By Janice Roberts, military academy graduate and parent
[This author’s name has been changed to a pseudonym to protect the author’s identity]
“Personal readiness” is defined by five different dimensions, or pillars, on the U.S. Army website. These pillars are:
- physical,
- emotional,
- social,
- spiritual, and
- family.
One may have previously thought that readiness was simply a measure of our armed forces’ physical fitness, since the United States has laws in place to not judge based on attributes such as religion, race, or other immutable characteristics.
It is interesting that a person’s preparedness in the military is now being judged on legally protected attributes.
Moreover, these pillars are being implemented throughout the military branches differently than people would expect. Indeed, they are being used to bring about the evolution of the American military forces.
Consider the Army’s spiritual pillar. People with a strong spiritual faith live their life with a strong sense of right and wrong. Under tremendous pressure, they tend to hold true to their altruistic virtues. Shouldn’t this be a desirable trait in the military?
Unfortunately, that is not how spiritual readiness is being interpreted in our military.
During the COVID pandemic, it was often people with strong spiritual convictions who were forced to walk away from military positions due to objections to the vaccine mandate.
Those who tried to submit religious exemptions for the vaccine were deemed “undeployable.”
Physical readiness has likewise come to mean something different.
Not only is the military reducing its physical fitness standards, but it is also using this pillar to give more weight to race and sex.
Selection boards that decide promotions within the military use this new criteria to force their idea of social justice. This results in clouded decisions that have nothing at all to do with merit.
Meritocracy used to be the path to promotions in the military.
Military leaders had to demonstrate the qualities of being physically fit and the “best of the best” in order to be moved up in rank. Now, there is no guarantee that excellence will be rewarded.
The ultimate outcome of all this is the reduction of the effectiveness and strength of our military.
On the battlefield, soldiers and sailors don’t care about appearance. Looking like a rainbow of ethnicity and gender doesn’t matter.
It is how we perform that is more important for success and survival, so most would opt for leaders selected on merit, not political aspects of the Army’s physical pillar.
The Army has also distorted the meaning of family. From actions taken, it seems readily evident that less value is being placed on the armed service members that treasure traditional family values.
The Navy is bringing drag queen entertainment to its sailors and to their children through drag queen story hours on bases. Fights are happening in the Senate, where over 200 officers are being held up from being voted into office by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) as a result of DOD policies that promote abortion access regardless of states’ laws.
Reflecting on some of the remaining pillars of readiness — social and emotional — it’s worth asking how these traits will be measured and manifested.
Will our troops be the first to receive a social credit score to determine if they are deployable?
Janice Roberts is a military academy graduate and parent.
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