Video Transcript

BRIEFINGS FOR DACODAI
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTS
(Video at the end)

Lt. General Rod Bishop, USAF ret (USAFA ’74)
Chairman, STARRS

Lt Gen Rod Bishop USAF (Ret) served 34 years in uniform and was blessed to command 8 different times. He was a command pilot with more than 6000 flight hours, ending his career as “Air Commander Europe” and also 3 AF Commander, where he had responsibility for all air and space operations in the 93 countries in Europe and Africa. In that position he commanded 11 Air Bases across Europe and 30,000+ airmen. He led his squadron to “Best in the Air Force“ honors, while his Strategic Airlift Wing also garnered “Best” honors both years he was in command. During that time period, Gen Bishop and his wife won the General O’Mallley award for the USAF’s “Outstanding Wing Commander and Spouse.” He has served on numerous BODs in retirement and is a cofounder and now Chairman of the non-profit, Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc. (STARRS)

Hello General Lyles and members of DACODAI. I am Lt Gen (Ret) Rod Bishop, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of STARRS. The spark that was at the heart of STARRS founding was AFA leadership not listening to the pleas of hundreds, if not thousands of graduates, to please not endorse an organization (Black Lives Matter) that had plainly told us they were Marxists, against the “western nuclear family, wanted to overthrow capitalism, along with supporting assorted other anti-American values by posting a video chanting BLM’s slogan on an official USAFA website.

You see the USAFA Football Team coaches had put together a 3 minute video, most probably in a well-intentioned recruiting effort that backfired, in which the coaches chanted “Black Lives Matter 7 times in that 3 minute period. website.

I say “backfired” as multiple million dollar donors walked away and the issue became extremely divisive in the USAFA graduate community. A retired four star general officer told me “the Superintendent and the entire football coaching staff should be fired. Another retired 4 star retorted, “they (the left) have taken a page out of Saul Alinsky’s rules for radicals and bamboozled half of America.”

In a phone conversation a few weeks ago with Gen Lyles, he told me “I would like to hear your views.” My response was “I can certainly give you views, but they will be the views of cadets and active duty Service members who are actually experiencing what they consider to be “indoctrination.” They (service members—including minorities) are clearly telling us that Critical Race Theory and its praxis Diversity Equity and Inclusion are divisive, demeaning, demoralizing and certainly are creating resentment–negatively impacting morale—something Clausewitz and Napoleon taught us was the heart and soul of the military. Here are just a few examples:

From a minority female cadet:

“I see so many bright young Cadets here who know what is going on is wrong but at the same time are too scared to speak up. The fear we feel, not being able to address our concerns only makes the lack of courage issue worse.”

“I have a lot of hope that Cadets will start to speak up. Perhaps they just needed a catalyst or some leadership to speak up first, but already I see a shift in Cadet’s attitude, one that is more determined on stopping the push of leftist ideologies. Leadership erroneously believes these CRT training sessions unite us as a team, but in fact, cadets walk out whispering and shaking their heads, feeling more divided than ever.”

NOTE her use of the word fear—that is why STARRS was formed—we have become a voice for those who don’t think they have one!

From two cadets just finishing Basic Cadet Training:

Cadet #1: “If I heard we need leaders of diversity one more time, I was going to throw up.

Cadet #2: “Yeah—I felt like I was continually being indoctrinated.”

From two white male cadets on the golf course when asked if they are wanting to be Cadet Squadron Commanders:

“Why bother trying—those slots always go to the minorities or females.”

From a cadet I sponsor with three of his friends nodding in agreement.

“The culture is changing underneath my feet and it is not for the better.”

I could go on and on, as our feedback network is very extensive, including cadets from all 5 major Service Academies and many active duty members. Again, they believe leadership is not listening to their concerns (“they don’t seem to have my back” is a common statement), further deteriorating trust and confidence within our armed forces.

So what are my thoughts here having been blessed with 8 different commands ? Trust and confidence go both up and down the chain of command.

