article titles I wrote that themselves reveal that I question the effectiveness of the training I got, namely: Is there any such thing as military expertise?; Is military integrity a contradiction in terms?; Should you go to, or stay at, West Point?; among other titles that give a similar impression about my views on military training and performance. I put the word “elite” in quotes on that same page when talking about ranger and airborne thereby indicating I was skeptical that such units really are elite.

This is Latin meaning “of one's own accord.” It usually refers to an action by a judge on his own as opposed to an action in response to a motion from a party.

I do not know what it means in the context of his emails to me.

My email answer to him:

I will leave your name off, but I will use what you said.

Let me get this straight, I have to follow orders from a current Army captain in 2009 because I was a first lieutenant in 1972? Or do I have to do what he orders me to do because he said the magic words “professional courtesy?” May I please see the written code of ethics that A. applies to my current profession and B. defines the particular professional courtesy Captain Coward is referring to. I suspect no code of ethics that I am covered by (journalism, coaching, real estate investment, publishing) mentions any such obligation.

Here is what Google says about professional courtesy: Professional courtesy is the tradition among physicians not to charge for treatment of each other's family. The purpose was to discourage physicians from having members of their own family as patients, as well as to foster bonds among physicians.

That does not apply to me and Captain Coward.

Wikipedia also says it applies to law enforcement officers not reporting each other or each other’s family members for law violations. That is illegal and unethical. Captain Coward surely would not want that.

Finally, Wikipedia says, The phrase may also be applied in a literal form, such as required ethical behavior of lawyers towards each other. This refers to written requirements in the American Bar Association Code of Professional Responsibility.

None of this applies to the “relationship” between me and Captain Coward. Although I do recall active-duty Army officers using this concept in the manner of the police not reporting crimes. A captain once accused me of lack of professional courtesy when I made a surprise inspection of his mess hall. He wanted me to help him cover up his negligence or incompetence. I refused to give him advance notice of my surprise inspections.

I do not understand the use of the word "proud" in quotes, the relevance of my being a former Army officer, and the use of the word "disgruntled"—an intellectually-dishonest tactic (#1) called “name calling.” I graduated from Ranger school, was awarded the tab, and recommended to be brought back as an instructor. Disgruntled refers to persons who were unsuccessful at the relationship in question. I was more successful at ranger school than the vast majority of ranger students who went through there.

Hey, buddy, get over the fact that you would have outranked me briefly had you been born 38 years earlier. I’m not your goddamned subordinate! You do not get to tell me what to do.

He threatens to withhold affection for me and once again “cites” the imaginary professional-courtesy ethical rule he says I am violating.

Let me address the following to all persons who think it might be a good idea to sue a journalist.

First, professional journalists are generally quite knowledgeable about the laws that pertain to publications. Army Captains who are not in JAG generally are not. Before they start threatening lawsuits, they ought to research whether there is any violation of the law in what they are unhappy about. Person A displeasing person B is not necessarily against the law.

Second, I am a particular type of journalist: an investigative journalist. I am a member of the investigative journalists association and have taken a number of training seminars from them. Investigative journalists have different DNA than other journalists and extremely different DNA than Army officers. Young people, including young officers tend to make the mistake of believing that other people are like them and respond to the same motivations they do. Army captains are trying really hard to stay on the good side of everyone around them. Investigative journalists are used to lots of people expressing extreme unhappiness with them constantly. Threatening an investigative journalist is like waving a red flag at a bull. It makes us wonder if there is something big being hidden.

Third, if and when Captain Anonymous Coward sues me, by law, his real name goes up on this Web site along with the other information I redacted above and all documents I file in court in conjunction with the suit. In legal parlance, they are privileged which means the Captain cannot complain about them being published anywhere by anyone. If he accuses me of defamation, the legal word for slander, my defense will be that what I said was opinion not fact, that he is judgment proof, that is, a guy who already has a reputation approximately like what he claims it was changed to by me, that he has no damages caused by me as opposed by those being caused by his own behavior, that he is not truthful (if I discover that he has been untruthful at any time in his adult life) and that what he claims I said was false was, in fact, true. Pursuant to those defenses, his filing the suit will give me subpoena power to demand pertinent documents, interrogatories, and depositions from pertinent witnesses.