By Gary Beatty, Vietnam War Veteran
The United States of America, as a political entity, came into existence in 1787. For the 163 years before I was born (1950), it was involved in just six foreign “adventures”: The War against the Barbary pirates; the Mexican War; the Spanish-American war; the occupation of the Dominican Republic; WWI; and WWII.
(I don’t count the War of 1812, or the War Between the States, because those weren’t foreign adventures.)
By contrast, in the 73 years (and counting) of my lifetime we’ve gone to Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East a few times, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Central America, Grenada, and God knows where else — none of which were declared wars. Nor were we ever attacked — other than on 9/11.
Now it looks like we could be getting back into the Middle East, since the Navy was allegedly attacked.
And — according to reliable sources I know in the military — it appears we’re gearing up for a fight with China.
So it would seem — for better or worse — we are in need of a fully-staffed, functional, military. Which, thanks to the social justice warriors in the current administration, we don’t have.
There is a scene in the Vietnam War movie ‘Hamburger Hill’ where Sgt. Worcester and Sgt. Frantz are talking about one of their platoon who was killed in action that day. The dialogue was this:
Worcester: “People get hurt out here. Sometimes worse.”
Frantz: “Ahh, C’mon. Don’t tell me he died for God, Country, and the 101st Airborne.”
Worcester: “Hey man, I’d never say that shit to anybody. He flanked the automatic weapon — and took it out for you and third squad. Don’t you give him anything less!”
Anyone who has served in the military, particularly under hazardous circumstances, understands exactly what Worcester meant about not giving credit for anything less than dying for his comrades in arms. You rely on the people next to you to keep you alive, and they rely on you to do the same for them.
That’s why ‘small unit cohesion’ is critical to the military. A 1982 paper written for the Army War College, that studied the effectiveness of small combat units in Vietnam, Korea, and WWII, said, “For the individual soldier to realistically improve his chances of survival, he was forced to develop primary group relations.”
Tension between members of military units reduces both chances of survival of individuals, and combat effectiveness by the group as a whole. Which brings us to today’s ‘woke’ military.
Unit cohesiveness is being undermined by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training being imposed on members of our current military. Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper correctly points out that DEI “creates friction that undermines morale and readiness”.
Esper is not alone in his observation. Aside from being a veteran myself, for six years I served as President of an international veteran’s organization, and have current family members in the military – all of which is merely to say that I’m “in touch” with attitudes about the current military among those most qualified to have an opinion.
The consensus is that DEI is destroying our military, and we can no longer rely on it to protect us — just as the world is becoming ever more hostile and dangerous.
No doubt some who are reading this will ridicule it as ‘doom and gloom’.
To those who say that, I reply that you are either uneducated about (or choose to ignore) history — in which case you “are doomed to repeat it.” Unfortunately the rest of us will have to repeat it as well.
Esper went on to explain that the push for DEI in the military was not coming from the upper command in the uniformed services, but “coming from the White House and people in the administration who come in and believe they are pushing their agenda forward.”
I served during the Vietnam war era — including a tour of duty in Southeast Asia. During my 3+ years on active duty, and over a year in the active reserve, everyone I worked with simply did their job without regard to the demographics of who was working with them.
Neither race, ethnicity, nor any other such matters were even a topic of discussion when we were performing out duties.
We all had jobs to do, relied on each other to get it done, and covered each other’s backs.
I’m not sure that would have been the case if we’d been required to attend DEI training that preached differences between us.
My point is that Esper is correct. DEI will undermine the team concept upon which the military survives — especially at the small unit and individual teammate level.
So why is the Biden administration pushing DEI down the throats of our military? Here’s the “official” line by Biden’s Department of Defense:
“Fewer Americans between the ages of 18 to 24 — the prime ages for recruits — qualify for military service. “So, we have to find out ways of getting to a broader talent pool and broader interest groups in order to bring those highly qualified, talented individuals in.”
Without much effort I can think of several reasons why “Fewer Americans between the ages of 18 to 24 qualify for military service” that won’t be fixed by DEI. But to be sure, it’s not just my opinion … I talked to a couple of recruiters in my area.
The primary reason potential recruits are unqualified is that they can’t meet the physical standards. Just look for yourself at how many in the “prime age for recruits” are obese.
For those who may be able to pass the physical testing, too damn many of them are functionally illiterate because of our failing public education — and can’t score high enough on the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) testing.
How is DEI supposed to help that?
It won’t. If anything, the empirical evidence is that introducing DEI into the military is actually impeding recruitment. As I wrote a year ago,
“This past week I attended a reunion of veterans who served at Nakon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base (NKP) during the Vietnam war. NKP was a Thai base used by US special operations during the ‘Secret War’ in Laos and North Vietnam. I doubt you can find a group more pro-military — or at least they used to be.
The vets of that base were the sort who encourage others to join the military. No more! I didn’t speak to any who would advise a young person to join — while there is a Democrat Commander-in-Chief.
Many of them, like me, have family members currently in the military, so we know the problems first hand. With the possible exception (at least for now) of the Marine Corps, the United States military has become a joke — as one fellow vet put it. Another said, “We don’t have a military anymore!”
I, and my fellow vets, believe what we have now is a fatally flawed social engineering experiment that will get a lot of people killed if we ever have to fight — due to the incompetence of a Defense Department being run by bureaucrats appointed for their political correctness rather than ability to win a war.”
Even the Army realized their recruitment ads were a disaster for recruitment.
And what sort of military would we have if comprised of those who joined because it is supposedly “diverse”? History gives us an example — as I illustrated with this quote from the August 2021 issue of National Interest magazine,
“America’s military of 2021 has echoes of the heavily politicized French military that was routed by the Nazi Germans in 1940.”
That’s the ‘macro’ level. What about at the small-unit, individual, level? Survival in the job the military is designed for requires teamwork, not the sort of individuality DEI teaches.
In his book about one unit in the Iraq war, They Fought for Each Other, Army Times reporter Kelly Kennedy describes the psychology of combat soldiers — where self-sacrifice for comrades replaces individual concerns. This phenomenon has been recognized as a vital component of military success for as long as there have been armies — which is why it is (or was in the past) instilled from the outset in basic training.
DEI “individuality” leads to what is best described in another quote from a character in Hamburger Hill. As the medic ‘Doc’ Johnson told one of the FNGs, “You be an individual — and I’ll be tagging your ass straight on its way to a long box with metal handles!”
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Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.
First published in Pagosa Daily Post
How a 76-year-old Vietnam Veteran was able to carry a fallen friend to the top of Hamburger Hill (DVIDS)
(Article about the man second from right in the above photo)
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