Message to Senators: DEI is a Trojan Horse

By Major General Joe Arbuckle, US Army ret
STARRS Vice Chairman

General Arbuckle recently participated in a livestreamed “telethon” hosted by SaveAmericasMilitary.org along with many speakers to tell the Senate to stop the Marxist takedown of the military.

Watch or read his remarks:

I’m going to tick off about four or five points and reinforce much of what’s been said already. This is coming from a soldier’s perspective about the damage that DEI is doing to our military.

I like to use the metaphor of a Trojan horse to describe DIE. DEI is a Trojan horse, but hidden inside is a very poisonous thing called Marxism. The words are nice. Diversity, equity and inclusion may sound good, people understand those. But inside is Marxism based on Critical Race Theory and this attacks the heart and soul or warrior ethos.

Let me get into that a little bit as it destroys trust and confidence in the ranks.

The DOD says that DEI is our strength. Well, that’s not right. It’s exactly the opposite. Unity is the strength in our military.

DEI is divisive by its very nature, as it puts people into identity groups, primarily based upon race, and then pits them against each other based upon one being the oppressors and the other being oppressed, primarily whites oppressing blacks.

That sets up a victimhood mentality, which then leads to the feeling that some kind of special treatment and entitlements are deserved by those who are in the oppressed class.

Those are reflected in things like standards and applications to be accepted in the service commands, promotion boards, key assignments and personnel action.

Next point I want to make is that DEI opposes a time tested battle model.

We’ve always had in our military one team, one fight, which focuses all our military on one mission and one purpose.

The next is the loyalty is to the team. It is not to an individual, not to a self or to any particular identity group based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Finally, one team, one fight means you have total trust and confidence in each other from the foxhole all the way up to the very top of the chain of command, that is, the president of United States. DEI erodes and undermines that total trust and confidence which leads to camaraderie and also cohesion.

DNA is also the opposite of meritocracy. Meritocracy has been the basis system that our military has operated on successfully in wartime for decades.

I’ll close by saying that the solution lies with Congress because the problems with DEI are coming from our executive branch. Therefore, Congress has to step in and do their part to ensure that people who are rising to the top ranks are there because of meritocracy and not because of their support of DEI.