We should listen to those who are telling us this ideology is divisive, demeaning, demoralizing–causing resentment (anyone who would do a modicum of research here would understand this is “as intended” by the creators of the CRT/DEI constructs) and stop force feeding this left wing ideology upon our military. Instead join in urging our military to focus on readiness and on those things that unite us, not divide us.

‘Diversity is Our Greatest Strength’ we often hear military leaders robotically parroting. NO IT IS NOT–“Unity is our greatest strength” made all the more great because we are a diverse nation!!!!

I would hope we are all in agreement when I say we all want the best trained, best qualified, best led, best equipped military on our planet. A force that is fully prepared and ready to deter or fight and win our nation’s wars.

Where we differ is how best to get there.

DACODAI’s mission is to make recommendations to the SECDEF on how to improve Diversity within DOD.

The people making presentations here today want DOD to first of all focus on merit—picking the best qualified—not just a “qualified” leader (giving a boost to some because of an immutable characteristic like skin color). They also want the focus to be on wartime readiness, not the social justice wars sweeping our nation. The precepts of this Marxist-based ideology are discriminatory—plain and simple—and are tearing at the fabric of our nation.

We have assembled an extremely distinguished panel, representing some 7 different organizations. I so wish we could have held this panel face to face and have had an honest exchange of ideas.

Our first presenter is a gentleman who became the very first STARRS BOA member, Kendall Qualls. A former Army Officer and President of TakeCharge MN. Kendall over to you sir. I hope you listen closely to Kendall—he has a compelling message!

Kendall Qualls, former Army officer
President, TakeCharge

Kendall Qualls is a Faculty-in-Residence at Crown College, School of Business and Founder/President of the non-profit foundation, TakeCharge. In addition, Mr. Qualls was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Minnesota in the 2022 election cycle. Mr. Qualls’ organization, TakeCharge strives to unite Americans regardless of background, toward a shared history and common set of beliefs. Mr. Qualls was raised in a broken home in poverty. He worked full-time to pay for college, served as an officer in the U.S. Army, and later earned three graduate degrees. He worked his way up the ranks at several Fortune 100 healthcare companies before he became Global Vice President of Sales and Marketing at a $850M business unit. He was a mentor at Minnesota Adult & Teen Challenge and serves on the Board of Hope Farm School, a school for at-risk boys from Minneapolis. He is also on the President’s Advisory Board of the Heritage Foundation.

