“The military was the only place where I would be treated fairly and advance on merit.”

By Kendall Qualls (former Captain in the US Army)
STARRS Board of Advisor

Remarks on the news article, “Biden’s Pentagon Slated To Spend Nearly $270 Million On Diversity Agenda“:

“The Pentagon is slated to spend nearly $270M on DEI.

Based on our readiness scores, there is a greater sense of urgency needed for that $270M and it should be reallocated towards combat readiness instead of DEI indoctrination.

My father-in-law began his career in the segregated U.S. Army in 1947 and rose to the highest enlisted rank as Command Sergeant Major (E9) during his 30-years of service (Korean and Vietnam War Veteran).

In addition, my father served for 25 years in the U.S. Army (two tours in Vietnam) and retired a Master Sergeant (E8) in the U.S. Army.

When I decided to leave the Army as a young Captain in 1990, they both encouraged me to stay in the Army. Having lived through the Jim Crow era in the south, they believed that the military was the only place where I would be treated fairly and advance on merit.

However, I wanted to give the post-Civil Rights America a chance as the first in my family to graduate college and work in Corporate America.

For several decades, the U.S. Armed Forces was a model of diversity done right.

However, with the introduction of DEI over the past few years, our nation’s armed forces and military academies are being deliberately undermined with a cancerous political ideology.

DEI is not civil rights 2.0.

It is Marxist ideology cloaked in a cheap disguise, and it is eroding our military from the inside – out.”

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Kendall Qualls served as a US Army officer in Field Artillery. He earned three graduate degrees including an MBA from the University of Michigan. He worked his way up the ranks at several Fortune 100 healthcare companies before he became Global Vice President of an $850M business unit. Mr. Qualls champions the principles of meritocracy and supports the notion that free enterprise, and the private sector are the fastest and most equitable way to lift people from poverty to prosperity. He is the President of the nonprofit organization TakeCharge which strives to unite Americans regardless of background toward a shared history and common set of beliefs.