In what is being called “the greatest bureaucratic scandal of the century,” Congress now demands resignations and hearings after a lethal strike on a suspected narco-boat — all because a dusty memo had a typo.
It began when Pete Hegseth was accused by critics of ordering a “second strike” on alleged drug traffickers — including survivors in a sinking vessel. “This is worse than anything we’ve seen,” declared Sunny Hostin on national television, accusing Hegseth of “war crimes” and calling for captured combatants to be given “refuge.”
But inside the White House, officials offered a very different explanation: apparently, the document authorizing the strike contained a misspelled word — “surrived” instead of “survived”. In bureaucrat-speak, that small slip turned “do not fire on survivors” into “do fire on surrived.” Immediately, people scrambled to fix it.
“We deeply regret the clerical error,” said a senior aide. “We blame the intern who typed it in between coffee runs. It was neither a policy choice nor a moral judgment. It was an Excel-level typo.”
Still, the outrage machine churned. One senator demanded Hegseth’s immediate resignation, saying: “You can’t trust a war planner who can’t spell!” The media, not to be outdone, ran the story as “GENOCIDE BY GRAMMAR.”
Meanwhile, the White House offered reparations: not to victims — but to grammar. A national campaign, “Correct Our Wars,” was launched, promising to proofread all future strike orders.
One Pentagon memo clerk was heard muttering over her red pen: “Finally — my love of semicolons will matter in war.”
Final punchline: In today’s world, a misplaced letter is more unforgivable than collateral damage — because if you can’t spell properly, you might just end up ordering a war crime instead of a coffee.