Racial Disparities: Similar Symptoms but Different Diagnosis

The main drivers of racial disparity today are not the same drivers of racial disparity during the Civil Rights era (roughly from the 1950s – mid-1970s).
My parents and in-laws grew up in the Jim Crow South and lived through those conditions.
Born in 1963, I was raised in the post-Civil Rights era, my parents would have loved to have grown up in the America I grew up in.
My father-in-law enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1947 before President Truman integrated the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948. He retired after 30-years of service having fought in the Koren War and two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a Command Sergeant Major. My father also retired from the U.S. Army after 25-years of service seeing combat in Vietnam. He retired as Master Sergeant.
You could imagine how proud both were to see me commissioned as a second lieutenant at the age of 19 and then served for five years as an Artillery officer stateside and on the DMZ of South Korea earning the rank of captain before my honorable discharge.
After I decided to separate from the Army to pursue a civilian career, they urged me not to leave the Army because the America they remembered was hostile to black people and they believed that much hadn’t changed. I decided to pursue a different path anyway. My career progression was a pleasant surprise to them as progressed to Global Vice President of Fortune 100 company with responsibility for a $850M business unit.
The social driver that hampers black Americans today are the same issues of the past. The main problem we face is the fatherless home crisis in the black community. In the past 60-years beginning with the Johnson Administration’s social welfare programs, we have seen the black community transform from 80 percent of children born in two-parent families to 80 percent born to unwed mothers.
With that in mind, I would be considered an “endangered species.” A black man married to his wife of 38-years with five children. What used to be the norm in the black community is now an exception and this transformation happened in our lifetime without one initiative to reverse the trend.
The nonprofit foundation that I helped launch, TakeCharge is the only national organization promoting the return of two-parent families and school choice in the black community – not the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, the Urban League or BLM.
Some would consider me an exceptional person and I reject that definition. I live in an exceptional country, and I serve an exceptional God. I am a product of a broken home, having lived in Harlem, NYC in elementary school in the late 1960s with my divorced mother and for the remainder of my childhood with my father in Oklahoma in the 1970s. I am a product of public schools when they used to be functional. I earned advanced degrees including an MBA from the University of Michigan.
The under representation of the black population of 12.8 percent has effected not only the U.S. Armed Forces senior officer ranks but, the legal profession (4.7 percent of attorneys in the U.S. are black) as well as the medical profession (5.7 percent of physicians are black).
Across the country, black communities are facing the complications of three – four generations of fatherless homes and poor performing public schools in nearly every major city in the country. MIT trained Economist, Melissa Kearny, PhD noted in her book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. “Some children who are raised by single mothers go on to achieve great things. But on the aggregate, the data shows that the odds of graduating from high school, getting a college degree and having high earnings in adulthood are substantially lower for children who grow up in single-mother homes… the link between single parenting, inequality and mobility in America is too strong to deny.”
The Armed Forces nor the legal or medical professions cannot achieve their goals if the culture is not producing a pipeline of talent with the competencies needed for rigorous professions. In short, the Armed Forces cannot solve macro societal problems.

Col. Ron Scott, PhD, USAF ret (USAFA ’73)
President, STARRS

Dr. Ron Scott, Colonel, USAF, retired, is a 1973 USAF Academy graduate, and the STARRS President & CEO. He flew fighters and airlift aircraft, commanded at squadron, group, and wing levels, and directed the Pentagon’s Air Force Operations Center. He is a former tenured university professor and principal scientist with a technical think tank advancing counterterrorism measures.

“DACODAI Beware: DEI’s Marxist Roots”

Thesis: Marxism is at the root of Critical Race Theory (CRT); CRT inherently and tacitly justifies its praxis called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

In the 1930s, German Marxist scholars (e.g., Adorno, Horkheimer, Fromm, Marcuse, and others) emigrated to the United States to escape the rise of Nazism. They found a home as The Frankfurt School[1] at Columbia University in New York. They quickly discovered that America’s large middle class was not vulnerable to Marx’s economic class warfare as in Europe’s bourgeoisie and proletariat. So, in order to generate class conflict, they adapted Marx’s theory in the form of social classifications of oppressors and oppressed based on race and gender, and eventually sexual orientation. Their ideology began as Critical Theory, eventually manifesting as Critical Legal Studies in the 1970s, and most recently as Critical Race Theory.[2]

A parallel cultural movement in Germany involved a doctrine called Gleichschaltung,[3] advanced by German intellectuals. This was the prevailing anti-Semitic ideology that enabled less than 10% of the population to advance the Nazi movement. Advocacy and enforcement were expected. Dissenters were ostracized, some even executed. Think of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in particular. Today, in America, Drexel University Professor Stanley Ridgely describes similar, well-documented methods and programs in his book, Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in Our Universities.

Of the stable of Frankfurt School scholars, Herbert Marcuse[4] emerged as the strongest proponent of their cause, taking up residence at the University of California at San Diego. Christopher Rufo has very accurately chronicled these developments in America’s Cultural Revoution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.

Initially, American Marxists manifested in violent militant groups such as the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. While controversial and newsworthy at the time, Marcuse realized these efforts had no impact on the American culture and adapted the approach as a long march through our institutions, earning the distinction Father of the New Left. This involved the gradual infiltration of academia, government, media, corporations, and so forth.

