“Jarhead” author Anthony Swofford on Wednesday slammed Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) for blocking military promotions from advancing in the Senate.
Tuberville is protesting the Pentagon policy of offering paid leave and travel costs to service members who receive an abortion in another state. It’s left the Marine Corps without a leader.
“I’m astonished by it,” Swofford, whose memoir about serving as a marine in the First Gulf War was developed into the 2005 movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid about Tuberville’s stance.
“It’s really important to young marines who have their boots on the ground that they have a leader, that they know that leader’s name and they really follow his orders,” Swofford explained.
Tuberville’s holding up of the nominations over “body autonomy for women who serve in the military” is “ludicrous,” he said.
“It’s kind of disgusting, really,” he added.
Veterans group Vote Vets, the progressive political action committee that works to get Democratic veterans elected to Congress, echoed growing condemnation of Tuberville’s stance with a video it shared online Wednesday.
The narrator of the clip rips the senator for holding military assignments “hostage” in pursuit of his “MAGA social agenda.”
Tuberville, who has also come under fire for his claims that white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the military, is “playing political games with our national security,” the voiceover adds.