Combat Theater (of the absurd): The Army Just Commissioned the Fox to Secure the Henhouse
Uniforms for optics. Contracts for insider tech bros. And your warfighter gets to mop the floor while LtCol OpenAI buys another taxpayer funded yacht.
GUERRILLA MEMO// FOR OFFICIAL MOCKERY ONLY (FOMO)
SUBJECT// OPERATION STRIPEFLATION: FOXES, FRAUDS, AND THE GIG ECONOMY MILITARY
NARRATIVE/
You ever watch a fox get sworn into a henhouse security detail?
Neither had I.
Until this week.
The Army, in its infinite wisdom and love of LinkedIn optics, just commissioned four Silicon Valley execs, senior brass from OpenAI, Meta, and Palantir, as Lieutenant Colonels in a “tech-forward” Reserve detachment called Detachment 201.
Yeah. HTTP 201. 'Created.' How cute. In typical Army fashion they dredged up a 1990s reference and meme-coded the unit name. Meanwhile, they’re so deep in statutory irony they forgot 18 U.S. Code § 201 is literally bribery of public officials. But hey, doesn’t matter which '201' they meant, both wreak of cheap tequila and desperation.
Only the Army could turn a felony statute into a branding opportunity.
But wait, the ink wasn’t even dry on their commission paperwork before OpenAI announced a $200 million DoD contract and a brand-new government services division. No conflict of interest there, right? Nah, why would serving in uniform and selling to the same government at the same time raise any red flags?
This isn’t innovation. This is incest.
It’s like the fox swore an oath, got the keys to the coop, and then billed USDA for “poultry modernization services.”
THE DEATH OF EVEN PRETENDING TO CARE
There used to be a theater to corruption. A polite fiction. Someone would file a memo, recuse themselves, or at least wait a few pay cycles before cashing in.
Now? No pause. No shame. No attempt to hide the fox tracks, blood, and feathers in the henhouse.
The same week they got their shiny uniforms and carefully posed social media pics, these guys launched procurement pipelines aimed right back at the Pentagon they now supposedly “serve.” Kevin Weil and Bob McGrew from OpenAI are not just in uniform… they’re on contract.
Let me translate that for the confused reservist at the back: They get accolades by saluting the DoD and paid to sell the DoD the very thing they’ll recommend in uniform. Must be nice.
Small business? Dead on arrival. There’s no oxygen left for SBIRs or prototypes when the A-list gets to write the requirement and fulfill it in the same transaction. They will build a moat around opportunities and fill it with AI-enabled sharks with lasers.
And Palantir? Don’t even get me started. They're already riding a billion-dollar wave of defense contracts despite a solution so overengineered, overpriced, and unfit for GCC warfighting requirements it makes SAP look agile. The word “interoperable” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in their slide decks. Meanwhile, the price tag reads like a ransom note.
Oh… and all these solutions. Proprietary. We’d be better off selling our souls and data to the Devil. Probably cheaper and easier to get our data back.
This isn’t just a bad decision after five shots of bottom-shelf tequila, this is waking up in Tijuana with a rash, a fake wedding ring, and a burning need for both penicillin and plausible deniability. We aren’t about to just get screwed… we’re about to get raw-dogged by technocrats in a Motel 6 with the lights on.
“SHARP? NEVER HEARD OF HER.”
And let’s be crystal clear about this: If these guys don’t have to slog through JKO, SHARP, OPSEC, and Cyber Awareness 301 like the rest of us poor digital souls, then this is just roleplaying. Uniforms for PR. An expensive taxpayer-funded game of military LARP.
You think the E-4 from Pittsburgh doesn’t notice when a guy in Silicon Valley gets full LtCol status without even learning how to lace boots or survive a staff call on MSTeams? You’re telling me a 19-year-old reservist must learn to fire an M4 and sit through six hours of SHARP training, but LtCol Zuck doesn't even have to read an ALARACT?
Spare me.
This is digital aristocracy. Rank without rigor. Service without sacrifice.
THE SOLUTION ISN’T A TECH BRO — IT’S A TECH PRO
Here’s the irony so thick it deserves its own Congressional earmark:
The military already has the talent. Let me say that louder, “THE MILITARY ALREADY HAS THE TALENT.”
Thousands of brilliant reservists; data scientists, DevOps engineers, ML experts, cybersecurity operators, Cloud gurus are buried in mundane admin jobs, weekend drills, and inspection inventories.
They’re hiding in plain sight. You know why?
Because we treat them like privates first class with laptops instead of national assets. No one is inventorying their skills. No one is tapping their potential. No one is pointing them at real problems. We’ve got linguists washing vehicles and AI engineers doing medical supply checks.
So, here’s a radical thought: don’t commission billionaires. Commission capability.
THE FIX: THE NATIONAL TECH RESERVE CORPS
Establish a standing, tiered Innovation Reserve Corps, a tech-forward structure under OSD or directly under CDAO, built entirely from existing reservist inventories.
Screen across all branches for high-skill talent: data, AI/ML, logistics automation, software engineering, DevSecOps, EW, etc.
Build a centralized platform that tags and categorizes these reservists like GitHub repositories.
Assign mission sets based on IPL gaps, JROCMs, or direct CCMD problem statements.
Deploy these squads like tech SOF; small, fast, agile teams tasked to solve instead of brief.
Unleash the real warfighters of innovation; the ones wearing boots and badges from Microsoft or MIT. Not to line their pockets, but to finally drag the DoD into a functioning digital future.
Because this isn’t just about procurement. It’s about principle.
The tech bros already got their villas in France.
Let’s give the warfighter a working chat client before we hand the keys to the next hype cycle.
#GuerrillaMemo #LtColInfluencers #ContractorCamo #Stripeflation #InnovationTheatre #OpenAIToOpenWallet #TechLARP #PalantirPonzi #UniformedConflictOfInterest