In America’s Cultural Revolution, Rufo explains the CRT/DEI nexus on pages 45-52: “The training ground for the New Left’s capture of institutional power was the university. . . . The cultural revolution would begin with a change in consciousness but must end with control over the means of production, which, in the advanced technological society, meant the production of knowledge and sensibility (p. 45).”

We see similar ideological infiltration in the Department of Defense. Chartered by the Congressional Black Caucus in the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission promoted discrimination to achieve equity (or liberation from Marcuse’s perspective) and repudiated assimilation because it promoted color blindness. The Commission pushed Marcuse’s emphasis on color consciousness, as clearly stated in their March 2011 final report. As a sequel to the Commission, the Secretary of Defense formed the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion to perpetuate cultural indoctrination. Clearly visible on its website are references to mandatory unconscious bias training sessions and other signals of “thought formation” consistent with Marcuse’s notion of the production of knowledge and sensibility.

More Americans are becoming aware of this dangerous movement. For example, Colorado State University Professor Andre Archie debunks the racist logic and unveils its dangers in his book, The Virtue of Color-Blindness.

Does history repeat itself? Since October 7, we see disturbing anti-Semitic protests precipitated by the Israel-Hamas conflict. Stanford University’s Niall Ferguson, among other scholars, sees a parallel with regard to Gleichschaltung doctrine and the DEI ideology. He published his analysis in “Niall Ferguson: The Treason of the Intellectuals,” in The Free Press on December 10, 2023.[5]

Let me provide additional evidence.

In September of 2023, the Air Force Academy Superintendent launched a Let’s Be Clear Campaign that represents “full-scale culture change,” enforced through his second priority of accountability. The implication is that cadets shall align with the culture change or be punished.

What does full-scale culture change look like? In September 2023, an Air Force Academy Strategic Communication article opens with a picture of the Commandant standing at a lectern with an extended clenched fist. The title of the article reads “Marks Places Culture at Top of Priorities.”[6] The central feature of the culture change is diversity: “The Academy represents a diverse American population, and its makeup as an organization should reflect the nation’s diversity, Marks said. Two current opportunities that showcase the Academy’s diversity commitment are the superintendent’s ‘Let’s Be Clear’ campaign and the Leader of Character framework.”

Some might argue that the Leader of Character framework consists in some form of indoctrination that Stanley observed in his book, Brutal Minds. For example, the Academy’s Association of Graduates Affinity Group, Way of Life, suggests “racism” be considered an honor violation.[7] Moreover, the Colvin Lecture speakers at the National Character and Leadership Symposium promote racial themes.[8]

The Academy has a new Director of Admissions, who in 2021 authored an op-ed in the Air Force Times with the title: “We need radical change to fix the racial disparity in our Air Force.”[9] This prescription completely ignores the root causes for the disparities that occur well before entering military service. Stanford scholar Thomas Sowell has written extensively on this topic. But the “disparities” argument is used to imply systemic racism, despite decades of zero tolerance policies with no evidence of systemic racism.

The ideological specter continues to influence policy and compliance. For example, in October 2023, the Department of the Air Force released its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plan. The Secretary of the Air Force states:

This requires all Airmen and Guardians to intentionally challenge behaviors, biases, and barriers negatively impacting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Air Force and Space Force leaders at all levels must accept and reflect this commitment every day within every interaction.

In 1925, history recorded similar slogans and prescriptions: “The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses” –Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf.[10]

In closing, there is no doubt, an ideological specter and supporting infrastructure called DEI haunts America. A growing number of Americans are becoming more fully aware of this development and are speaking out and fighting back. Hopefully, DoD leadership soon recognizes this as well—retention, recruiting, and military readiness depend upon it.

