Central Command reportedly is furious over a State Department order that Marines guarding the U.S. Embassy in Yemen were told by the State Department to turn their rifles over to Yemeni officials before boarding a private plane to evacuate the country, Fox News reports.
The order is humiliating to Marines, who are essentially being told to break an oath they take during training, Pete Hegseth, CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, told Fox News Channel's
"The Kelly File."
"We're surrendering our embassy. And now we're asking U.S. Marines to surrender their dignity, give up oaths they made, creeds that they lived by, and surrender their rifle," Hegseth said. "I'm no Marine, but I know a lot of them and fought alongside a lot of them. Without their rifle they are nothing. They are taught you never give that up."
The Rifleman's Creed reads, in part, "My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless."
"This is a mindless stupid bureaucrat making a decision like that offensive to military culture, offensive to procedures," Retired Four-Star Gen. Jack Keane told Kelly. "I'm sure people at central command are furious."
Kelly said that Fox News' reporting has indicated that CENTCOM is indeed furious.
Fox News later reported that the Marine Corps clarified that no "crew-served weapons" were turned over to anyone, but were destroyed at the embassy before the evacuation. "They say their personal weapons were not destroyed at the embassy. They were instead 'rendered inoperable' at the airport and the destroyed components were left behind at the airport," Megyn Kelly said.
"They do not dispute, in this statement, the reporting that we have earlier tonight that CENTCOM is outraged over this entire incident about weapons being rendered inoperable at the direction of the State Department."
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