The U.S. Military is Not Woke, But the Woke Threat is Real The potential Achilles’ heel of our military. by Jesse Petrilla
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-u-s-military-is-not-woke-but-the-woke-threat-is-real/
I remember the day vividly, standing in formation in the hot Kentucky sun at Ft. Knox. “Look to your left and to your right,” the sergeant said. “You are all wearing the same uniform, you all bleed the same color blood. There is no color here other than green.” But by the end of my career, there were directives coming down from Washington D.C. telling us that some of our service members were somehow different, as was the case when we were told we should counsel some of our soldiers letting them know they can change the gender on their ID cards. I wasn’t about to single out a soldier, and I doubt very many did in any branch of the services.
But aside from causing a few eyerolls, woke policies in the military are more of a distraction at this point than anything else and are thankfully being largely ignored other than service members being ordered to sit through the regularly occurring death by PowerPoint. However, that in no way diminishes the very real threat it poses.
The United States military remains the most effective fighting force on the planet, and although wokeness has not yet significantly infected the military, the woke cancer continues to grow, threatening the cohesion of America’s fighting forces. Every hour that a service member wastes sitting through unnecessary woke briefings, is an hour lost that should have been spent on warfighter training, leaving us less prepared for the next war.
Woke policies, unnecessary political correctness at the expense of readiness or the success of a mission, have been and continue to be pushed at the behest of politicians inside the beltway. But the problem with their efforts to change the way our military operates is that it doesn’t need changing. The military is one place where true diversity has already been achieved.
“Through generations of sacrifices by our brave military members, all fighting for each other and for our Constitution, the American military today is unmatched in the world,” Congressman Darrell Issa, a fellow former Army captain, told me. “They are the most effective and diverse professional team of men and women, who do not need Washington politicians and bureaucrats telling them how to work together. We owe it to those heroes to give them our support, not detrimental policies that could cost lives.”
Major General (Ret.) David Baldwin, the former Adjutant General in charge of the California National Guard from 2011 to 2022, reminds us “The cornerstone of our system is civilian control of the military. So, even after military leaders give them input, we have to suck it up and do what they say, even if we think it wrong or detrimental, as long as it doesn’t violate the Constitution.” During his tenure, he said most of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies were benign topics, not the stuff we see in the headlines, “Most of this stuff had to do with selection boards, like taking names, photos, and gender off of records so boards aren’t biased,” he said.
Policies that reduce race and gender as a factor are not the issue, it is policies that artificially prop people up in the name of equity or make them somehow different that are problematic. Like many other service members, Retired Major General Baldwin viewed some of the DEI policies coming out of the Pentagon as more of a distraction. “Some of the other stuff that we did which I thought didn’t enhance readiness [from either civilian leaders or internally within military leadership] I think was more of a distraction than anything particularly deleterious,” he said. “DEI initiatives that enhance readiness by changing processes and policies to eliminate institutionalized and personal biases in personnel selections, that improve diversity of thought in decision making, and build trust are mandatory for an organization to succeed.” However, “Those initiatives that are put in place just to make people feel good may be divisive and can hurt readiness.”
An Army Colonel I spoke with on condition of anonymity said he believes the root of much of the woke debate is what he calls “feelgoodism,” coming from virtue signaling politicians and bureaucrats who attempt to champion alleged oppressed groups of people to make themselves feel better. The Colonel also told me how after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum in 2021 calling for a “Stand-Down to Address Extremism in the Ranks,” he received a slide deck from the Pentagon. The deck was almost exclusively focused on right-wing extremism, without a single mention of Islamic extremism, despite the fact that we have seen multiple jihad inspired attacks from service members inside the ranks, such as Major Nadal Hasan who murdered 13 people. Although the Colonel did not take any slides out, he added an equal number of slides dedicated to jihadist and other actual extremist threats rather than just the incredibly rare ones.
In visiting West Point, I learned the academy is facing litigation for making race-conscious admission decisions, and were exempted in the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down race-based admissions in schools. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Students for Fair Admissions, states that West Point “openly publishes its racial composition ‘goals,’ and its director of admissions brags that race is wholly determinative for hundreds if not thousands of applicants.” That litigation remains ongoing. On the ground at the school, however, I saw nothing even remotely close to the kind of indoctrination we see on so many other university campuses, quite the opposite. What I saw were some of the most dedicated and focused students America has to offer, being forged into a cohesive team without the need for divisive policies forced upon them. I didn’t see or hear anything of the sort to indicate the place was anything other than the pinnacle of education and leadership training.
Another important element in the discussion is the role of higher education from civilian universities, and the continued weight these degrees have in the promotion of senior military leaders. Those campuses have been a source of much of the disastrous woke policies in America. In looking at the biographies of the top 40 officers in senior U.S. military leadership, all of them have advanced degrees. That begs the question regarding our military: Should we continue to give such significant weight to advanced degrees in these positions? No. In fact, with two wars and numerous other conflicts in the past couple of decades, our military members represent a pool of immense experience that far outweighs an advanced college degree where we now know so much indoctrination occurs. This goes for civilian leadership too. Why would we want to keep sending bright and competent leaders through woke indoctrination centers rather than focus on experience, skills, and character?
Although the military is largely ignoring woke policies for now, the detrimental effects of wokeness from the top down are already being felt, and it has the potential to become the Achilles’ heel of the military. Recruiting and reenlistment is in the tank, and these policies and rhetoric are a significant contributing factor.
“The sole focus of the American military must be to be prepared to fight and win the nation’s wars,” says Lieutenant Colonel Chuck DeVore (Ret.), with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, “War is unforgiving. To be anything less than ready for war is to consign Americans in uniform to a greater likelihood of failure and death.” We owe it to the men and women in uniform, our nation’s sons and daughters, to keep our eye on the ball and ensure mission is placed first and civilian leaders don’t enact policies that hinder our abilities for mission success. The stakes could not be higher.
Jesse Petrilla is a former Army Captain. He served as a civilian advisor to the U.S. Department of State and was a Liaison Officer in the Army to the Afghan secret police. Look for his book “If It Takes a Thousand Years” coming out this Spring about the mindset of jihadists.
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