Republican Lawmakers: We Aren't Letting This Austin Scandal Go

PO2 R F. - PO2 Frost...I agree with most of what you stated, however, the Sec Def is unique in that he is legally and directly second in command of the Armed Forces. Therefore, by him not being available it was a breach of his command duties even as a civilian. He is THE principal advisor and is part of the procedure to use the football...his information and him physically without getting into it here are personally required unless he is incapable of carrying out his duties then he delegates, and it require a lot coord to recode some things for the next person in line. Should we have had to use the hot option (not saying we would have but Putin is unpredictable) it would have taken time to recode et al to get a retaliatory strike off...how long that takes and what it entails I don't know but I am sure it isn't a short process. By his not transferring his duties he could have put national security at risk...yes one man could have done that...now there are plenty of people that can step up and advise but there is only one that has command authority as a civilian and that is SecDef. Thanks for the commentary though...thought provoking.

PO2 R F. Your remarks are well written and totally understandable as to how things are supposed to work, but when the next person in the chain of command admittedly was unaware of the situation and allegedly not even the President knew it certainly leaves an enormous gap in our perceived leadership qualities, for the people of our Country and the world.

Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth Very well said and certainly a great assessment of a "what if scenario". Thank you for some great clarity to what could have been a complexing and compelling situation for someone, somewhere to have to address.

Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth - Hello, I similarly agree with most of what you stated from both of your postings in this feed. Perhaps we see it as “most” because we are possibly just quibbling about some similar ideas on the same issues. And before I continue to do so, I just want to say that I appreciate your thoughts, your ideas, as well as everything that you have previously said/written. Nothing that I had previously stated wasn’t so much as “disagreeing” with you in any way as me trying to elaborate on my thoughts for better clarity. I believe that we are relatively & mostly of the “same mind” and have a very similar conceptual level of understanding for this entire situation here regarding the extremely poor choices and actions taken by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
My first statement was primarily in regards to the naivety of another person’s post within your feed than anything that you, yourself had previously written.
I believe that it is the scope of the SOD’s overall role as being absolutely vital and essential in everything regarding the “football’s” use may be where we may find some of our potential differences to the general ideas here as well as where we may not “exactly” see everything “eye to eye”.
However slim those differences may well be, I would like to say that there are many redundancies built into the US’s chain of command structure that provides some kind of relatively adequate coverage's for any such similar “absences” of any such kind such as those directly related to the command and control of the “football”. Much as it so did for the SOD during his careless actions that forced his absence. In regards to the “football”, the SOD, and any of his potential “football” related responsibilities that the SOD may or may not have with the “football”, It is highly unlikely that the SOD has any direct responsibilities for the “football” or has any kind of direct control over the “football” other than those related to his advisory role for the President.
Besides, I wouldn’t want to waste everyone’s time here by continuing on with any further long winded explanations that are truly unnecessary & completely pointless in the long run.

Exactly right. Deriliction of duty. He knew better...he was a General Officer. He would have hammered his own troops for this.

He has had multiple opportunities to take an honorable resignation in admission of his / DoD's failure. He has not taken any of them. If Aghanistan didn't trigger a resignation, this molehill folks are pretending is a mountain certainly won't.

SFC Casey O'Mally - nailed it!