On 14 December 2018 the Washington Post reported that former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had been selected for commission as a reserve officer in the Navy. Mr. Priebus is 46 years of age. As the current upper-age limit for commissioning is 42, it was necessary for him first to obtain a waiver to even merit consideration by a selection board. Ultimately, he did receive that waiver, and was subsequently selected for commission. Ensign Priebus now will be required to attend two weeks of training in Newport, Rhode Island, after which he will drill with a reserve unit one weekend each month.
While the commissioning of a 46-year-old partisan political operative may seem surprising, Mr. Priebus is not the only politically connected individual to hold a commission in the Navy. In 2010, Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Murphy, then a 57-year-old clinical child psychologist, was directly commissioned as a reserve lieutenant commander. Evidently, having the right connections includes the perquisite of commission in the Navy. This may have been a “thing” in the past—for example, during the Civil War, when both senators and congressmen, North and South, quit their post to actively take up arms. Not surprisingly, most of those senators and congressmen were utter disasters as military officers.
Either way, there is something wrong with this. If nothing else it flouts the nonpartisan traditions of the military profession.
What is specifically worth mention in Mr. Priebus’s case, though, is not only his late, post-fame decision to join the Navy, but the origin of a letter of endorsement sent to the selection board requesting a positive disposition in the case of Mr. Priebus. The author of that letter was none other than former Secretary of Defense and Marine Corps General James Mattis. The Post reported, “Mattis wrote that ‘Reince’s experience, education, and personality make him an ideal fit to be commissioned into the Navy Reserve.’ Mattis added that he has ‘had the privilege and opportunity to work with Mr. Priebus on numerous occasions, including most recently when he served as Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff.’”
It is important to note that the December effort was not Mr. Priebus’s first attempt to gain a commission. He had applied for the intelligence community in September and was denied by a board, presumably because of his age. His second and successful attempt, this time an application for the human resource community, was accompanied by the aforementioned supporting recommendation from the Secretary of Defense. Evidently, this letter made all the difference. Whether it also was the lynchpin in attaining the necessary age waiver is not known.
It would be naïve in the extreme to say or believe that all board selections occur in a pristine vacuum. They do not. Levers are sometimes applied (in one direction or another) to achieve a given senior officer’s desired result. However, it also is generally true that senior officers are typically circumspect in the application of their influence on boards. It is an affront to the sensibilities of other officers when it is perceived that a single individual has exerted an undue, and perhaps especially, an unfair influence on a board. When that happens, it is remembered: It is discussed. In the case of one former officer who rose to highest rank, while all along the way aggressively influencing both the detailing community and selection boards, a virtual purge had to take place following his retirement if only to restore a semblance of balance to a subverted surface flag community.
And those were all active-duty, line officers.
There can be little doubt that Mattis is the most popular Secretary of Defense ever to serve. Uniformed persons rightly understand that not only is he one of them, but that he is a person of impeccable intellect and repute. Having said that, the Secretary of Defense does not and should not lobby service boards on behalf of a particular individual. If that person directly served a Secretary in the past, so be it. They then may have an evaluation or fitness report from that important person, which can be considered by any board. But a letter of this sort? What board president in his or her right mind would not consider the wishes of Mattis to be tantamount to a lawful order?
Ensign Priebus may be the finest 46-year-old ensign ever to wear a stripe. Of course, the reason that most ensigns are young is because they can then be shaped and molded while they are still malleable. It seems unlikely that a 46-year-old ensign would be anything other than firmly set in their expectations and intentions. As Puritanical as it may sound, every line officer, reserve or active, knows one thing when they take the oath: On any day they could be called to give their life in defense of the nation. It knits the force together. A commission isn’t a lark, nor is it intended to be sold as an expedient.
Right or wrong, this all has the appearance of political back-scratching, and that is a disservice, if not insult, to everyone else wearing the uniform.
