“By allowing the president to continue to assail him, Sessions is allowing the entire system to look weak.”
There comes a point, no matter what the career or who the boss is, that one needs to stand up for themselves. In my career, I have been cursed out numerous times, typically because of my own actions. I have always accepted these very aggressive one-sided talks as what they were—a chance to learn from my mistakes. What I do not accept, however, is being cursed at. I will not tolerate that.
One of the duties I had as an executive officer was overseeing the government credit card program in our battalion. The program manager came to me because of the way one of our first sergeants was using their card. It was not exactly wrong, but it was not within the parameters of the program’s intent. Essentially, he was overpaying on the credit card so he constantly had credit on the account. He would then draw money from the card while he was not performing official travel (the only time the card was supposed to be used). Twice I told him that he needed to stop doing this, as it gave the appearance of misuse. The third time I shut off his card.
He went to my commander and threw a fit, saying that I was being unfair and reading too much into the regulation. My battalion commander (BC) told me to turn his card back on and leave it on, which I did immediately. That was fine. I have always been a believer in the fact that the commander has ultimate control over—and responsibility for—everything in their unit.
About a week later, while actually on official travel, this same 1SG attempted to pay for a hotel room, and his card failed to go through. To make matters worse, it was a Friday evening, so he could not reach out to the normal staff personnel. Instead of contacting me, the person who could directly affect his issue, he immediately called up the battalion commander to accuse me of disobeying my commander’s directive and turning his card off. The commander then immediately called me. Fortunately for both of us, I was in an area without cell service, so he left me a very angry voicemail. He ripped me up and down for not following his orders and basically told me that if I couldn’t do what I was told he needed to find another XO.
When I got the message, my blood pressure immediately shot through the roof. However, before I contacted my boss, I verified that the card was turned on. In fact, when I contacted the 1SG, he told me that after he called the BC, he had the hotel run the card again and it went through. I tried to contact my boss, but he sent me a message that he was at a party and we could talk Monday.
That Monday, I walked into the battalion and kicked the commander’s secretary out of the entry. I closed the outer doors to the office and went into my commander’s office, also closing the doors. I then took my rank off, tossed it across his desk and told him he could close out my evaluation and let the brigade know we needed to cut orders for me to move on to somewhere else.
He was taken off guard at my anger, since he felt the situation was handled. I explained to him that he either trusted me or not, period. Part of trust is loyalty. I expected him to always trust that I would follow his orders and support me as such. As my superior, I expected him to verify anything that was ever said about me before reacting, making sure that he received my side. If he could not do these very simple things, then I could not be his second in charge.
After all, he might be the commander, but I ran his unit. That is what my role was; I took his vision and made it a reality. I would not be unjustly accused without first being approached, especially by my boss. To do so would make the battalion dysfunctional and incapable of achieving the level of excellence that was expected of us.
At the end of the talk, he agreed with me. He admitted that simply taking the word of the 1SG and attacking me without speaking to me first was wrong. He apologized for this, and our relationship changed dramatically. Was I aggressive? Absolutely. Was I disrespectful? I would say I was respectfully indignant. The reason I got away with this talk was because I did it the right way. I came to him in private, without attacking his command authority. I did not voice my anger to anyone else prior to walking into his office, nor did I express it after. What happened in his office was between us, not the rest of the organization.
This was the most important thing about the entire incident. No matter what I felt about my commander (and to be honest, I liked him quite a bit and did learn a lot from him), he didn’t matter. What mattered was the organization, and he was the physical representation of our unit. I owed it to every member of our battalion to ensure that no one saw any sort of dysfunction in the headquarters. That is why I was willing to be relieved. If the headquarters cannot function, neither can the rest of the unit, and the truth is that perception is reality.
There is a lesson here for Jeff Sessions. He owes it to his boss and to the American people that the president represents to have a closed-door session between just the two of them. He needs to lay things out for President Trump in a manner that may hurt his fragile feelings.
Right now, the president is not doing any good for his cause. He is showing a level of disloyalty for his staff that simply boggles the mind. If he does not trust the attorney general anymore, then fire him. That is within the scope of powers for the president. If he feels that Sessions has failed by recusing himself from the Russian investigation or for not going after Hillary Clinton for any of the multitude of criminal activities that she was apparently involved in, then that is fine.
The problem is that this is not happening. By allowing the president to continue to assail him, Sessions is allowing the entire system to look weak. He needs to put on his big boy pants, close the door, and have it out with the president in private. At the end of the conversation, when he leaves the room, a decision should be made that he either has a job or doesn’t. If he does retain his position, however, he needs to make sure that Trump understands that loyalty does not simply flow up the chain of command.
When you are commander in chief, you must be able to support the decisions of those under you, even if you do not always like them. What cannot happen, however, is that Trump is allowed to keep diminishing his own cabinet. This not only makes him look incompetent as a leader, but it makes us look foolish as a nation.
