(Courtesy of Spenser Rapone via AP) Back in the day, an Italian Communist by the name of Antonio Gramsci posited that a successful revolution could be effected without a violent civil war by first infiltrating and then ultimately co-opting the basic institutions that underpin successful societies. Once under control, these institutions can be used to modify societies to fit whatever socio-economic model the infiltrators want, without ever putting major armed forces in the field as in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The phrase ultimately coined for this strategy was: The long march through the institutions. In these United States, there has been a steady march of leftist infiltration and hostile takeover of the institutions that underpin the American ideal. Education, Churches, Scouting, and other institutions that are supposed to teach and promote American values have been attacked and infected with a festering rot. Among the institutions so infected, is the American Military.