*Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army

Written by Joshua Patton,

When does humor go too far?  It is a question as old as jokes themselves, but in the past few decades it seems that Americans have developed a hyper-sensitivity to avoid all things remotely controversial, at least where humor is involved.  Lt. Col. Frank Jenio and Command Sgt. Maj. Bert Puckett, formerly of 82nd Airborne, were removed from duty and redeployed to the States because of “poor judgment,” about the inclusion of  “De-motivational” posters included in their daily briefings that included grim reports about casualties and the missions they were conducting in Afghanistan.  The “offensive” nature of these slides indicated to those who conducted the Army investigation that these two were ineffective as leaders.  At the moment it is impossible to ask their subordinates if they were good leaders otherwise, because the unit is still deployed. 

            According to the Army Times, these two soldiers were, at least, decent leaders and had promising careers.  Jenio had worked with embattled General Stanley McChrystal, who was also fired for “poor judgment,” when he and his team made disparaging comments to Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings about President Obama. While the two events may appear to be similar, I think they are quite different.  McChrystal and his team made these comments to a journalist, thinking these story-making quotes were somehow off-the-record.  For Jenio and Puckett, it was just a desperate attempt to inject a little humor into the grim realities of war.

            I am not suggesting that the poster that showed a picture of a crying black basketball player with a smiling white man’s arm around him and the caption “Slavery reinstated. Get yourself a strong one,” is even funny, but I recognize that at least where Jenio and Puckett were concerned, it was an attempt at humor.  They were not even responsible for creating the slides, the team that assembled the briefing would find them on the internet and insert them into the presentation and the two leaders would see the slides for the first time during the briefing.  While I regret their choice of jokes, I respect the fact that these men realized how morale might suffer and were doing what little they could to try and encourage laughter in a place that can so often be devoid of it.

            An unnamed writer at the Army Times said in an essay, “Some will surely say that war is an ugly business and that raunchy humor is part of the game. But leaders are supposed to set the tone, and when they start out in the gutter, things can only go downhill from there.”  While I agree with the intention of that statement, I do not think it applies in this case.  As far as I can tell, the two leaders did not share this humor as a reflection of their beliefs nor were these jokes intended to offend.  They – or more accurately the soldiers in the headquarters company that selected the images – attempted to be edgy and failed.  Saccharine humor is just usually not funny and I think what this reflects is perhaps not only the poor judgment of leadership but also that these two cared about the morale of their troops.  Jenio and Puckett were not the leaders of the humor brigade, but were supervising war operations.  Thus, firing them over this seems excessive to me where perhaps a harsh counseling may have been more appropriate.