Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he has a singular mission. “Your job [as secretary] is to make sure that it’s lethality, lethality, lethality. Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn’t be happening,” he said during his confirmation process. Since taking the helm at the Pentagon, Hegseth has doubled down. “We do warfighting here at the Department of Defense,” he said at a Pentagon town hall, demanding a “laser focus on readiness, lethality, and warfighting.”
Not everyone at the Defense Department seems to have gotten the message. Right now, the U.S. military is looking to pour money into the renovation of 35 golf course sand traps at the Woodlawn Golf Course at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Contracting documents show that Air Force Special Operations Command also wants to purchase sterile mushroom compost for the golf course greens at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. It is also looking into hydroseeding at that same course. The Army, for its part, plans to issue a service contract that will cover maintenance in the golf course clubhouse at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.
What golf has to do with lethality is a question that the Defense Department failed to answer. Nor would the Pentagon weigh in on the hundreds of millions of dollars wrapped up in, or swallowed up by, military golf courses over decades. The Pentagon did not provide a full tally of its current inventory of golf courses, which The Intercept put at around 145. What is clear is that critics have been raising alarms about the military’s golf obsession for at least 60 years, and, despite claims of a new dawn at the Pentagon, putting-green pork is still par for the course.
Every military golf course I’ve known about have been funded through non-appropriated funds. Meaning that they, like most MWR functions on a base, have to pay for themselves and are not provided money from Congress to exist. The golf course at the base near me shut down recently because not enough people played to pay for it.
There are probably exceptions but probably not many.
Actual look at Trump regime
Glad we’ve got our priorities straight. It’d be a shame if some of that money went to treating addiction, housing the unhoused, or lifting children out of poverty. Good job, USA. No notes.
Why is this an ISSUE? We CUT Child Education and Lunches JUST so we could Afford THIS! It’s FINE now! If KIDS want to Eat or get Learnt they can Get a Job!
fuck them kids, amirite? /s
~it was a joke~
edited my original comment to include the /s
❤️
Pete Hegseth can gargle some golf balls
lol… probably secret hidden bases and spycraft sites.
Can we at least get some tactical polos? Ooh, and golf bags with room for a rifle and sidearm?!
Can we at least get some tactical polos
Best we can do is tactical turtleneck
I’ll two two in black, and two more in a slightly darker shade of black, please!
So the Armed Forces have some golf courses that their servicemen can enjoy when off duty (and some are even open to civilians) and, surprise surprise, they require some maintenance and upkeep dollars.
I feel like this piece is some manufactured outrage. Let the members of the armed forces have nice places to relax… they should be allowed some reprieve from their role as cogs in the war machine.
The problem is that the federal government is taking a literal chainsaw to critical life saving programs like disability, social insurance, and USAID, while ignoring expenses like maintaining golf courses that are purely a luxury.
You’ve got federal funds available to invest in fertilizing the grass so people can be entertained; but can’t possibly continue to keep people alive and off the streets??
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have lost their jobs, with many panicking not knowing where their next meal will come from. Millions of people worldwide have been cut off from food, water, and medical supplies that the US had promised to provide (whether actually supplying the goods or providing transport/protection). These people WILL die because of this; but the putting greens are looking nicer than ever!
Then get mad about the cuts to the much needed programs and the corrupt people cutting them. Not at the other expenses they’ve decided not to cut.
The point is to highlight how blatantly corrupt those people are.
Lmao, how is this manufactured outrage? They’re claiming the government is wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous things. What’s more frivolous than a shitty golf course? If they truly cared about saving taxpayers money, that would have been the first thing they cut. But that’s not what they care about, they care about hurting the less fortunate. Which group of people overwhelmingly use gold courses? I’ll give you a hint. Its not people with lower incomes.
I can guarantee you, Joe, isn’t on those golf courses. That shit is there, so whatever General officers can tee off and huff one anothers farts.
I live in a Navy town with 3 such golf courses. I know plenty of rank and file who have play them regularly.
Oh, my mistake! I bow to your expertise, sir! Certainly, you are there waiting at the gates. 21 year old Private Joe Snuffy is definitely taking a break from drinking and hitting the gym to play the most boring game known to man.
Pretty childish take.
