I recently became acquainted with the story of one Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, a U.S. Navy officer during the Vietnam War era who was relieved of his one and only command after just 99 days, because as far as I can tell he was just batshit insane.
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I recently became acquainted with the story of one Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, a U.S. Navy officer during the Vietnam War era who was relieved of his one and only command after just 99 days, because as far as I can tell he was just batshit insane.
In a move that feels very contemporary he blamed his dismissal on dirty hippies who didn't really want to win the war, which briefly made him a celebrity among right-wingers.
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Laserdisc Dad, But Spookyreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@jalefkowit what kind of fucked up parent names their kid Marcus Aurelius
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
"During one amphibious operation off Nam Quan, Arnheiter—whose orders were to stay well at sea and cut off any Viet Cong 'ex-filtration' by boat—commanded his officers to file false position reports and then took the Vance in close some 20 times to bombard the shore. On another occasion, Arnheiter brought the Vance within 250 yds. of the beach to blast a Buddhist pagoda that he suspected of being a Communist automatic-weapons position—and, according to the junior officers, avoided grounding only because Exec Hardy 'relieved the skipper at the conn' and wheeled the ship to safety."
https://time.com/archive/6647908/the-navy-the-arnheiter-incident/
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
One of Arnheiter's professional patrons was another Navy officer, Captain Richard G. Alexander.
Unlike Arnheiter, who seems to have had a well-established reputation as a fuckup, Alexander was a man on the rise. When the Arnheiter situation blew up Alexander had just been given one of the Navy's most prestigious postings, command of the battleship New Jersey, and was expected to go farther still.
For reasons unknown, Alexander thought Arnheiter was someone worth fighting for. It cost him his career. He was relieved of command of the New Jersey, and sent off to the exile of a desk job in Boston.
https://time.com/archive/6635254/the-navy-four-stripes-in-the-graveyard/
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Laserdisc Dad last edited by
@hex Today Silicon Valley is full of them