By Capt. Brent Ramsey, USN ret
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
The oath that I took upon commissioning was a solemn vow of allegiance to that Constitution and says in part:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same … so help me God.’’
That oath that I took 54 years ago when I joined the Navy continues to bind me to my country.
Other core Navy documents show the military servicemembers’ oath is not just limited to the plain text of the Constitution, but to its spirit and intent as well.
The sailor’s creed, for example, affirms that sailors are
“committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all.”
One of the Navy’s core values holds that the
“day-to-day duty of every man and woman in the Department of the Navy is to join together as a team to improve the quality of our work, our people, and ourselves.”
These fundamental values and truths obviate the need for introducing divisive social justice ideas into our Navy.
Yet that is exactly what the leftist bureaucrats and military leaders who run our armed forces have done.
Since 2011, the Navy has been ordered by former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Rather than rejecting this leftist initiative as antithetical to the values of honor, integrity, teamwork, and ethical behavior that the Navy has sworn to uphold, the Navy has completely embraced divisive DEI and implemented it throughout the force.
There is no justification for the woke takeover of the military.
Research shows no connection between diversity based on skin color and excellence in military and/or tactical performance. In fact, Task Force One Navy had a charge to discover the connection between diversity and excellence in tactical performance and failed to find it.
Moreover, the Navy is already incredibly diverse. After the Defense Department-wide stand-down in 2021, a survey was done to assess so-called “extremism” in the military.
A senior official told me: “I reviewed the stand-down brief that was internal to Defense Human Resources Activity, and it included survey results that indicated, overall, that 2% of DoD personnel are concerned about hate crimes or racism.”
Why are millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours being devoted to implementing DEI in the military when there is no justification or appetite for it?
It is time for the senior leaders in the Navy, the admirals, to wake up to the fact that DEI programs mandated by the executive are unnecessary and harmful to the Navy.
There is no evidence the Navy is systemically racist, and pretending that it is harms morale, recruiting, retention, and readiness.
Brent Ramsey is a retired Navy captain. He was a military adviser to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) from 2016 to 2020. He is the author of dozens of published articles on national defense.
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