By Rod Dorilas, Navy veteran
When a Navy training video on the use of preferred pronouns emerged last year, many people, myself included, initially thought it was a joke.
The reaction is understandable. After all, a rainbow-colored video on how to make the Navy a “safe space” for people who are exploring their gender identity seems more at home on “South Park” than in basic training.
But last week, a top Department of Defense official offered testimony to Congress that doubled down on the video’s underlying message that the armed services must be a “safe space” in which each member feels validated and affirmed on his or her journey of self-discovery.
The DOD’s chief diversity and inclusion officer (yes, the military now has one) told the House Armed Service Committee, “[T]he concerns young Americans have about safety are negatively impacting [military] recruiting.”
But he wasn’t talking about physical safety. Instead, he claimed that potential recruits and young service members “do[] not feel safe reporting to work for fear of discrimination.”
This is both absurd and untrue. The DOD’s own data shows that today’s military has never been more diverse, with Black Americans enlisting in the armed services at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group.
So what accounts for the official’s unsubstantiated claim?
The DOD has bought into the DEI-industrial complex, which is injecting its noxious ideology into one of this nation’s most meritocratic institutions.
Even worse, it’s undermining the very ethos that places discipline, teamwork and collective lethality above individual fragility.
As a Black Navy veteran, I find it insulting to suggest that service members feel less safe working alongside their comrades-in-arms than they would confronting an enemy in battle.
I enlisted in the Navy because I wanted to give back to the nation that provided my immigrant parents a new beginning, economic opportunities, safety and security.
My parents supported my decision to join America’s armed forces not only because I was stubbornly determined to fight for our country, but because it in turn would provide structure, teach me life lessons, and provide higher educational opportunities.
Indeed, upon completion of service, I returned home more disciplined and later obtained my bachelor’s and juris doctorate degrees with the help of the G.I. Bill.
To be sure, bias and discrimination have no place in our military – or anywhere else.
But the DOD’s Board on Diversity and Inclusion (yes, the military now has one of those, too) is a perfect example of the way that wokeness is hijacking otherwise serious conversations the military could be having about inclusiveness in the armed services. . . . (read more on Fox News)
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