Rep. Scott DesJarlais questioned the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing late last month.
TRANSCRIPT
Rep. Scott DesJarlais: I want to discuss some Readiness issues with you today.
There was a poll that was done earlier this month by Wall Street Journal and NORC which is a non-profit research group out of University of Chicago. It’s entitled “America pulls back from values that once defined it” and without objection I’d like to submit the poll for the record. Two of the main points that I gleaned from this were that comparing to 25 years ago the number of Americans who rated patriotism as very important was 70 percent but now 25 years later that’s 38 percent. There were several topics: religious faith was 62 percent now it’s 39 percent.
I think you already discussed earlier that we have recruiting problems. The AP says the army missed its recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers I think was 25 percent. NBC news says every branch of the military is struggling to make its 2022 recruiting goals. In Tennessee we had a delegation meeting on we’re having problems filling our Academy slots which has never happened before. We used to have way too many good applications to deal with and we had to disappoint people.
But all that is very concerning so I guess I think you both acknowledge that there is a problem and covid seems to be the most likely scapegoat that’s going to get brought up today. Certainly it caused some issues. The administration made a call during covid that probably exacerbated the problem, and it became more about following orders and keeping people healthy. But at some point, maybe it would be expedient to admit that maybe we were wrong and that we should reinstate people and rebuild the force that we lost from there.
Our country seems to send conflicting messages about what our objectives are whether that be in Ukraine, what we’re going to do with Taiwan, North Korea and Iran. I understand the concept of strategic ambiguity but sometimes for the American people they need a clear message to where we’re going.
But back to the issue at hand: Why are we having problems with recruiting? We know there’s been a lot in the news about wokeism and DEI (diversity equity and inclusion). We can focus on equity because it should be equality. Everyone should have a fair chance to achieve the same goal but equity tips the scales for certain undefined reasons that makes it easier for one person to achieve success over another.
I think that affects morale and I think it’s affecting recruitment and I do want to get your opinion. I did want to reference a study commissioned by Congressman Gallagher where he asked Navy personnel what they thought the problem was and here’s a quote from one officer:
“Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we survive a fight with China,” a Navy Lieutenant on active duty told the authors. “They think my only value is as a black woman, but if you cut our ship open with a missile, we’ll all bleed the same color.”
The report also found that almost 94 percent of sailors being in interviewed believe the Navy suffers from a crisis of leadership and culture. Sailors told the authors that the fleet suffered critical loss of focus from primary purpose, and this is pretty critical considering the threats we face.
So General Millie I guess I’ll start with you, you’ve served us for 43 years. You mentioned this may be your last hearing so when you’re retired and you’re sitting there with your fellow Patriots who served and watched great changes occur in our military over 40 years, can you look them in the eye, can you look us in the eye today and say that the DEI and wokeness strengthen our military or weakened it?
Gen. Millie: Well I would tell you that the purpose of those programs is uh you know e pluribus unum to build teamwork and so on and so forth and in some cases it it may not be working out that way but that is the purpose of those programs but I would tell you that the and I get around the military quite a bit um and and granted you know as a chairman there’s gonna be lots of filters and etc and people are going to paint rocks pink when you but I’ve been around long enough to figure it out and I’ve been on the ships and planes and Forts and bases etc the military I see is a military that is motivated and the folks that are in the military we have the highest re-enlistment rate in 50 years—
Rep. Scott DesJarlais: Okay I’m going to stop on that because that doesn’t match the facts. We see China continue to achieve their military objectives at an alarming pace while we seem to be chasing our tails with systems that are obsolete before we field them and our adversaries are finding ways to defeat them before we get these systems built. It happens in space, hypersonic, shipbuilding and even relationship building so I think our number one purpose here in Congress is to provide for the common defense. I don’t care how much it costs but we need to do it efficiently.
Comments from the video
“Yep! My son is getting out, he says the military is woke and a joke now. Many people he serves with say the same. Too bad because he is such an asset to the military. They will be losing many great men and women in the military.”
“My nephew said the same thing. He just returned from Poland and said the trans that’s in his unit causes all kinds of trouble. They’re sick in the head. He’s not gonna re-up because of how woke the military has become.”
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