One Last Take On The WOTR Piece

Both of the prior blogs struck a nerve and the Major had a rather surprising response for me online. At the Major’s request I have accepted his apology for his reaction and deleted my screenshot of the reaction from this blog post. Obviously, nothing on the Internet ever really goes away and I imagine that the tweet in question has been screen-shotted multiple times. But despite my opinions about Maj. Cavanaugh’s essay I personally do not bear him any ill will. Things happen on the Internet and tempers flare, and while I have no control over what other people do I can at least delete my own copy of the screenshot from this post.

Now, I obviously do not feel that Cavanaugh’s reaction was OK. But I also do not feel proud that I so provoked someone that is, after all, on the same “side” to depths of such rage. The prior pieces were harsh, even inflammatory in nature. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to harshly criticize someone’s ideas when the ideas being questioned are inseparable from the person’s experience and self-identity, or rather when the experience and self-identity are in large part the nature of the argument. The Major’s essay used his own identity, perceptions of profession, and experience to argue for a vision of how force and the military ought to be used. So overstepping personal boundaries likely flowed from the problem that the message and the person were the same thing. However, that is not an excuse for overstepping the boundaries. Writing is about precision and care, and observing boundaries and border lines even when they are difficult. I regret that I said something that triggered such a reaction from someone that is, at the end of the day, one of the good guys. It is also, for that matter, my job as a writer to observe such distinctions even when they are fuzzy, and I failed to do so.

The same point could have been made without the egregious Caitlyn Jenner reference or suggesting that there was something wrong with Cavanaugh at all. That crossed a personal line that I now see as my own fault and no one else’s. I will delete or revise the entries in question if Major desires it, but if not I will simply amend them to note that I express sincere regret that I used such inflammatory rhetoric. I do not see the point in deleting them otherwise. On the Internet, you cannot take back what you have written in a public forum. There will always be screenshots, Google Archives, and the like.

All I can say is that I sincerely apologize to Major Cavanaugh for impugning his professional identity in such a manner; the point could have been made without such flourishes. Perhaps the ironic thing about this essay is that the message of this post is that Major Cavanaugh was correct about one core thing — I did not have to kill and break to make my own point. I could have reserved the intense focus for the ideas and avoided everything else. In the interests of comity, I invite the Major to a beer or other beverage/meal combo of his choice (paid by me) the next time he is in DC.