As my regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will attest, I often strive for a bit of attempted humor in my columns, even when discussing very serious subjects. I learned many valuable leadership lessons from the time I was the executive officer to a general officer serving at the AF Academy. And he often noted that a sense of humor was one of the most underutilized skills available to a leader. He’s right, of course.

But for today’s column, I confess to being pretty angry and I’m not seeing many chuckles in the outrageous treatment of a brother officer by a United States senator. A recent article in Military Times tells the story of an Air Force colonel who was in the midst of a spectacularly successful career when he found himself in the crosshairs of a radical right MAGA nut, Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri.

In what would be comical if it wasn’t just sad, during the GOP primary season there were two gents with the first name of Eric running in the Missouri senate primary. Donald Trump, that bastion of integrity, announced in a pre-primary speech that he was endorsing “Eric” because he was a good hard right guy. He didn’t mention a last name, so both guys got to claim the Trump endorsement. Well, Eric won. Schmitt, that is. And he recently popped up in the news cycle due to, well, let me tell you.

You likely recall that for most of 2023, the US military was unable to promote anyone to flag ranks (generals and admirals), or to promote any current flag officers to higher ranks. Why did this outrage and threat to national defense take place? Well, an idiot GOPer from Alabama, former top-tier college football coach and now incompetent US Sen. Tommy Tuberville, had decided that he didn’t like the military allowing, let alone paying for, service members to seek family planning help when they were stationed in states that banned abortion. So, Tuberville thought he could coerce the DOD to cancel such family support by putting a hold on all flag officer promotions.

Senators have certain privileges under senate rules, and these include the ability to place holds on certain government actions. One of these allowed “hold actions” allows an individual senator to place a hold on the promotion of flag officers, or heck, technically any officer. You see, when the military picks people to be promoted in the officer ranks, one technical detail is that the service involved sends the requested promotion list to the senate for the old “advice and consent” routine. For example, when I made First Lieutenant back in 1983, technically I was promoted when the Senate consented to the list of hundreds sent over by the Air Force. These types of bills are usually bundled and are unremarkable and noncontroversial, unless, of course, someone decides to play politics with the list. These lists were submitted for every one of my promotions as an officer, and I was among the hundreds promoted.

Tuberville thought he could shame the military into changing policy by shutting down promotions for generals and admirals. Over the months of his intransigence, the military services reported increasing impacts on readiness due to missing commanders. Eventually, roughly 99 of the 100 US senators yelled at Tuberville enough for him to remove his hold and slink away, claiming some type of pyrrhic victory.

Then an Eric stepped up…

It turns out that on the list of colonels the Air Force wanted to promote to brigadier general was a fellow named Ben Jonsson. Colonel Jonsson has had a stunningly distinguished career. One of his former commanders selected him to serve on the Trump National Security Council staff, due to an amazing background and education in mid-east affairs. The aforementioned Military Times lists out his many accomplishments, I urge you to take a look.

A promotion to BG, as we military folks call brigadier general, would seem to be automatic for such an impressive leader. But Sen. Schmitt decided to shut down the Jonsson promotion because, a few years back while serving as a colonel commanding an organization, Jonsson thought it important to pen an article to his fellow commanding colonels that appeared in Air Force Times, kind of the trade paper for the Air Force.

What horrible thing could a colonel say to so set off a US senator? Well, Jonsson wrote passionately about the need for his fellow colonels to acknowledge racial disparities in the military services. He wrote “Dear white colonel, you and I set the culture, drive the calendar, and create the policies at most of our installations around the Air Force. If we do not take the time to learn, to show humility, to address our blind spots around race, and to agree that we are not as objective as we think and our system is not as fair as we think, then our Air Force will not rise above George Floyd’s murder.”

He’s right, of course. Back when I was a mere Lt Colonel at the Academy, I taught my poli sci students, the future leaders of the Air Force, that race remains a critically important issue in the military and in the country at large. I warned them to be wary of those who say all such problems are fixed.

Apparently, Sen. Schmitt thinks all such problems are fixed.

He put a hold on the colonel’s promotion because he did not want any so-called “woke” officers in the military. I rather like the idea of leaders being woke to the actual reality of our world, but I digress. Oh, and a quick review of the senator’s webpage does not report on any military service he himself served. He appears to be a career politician, though his senate website does note that his grandfather served in WWII (as did my dad), but he himself has never put on a uniform.

It is important to point out that Jonsson didn’t just write some radical article that he then sent around channels to get published. No, he sent it up his chain of command, as is required, and his chain approved the publication.

Presumably, Sen. Schmitt would like us to live in a world where our military leadership does as the Trumpian GOP does: pretend there are no race issues in the US, let alone the military, and to just continue to ban any such discussions. Heck, Florida, Texas, and Utah have already banned the use of any educational monies to teach anyone about diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programs in state schools and universities. Florida, never at a loss for irony, passed their own ban on DEI programs 48 hours after the (so called) Florida Department of Education issued a proclamation honoring MLK Jr.

It’s not clear what is going to happen to Colonel Jonsson. If Schmitt continues his hold, Jonsson will run out of time, and when he hits 30 years of service will be required to retire. If Schmitt can be made to see reason, and he drops the hold, the Air Force will add a great BG to the nation’s flag officers; a general with important lessons to teach.

In the years after Viet Nam roughly 75% of the US congress was made up of veterans. Now we have a House and a Senate with the fewest veterans since WWII, and that matters. Had Schmitt ever actually served in a military unit, I’d bet he have a different attitude regarding Johnsson’s promotion.

I’m intensely proud to be a 25+ year retired officer, and such service shapes just about every part of your character.

Honor matters to military people.

Less so, it appears, to certain people named Eric that are senators, and that’s a pity.