The directive came from the top: A memo from the U.S. secretary of defense ordering Pentagon leaders and the commanders of the six military branches to review and recommend changes to “policies, programs, and processes that may negatively affect equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion for all our people.”
A month later, the secretary issued a second memo, titled, ‘Immediate Actions to Address Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunity in the Military Services,’ outlining a “three-pronged approach” for implementing those recommendations.
The secretary called for reviews to ensure diversity in promotions, prohibit pregnancy-based discrimination, bias awareness, “bystander intervention in response to improper remarks or other communications made by peers or superiors,” and a Workplace and Equal Opportunity survey to “include metrics concerning harassment and discrimination, extremist groups and activities.”
The Secretary was Mark Esper. The President was Donald Trump. It was the pandemic summer of 2020 and there was violence on the streets in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
As Esper—who Trump would later fire via a November Tweet—was installing expanded focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training in the armed forces during the summer of 2020, the Democrat-controlled House and split Senate were deliberating the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (FY21 NDAA), the annual defense budget.
Congress incorporated Esper’s initiatives into the spending plan, adding a requirement for the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a “Chief Diversity Officer” and “Senior Advisors for Diversity and Inclusion” within each branch to advise on “training in diversity dynamics and … leading diverse groups effectively.” The NDAA also called for renaming military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, was objecting to DEI-related training being imposed on all federal employees, not just uniformed military. A September 2020 directive from the Office of Personnel Management required agencies to identify any training on topics such as “critical race theory” or “white privilege.”
Trump that same month issued an executive order prohibiting federal funding for training on “divisive concepts” with specific reference to prohibiting teaching, instructing, or training on these concepts within the uniformed services. Ensuing OPM guidance required that it approve all such training programs “before being used.”. . . .
. . . .The first Green Beret ever elected to the House, Rep. Mike Waltz is a West Point graduate and 26-year Army combat veteran who continues to serve as a colonel in the Florida National Guard.
He emphatically refutes the Pentagon’s contention that there isn’t ample anecdotal evidence that DEI is depressing recruitment.
“One of the things that I hope you can impart,” he told The Epoch Times, “is this is not an issue that a bunch of Republican lawmakers are making up or exacerbating for political reasons. This is coming from the ranks.”
For instance, Waltz said,
“I would never have known the Air Force suggest to cadets that they shouldn’t say ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or ‘girlfriend’ or ‘boyfriend.’ I would not have known that West Point was asking cadets to discuss their ‘white rage.’ This is coming from the service members.”
And he knows contacting a congressional representative about perceived injustices is frowned upon. “I would have been petrified as a cadet to go to a congressman” with complaints, Waltz said. “They feel they have no avenues to express discomfort.”
Spoehr “was not aware” of DEI as a recruiting and readiness issue until he saw a 2021 Gallup poll “detecting this big drop in loss of confidence in the U.S. military” that cited “the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, DEI programs, and support for transgenders to enter without restrictions.”
That, he said, was followed by an October 2022 analysis that maintained “wokeism” was the “chief worry of grizzled American veterans today.”
Spoehr wrote in an American Heritage column that month that veterans were alarmed by “the weakening of [the military’s] fabric by radical progressive (or ‘woke’) policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness.”
During a House Oversight Committee March 28 subcommittee hearing, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said people in southern states, always a mainstay in military recruiting, are not happy with the “‘wokeism’ permeating the Pentagon.”
“Southern families, conservative families, we are not going to encourage our young men and women to join the military and endure this stuff,” he said. “In society, ‘woke’ is a social discussion but in the military, ‘woke’ is weak—and that is the problem.”
The Pentagon refuses to see this disconnect, Higgins said. He waved printouts of two Epoch Times articles documenting how, according to the Navy and Marine Corps, three of its biggest challenges are “climate instability, COVID’s ongoing impact, strengthening a naval culture of inclusiveness and respect.”
“What’s happening now is families are holding our youngsters back. Families are saying, ‘Don’t join!’” he said.
The nation’s military leadership is a “laughingstock,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Texas) said during the hearing. “The administration’s intent in clear—cleanse the military of conservatives, and the consequences are devastating.”
“The U.S. Army has fallen 15,000 soldiers short of its recruitment goal this year,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) in a tweet.
“Maybe we ought to stop imposing vaccine mandates, preferred pronouns, and ‘woke’ education training on them. Just a thought.”
A 2021 Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) survey of more than 8,600 military families revealed those now serving were less likely to recommend their children enlist. Quality of life was the top-cited concern. MFAN’s survey do not ask questions about politics.
But in testimony before Congress, Independent Women’s Forum Senior Fellow Dr. Meaghan Mobbs said the MFAN survey confirms what her group is hearing from veterans encouraging family members not to follow in their footsteps.
“Such a precipitous drop in such a short period of time is alarming,” she said, attributing that decline to DEI and ‘wokeism.’ “Unfortunately, it will be many years before the full effect of such a decrease will be known, and it will take at least a generation to fix.” . . . (read Epoch Times article via Zero Hedge)
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