Tennessee Eagle Forum Newsletter

Published October 05, 2017

A West Point cadet whose pro-communism messages on social media were reported to his superiors in 2015 still managed to graduate from the military academy and currently serves in the field with an Army combat team, a new report says.

The social media activity of 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone was concerning, retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Heffington, who taught history that year at the Academy, stated under oath, The Daily Caller reports.

"I cannot reconcile the image of a first class cadet at West Point with the things he has posted online for the world to see," Heffington said in a written copy of the statement. "To me, these are red flags that cannot be ignored, and I fail to see how this individual can possibly graduate and become a commissioned officer in six months."

One of the tweets Heffington was alarmed about was Rapone reportedly writing "F*** this country and its false freedom."

"From his various online rantings and posts, it appears that DCT Rapone is an avowed Marxist, which is completely out of line with the values of this nation and its Army," Heffington said. "He also... even implicitly justifies the actions of ISIS and blames the United States for terrorist attacks."

In late 2015, Rapone was removed from his Ranger battalion for violating standards and graduated from the Academy the following year as a cadet. He currently is in the field with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, according to the Army Times, quoting Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Tonya Stokes. Stokes says the division is also investigating his behavior.

In one incident, Heffington wrote that he confronted Rapone after he heard yelling coming from a professor's office.

The cadet snapped back, "Sir, you don't have the right to use my honor against me!" Heffington said. Heffington added that he had served as a commissioned officer for 18 years after graduating from West Point in 1997.

After nearly a decade under President Faily McWorsethancarter, can our military win a fight with North Korea? Because if it is unable to perform the basic task of ensuring that the people commissioned to lead our troops in the defense of the United States are actually loyal to the United States, how the hell can we reasonably expect it to be able to conduct high-intensity combat operations against a Nork Army that prioritizes fighting over political correctness?

We can't.

I don't enjoy saying that - it gives me no pleasure to have to wonder whether the Army I served in both in active and reserve status for close to 28 years is broken. And it's not just the Army. The Marines and the Special Ops community, well, they seem to be holding on to the standards the rest have forgotten, but the Navy and the Air Force - they're broken too. Our military - in terms of strategy, equipment, and leadership, is in crisis. American troops will die if we don't fix it.

Hell, they already have.

We have a Navy that can't even sail its few remaining ships without running into giant cargo vessels. I come from a Navy family. You should call my dad, the retired lieutenant commander, and ask him what he thinks about the Navy's current level of seamanship. It will not be a happy chat.

It is, in fact, a disgrace. Our sailors, the precious young men and women we commissioned officers are charged with leading and protecting, are dying because our officer corps tolerates incompetence. One collision is an accident. Two is a lifestyle.

And yeah, they've fired some admirals, and that's a good start, but the problem is a cultural rot, not just one 'ed-up command. The Navy focused on things besides its mission - "to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas" - and in the last few months that misplaced focus has killed 17 sailors and taken two major vessels out of action in the Western Pacific at the very moment we are on the edge of war.

Did you know several senior Navy officers are being or have been charged for corruption? Corruption. Graft. Bribes. Hookers. Senior leaders, and they're scumbugs - criminal scumbags. But hey, the Army has its problems too. General Petraeus...sheesh, what a punch in the gut it was to see him use the Army values as a latrine. Then there was the 82^nd Airborne general court martialed for using his billet to build himself a sex harem. And how about the colonel who played games with contracts and ditched his wife to marry an Iraqi chick - the Army was so upset he got a reprimand and to keep his pension. No jail time.

Let me say that again. No jail time. Yeah, that would totally have happened to a sergeant who did the same thing, according to several high-ranking unicorns in the Judge Advocate Office.

Want to know what generals and admirals don't get in trouble for? Failing to win wars.

The military senior leadership has turned into a fraternity, where they cover up for each other and make sure everyone graduates with a gentleman's "C". And it's not even a fun fraternity - the senior leadership is painfully politically correct, parroting all the right buzzwords and receive wisdom of our failed ruling caste. Many of these people are courageous on the battlefield - they'll happily charge a Taliban warrior wielding an AK-47. But they quake in their boots back home in the face of an enemy they don't understand and that can destroy their careers - the Social Justice Warrior. That's why you don't see them saying what every damn one of them knows is true - that women, despite their heart and commitment, are a net liability in ground combat units, that trans troops are an expensive distraction and damaging to morale, and that the insane focus on "diversity" programs sucks up priceless training time and fuels, rather than quells, discord in the ranks.

But they don't dare object. That'd be risky. And these are the senior leaders who we will allow to lead our sons and daughters in battle if Korea goes hot. How's your confidence level?

And we have now reached the pinnacle of the military's moral bankruptcy with the revelation that one Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone is a communist. Not like a wannabe communist, not like a routine college-years liberal dummy, but a full-on, dictatorship-of-the-proletariat communist.

While at West Point.