Only in Clueless Kevin Stitt’s world would a 38-year Army veteran, two-star general and State Adjutant by the name of Michael Thompson be removed from his post for following Department of Defense orders to vaccinate all our Army and Air National Guard men and women against the killer COVID-19 virus.

Say what? Yes, Idiot Stitt is going to allow 800 members of the Oklahoma National Guard to remain unvaccinated while the other 8,000 have complied with the DOD directive. The stupidity of Clueless Kevin’s order is truly mindless because it applies only while our uniformed person are on duty in Oklahoma, guaranteeing they are not only more vulnerable warriors in uniform but they also have the potential to be super spreaders of the deadly disease.

When, not if, the unvaxxed are sent out of state to military schools, other bases, educational facilities, etc., they will have to be vaccinated to deploy and, if they don’t, their road to advancement and promotion will be blunted due to their own ignorance and that of their Commander-in-Chief Stitt, a man who is not remotely qualified to be addressed by that title.

Good grief. Those of us who have worn any of the uniforms of our country know vaccines are required, needed and wanted in order to be ready for worldwide deployment, often with no notice. The last thing any soldier or airman would want would be to sit in the back of a C-130 transport aircraft for hours knowing some onboard are not fully vaccinated and thus are more vulnerable to a number of dangerous and deadly diseases.

There are plenty of other things to worry about when sent to an often hostile and dangerous setting and all those selected for the mission need to be 100% prepared for the challenges inherent in the assignment.

On a personal note, I served with Gen. Thompson when he was a young major and I was a colonel. We wore different uniforms, his green and mine blue, but we proudly served our nation together as guardsmen. We even tackled the very challenging ropes course adjoining the Joseph Harp Prison on the same day along with then Adjutant General Gary Maynard and other senior officers.

If you don’t know, Gen. Thompson is about 6-foot-8, rock hard, smart as hell, comes from an outstanding family primarily located in Purcell and is obviously a true patriot and leader.

For Sunshine Soldier Stitt to summarily dismiss Gen. Thompson is an unnecessary, callous and cowardly act by a know-nothing, former mortgage manager who, through his own wealth, propensity to lie and just plain luck ended up in the governor’s mansion three years ago.

Time after time Stitt has fumbled his assignment, often through bald-faced lies or deceptions as in this case. His press secretary even felt the need to fib to the press about the reason The General was removed, claiming it had nothing to do with the COVID-19 nightmare that has now killed over 11,000 Oklahomans.

However, the truth later came out about the reason to fire Thompson when the new AG, Brigadier Gen. Tom Mancino, naturally a graduate of Stitt’s alma mater OSU, reversed policy and cancelled the shot requirement. Tom is a fine man who I also knew in the guard but the honorable thing for him to have done today was retire rather than follow an order from Stitt that will certainly sicken and potentially kill some of his troops.

Is there no limit to the ignorance, arrogance and damage Kevin Stitt has managed to impose on programs, policies and people in this state? Just when you think the catch phrase “The Oklahoma Standard” couldn’t sink any lower along comes a bottom feeder like him who, instead of pinning a Legion of Merit on the chest of Michael Thompson, besmears and degrades the career of this proud Black warrior, a man who led troops in battle while Stitt led pencil pushers in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Just ask yourself – which guy you would rather be in a foxhole with when your lives were in danger? If you don’t know the answer to that simple question, you are most likely a part of the crowd that will impose four more years of Stitt’s senseless shenanigans on the rest of us.

And to think this guy calls himself a Christian.

Photo: From Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Twitter feed, July 28, 2021, on trip to Azerbaijan. Then-Oklahoma Adjutant Gen. Michael Thompson is in photo’s far left.