The Marine Corps was without a Senate-confirmed commandant for the first time in 164 years Monday as Sen. Tommy Tuberville continued his monthslong block on Pentagon appointments in protest of military abortion-access policies.
The Marine Corps was without a Senate-confirmed commandant for the first time in 164 years Monday as Sen. Tommy Tuberville continued his monthslong blockade on Pentagon appointments in protest of military abortion access policies.
Now-former Commandant Gen. David H. Berger held an unusual “relinquishment of command” ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington, ending his term as the corps’ top officer without formally handing the position over to a successor.
Typically, that happens with a “change of command” ceremony.
But as Tuberville (R-Ala.) refuses to relent on his boycott, Berger’s would-be successor, Gen. Eric M. Smith, could only take over as acting commandant.
“We’ll get one thing out of the way very quickly. If you’re saying, ‘What am I supposed to call you?’” Smith said during the ceremony. “‘ACTMC’ [pronounced Act-Mac]. That is my title, and one that I’m proud of.”
Tuberville has single-handedly prevented hundreds of Defense Department nominations from being approved by voice vote since March in protest of new Pentagon rules that reimburse and provide paid leave to service members who travel to receive an abortion or other reproductive care, such as in vitro fertilization.
The policy was put in place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
