STARRS Open Letter to Congressman Pat Ryan

Dear Congressman Ryan,

Congratulations on your election to New York’s 18th Congressional District. Unfortunately, your recent January 24, 2023, Military.com interview by reporter Rebecca Kheel revealed some concerns.

ARTICLE: “The first West Point graduate to represent the academy in Congress — a Democrat — is warning Republicans against using the military academies in their planned war on “wokeness.”

FACT: What the author meant is that you are the first graduate to represent the Congressional District in which the US Military Academy at West Point is located. Many other West Point graduates have served and still serve in Congress, to include former Secretary Mike Pompeo (number one graduate in his class) who clearly recognizes “wokeness” as a greater threat than China.

ARTICLE: “Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., argued political attacks such as GOP accusations of “critical race theory” infiltrating the military academies undermine public trust in the military and distract from preparing the services to compete with China.”

FACT: Evidence of “critical race theory” has already been established, such as in documents produced supporting a Judicial Watch lawsuit. The loss of public trust stems from legitimate concerns about the actual infiltration of this ideology, advanced and enforced by diversity and inclusion officers and NCOs. The US Air Force Academy has 90 cadets wearing purple diversity and inclusion armbands throughout the wing at the squadron, group, and wing levels.

ARTICLE quotes you, “We need to be the adults in the room here. We need to be the ones thinking not about scoring political points or what’s gonna get you more likes on Twitter or hits on Fox News,” he said.

FACT: This is a blatant political statement, catering to your political base. The Left has latched on to CRT and DEI to divide Americans into oppressors and the oppressed.

ARTICLE quotes you: “I have zero time for the political distractions and BS, and I will very aggressively call that out,” he added. “The ultimate irony to me a lot of people calling this out haven’t spent a single day in uniform, and I think that certainly shows in how they’ve conducted themselves.”

FACT: In addition to the over 70 years of combined service between the Chairman (retired Air Force Lieutenant General) and Vice Chairman (retired Army Major General) of the Board (of Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc [STARRS]), and myself who served 34 years in uniform, we are calling it out.

ARTICLE: “With their narrow House majority, Republicans have vowed to target ‘woke’ military policies, a term they apply to a wide range of policies they disagree with but most often refers to efforts to make the military more welcoming to minorities, women, and nonconforming genders.”

FACT: The “woke” policies of concern represent deliberate efforts to discriminate in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The term of art currently in use is “balancing” demographics, which really means quotas, in violation of US Supreme Court rulings. In 2007, Chief Justice Roberts famously wrote: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, et al, 551 U.S. 701.

ARTICLE: “Critical race theory is an academic framework largely confined to graduate-level courses that examines the intersection of law and racism but has become a label the GOP applies to any discussion of racism in America.”

FACT: The intersection of law and racism is the focus of critical legal studies, a version that predates critical race theory. There is a robustly traceable history of the genesis of critical race theory, originating in America via the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory,” a disguise for Marxism.

Your emphasis on veteran programs is commendable. Yet our active force will be needed to counter the external threat upon which we agree. Dismissing the domestic ideological threat merely exacerbates our vulnerability to the external threat.

As the representative for a district that harbors a critical institution designed to produce officers to counter external threats, we strongly encourage you to more closely examine the ideological threat that has infiltrated your alma mater.

As Douglas MacArthur cautioned:

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

Fortuitously, just yesterday, Tony Lentini (West Point ’71), on behalf of a new West Point organization called The MacArthur Society, published an article, “Leftists Want a Civil War,” in The American Thinker.7 Lentini reports the following:

America’s Civil War, which raged from 1861 to 1865, was by far the bloodiest conflict in our history. Original estimates put the death toll at about 620,000, including some 360,000 Union and 260,000 Confederate dead. . . . How does a country possibly recover from a calamity so huge? But recover we did. Thanks to the wisdom of martyred president Abraham Lincoln and the munificence of soldiers who had fought brother against brother, reconciliation and reunification were achieved, and our country not only survived, but prospered.

Yet, over a century later, political ideology justifies the current West Point leadership desecrating monuments commemorating this transcendent period of reconciliation.

In closing, we call upon you to recognize the opportunity you have to fortify the “leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense.” Staunchly loyal to our commissioning oaths, the members of STARRS stand ready to assist in this endeavor.

Ronald J. Scott, Jr., Ph.D.
Colonel, USAF, Retired
President and CEO
Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc.

Endorsed by

Robert D. Bishop, Jr.
Lieutenant General, USAF, Retired Chairman, STARRS

Joseph W. Arbuckle
Major General, USA, Retired Vice Chairman, STARRS

Cc:

The Honorable Mike Pompeo
Congressman Mike Gallagher
Congressman Mark E. Green
Congressman Wesley Hunt
Congressman John James
Congressman Mike Waltz
Lieutenant General Steven Gilland

PDF of Letter: OPEN LETTER to Congressman Pat Ryan 7FEB2023