“Commie Cadet” Given Other-Than-Honorable Discharge, Out of Army

This is the feel good story of the week.

In 2017 there was a media stir over a West Point graduate, Spenser Rapone, who posted a series of photos to social media that earned him the nickname, “commie cadet.”

News today is that Rapone, a second lieutenant, is out of the Army with a other-than-honorable discharge.

Apparently, the little commie had been previously reprimanded for “conduct unbecoming an officer.” The final straw was an investigation that revealed he’d been trying to start a socialist revolution, along with trashing high-ranking officers and other U.S. officials.

“I consider myself a revolutionary socialist,” Rapone, 26, told The Associated Press in a series of interviews. “I would encourage all soldiers who have a conscience to lay down their arms and join me and so many others who are willing to stop serving the agents of imperialism and join us in a revolutionary movement.”

The military took issue with images the former cadet posted on Twitter over the past year. One pictured Rapone at his West Point graduation posing with his hand in a fist and the inside of his cap reading “Communism will win.” Another showed him opening his dress uniform to reveal a T-shirt picturing socialist icon Che Guevara. He posted an image Monday showing him pointing a middle finger at the entrance to Fort Drum along with the words, “One final salute.”

Rapone claims that while deployed in Afghanistan in 2011, he became disillusioned with the Army’s efforts there. At some point, he had an epiphany and decided socialism was the way to go.

“We were bullies in one of the poorest countries on Earth,” Rapone said. “We have one of the most technologically advanced militaries of all time and all we were doing is brutalizing and invading and terrorizing a population that had nothing to do with what the United States claimed was a threat.”

You’re welcome to your opinion, but that turned you to socialism?

Yeah. socialism has worked like a charm for every nation where it’s implemented.

Just ask Venezuela if they’re enjoying themselves, now.

Nothing like starvation and abject poverty to really clear the head.

So what is Rapone’s take on his situation?

Well, he sounds like a peach.

The case of Rapone does raise an interesting question.

Are there any more like him, and why wasn’t he ousted sooner? It would appear that in our military and military schools need a better system of screening out the undesirable elements and otherwise incompatible ideologies.

"There were no red flags of any kind" is the inadvertently funniest line in this whole story. I don't know if this was a career-building move, but I have to say he's cute; I wonder if he's single… #SpenserRapone #CommieCadethttps://t.co/brGOnHF54C pic.twitter.com/T3JODsLs9Y

— Pauline Park (@paulinepark) June 19, 2018