[1] https://iep.utm.edu/critical-theory-frankfurt-school/

[2] Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It – Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)

[3] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gleichschaltung-coordinating-the-nazi-state

[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/

[5] https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-treason-intellectuals-third-reich

[6] https://www.usafa.edu/marks-places-culture-at-top-of-priorities/

[7] https://www.usafa.org/News/WayOfLifeVideo

[8] https://www.usafa.edu/character/national-character-leadership-symposium-ncls/

[9] https://www.airforcetimes.com/opinion/commentary/2021/02/27/we-need-radical-change-to-fix-the-racial-disparity-in-our-air-force/

[10] Mein Kampf citations are from the Project Gutenberg-hosted 1939 English translation by James Murphy.

Major General Joe Arbuckle, USA ret
Flag Officers 4 America
Vice Chairman, STARRS

Following college, MG (ret) Joe Arbuckle entered the Army as a private in 1968. After basic infantry and combat engineer training, he attended engineer OCS and later served in Vietnam as an infantry advisor. After returning, he served extensively in the missile field. MG Arbuckle has commanded in war and peace at every rank from Lt to 2 star. He became an Army strategist and an industrial base expert. He was inducted into the Army OCS, Engineer, Ordnance, and Material Command Halls of Fame.

DEI is Caustic to the Warrior Ethos

I’ll address the caustic effects DEI has on the heart and soul of our military—the trust and confidence in each other as embodied in the warrior ethos. The warrior ethos is the soul of the fighting spirit, essential to winning in combat. Among other reasons, people join the military to serve their Country, but that is not what motivates them to fight and risk dying. They fight and die for each other; their battle buddies on the ground, wingman in the air, and shipmates at sea. They must have total trust and confidence in each other, knowing that if someone gets hit, others will risk their lives to save the injured. When lead and steel fly through the air and buddies are being hit, skin color matters not. The only thing that matters is courage and the absolute confidence that help will come.

To explain how DEI is caustic, I’ll begin by connecting the dots between Marxism and DEI. Marxism divides people into classes and groups them as oppressors vs the oppressed. Originally this was along economic lines of haves vs have nots but CRT and DEI are using race as the basic dividing line identifying whites as the oppressors and blacks as oppressed. The oppressed identity group has been expanded in DEI beyond race to include ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

The oppressed category sets up a victimhood mentality used to justify special privileges for minority groups in selections for academy admissions, top level assignments, top military schools, promotion and command selection boards. Under the mantra of diversity and inclusion, standards are lowered to accommodate such special selections. Lower standards transform into lower performance as the best qualified are not always selected and that lowers warfighting readiness.

Equal opportunity for all no matter the skin color and merit have been the guiding principles in our military for decades and they have been successfully battle tested. The same model is true for sports teams where coaches field the best players in order to win games. Since this model is essential for sports teams, why is it no longer essential for our military where there is no substitute for victory; the consequences of losing are catastrophic deaths and destruction. Meritocracy wins games and it wins wars.

The DEI slogan “diversity is our strength” is only true when applied to diversity of thought/ideas. When applied to skin color or other appearance factors, it is not our strength. Unity is our strength.

Our military is structured around teams at all levels signified by the battle motto “One Team, One Fight” based on 3 factors:

o Total focus on a common mission and purpose

o Loyalty to the team, not to an identity group like race, or to self

o Total trust and confidence in each other and their leaders for their very lives

DEI is corrosive to the warrior ethos as it tears at the one team one fight motto. . When our service members are told they must be color conscience, that white male privilege exists, that we are a fundamentally racist nation, that lowering of standards is OK to meet goals, that merit and performance may not determine who is selected for career enhancing actions, that taking an illegal EUA vaccine is mandatory; then trust and confidence in their leaders and others is seriously damaged.

Service members join to serve their country not to be exposed to social engineering politically driven programs. They expect their leaders will act in their best interest and treat them equally and fairly, while at the same time imposing high standards of performance which leads to maximizing combat readiness. .

Rest assured our enemies in China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc., are watching what DEI is doing to our military and recruitment efforts. Our enemies suffer from no such social engineering programs; they are laser focused on warfighting readiness to defeat us. We must wake up, our military exists for only one reason: to fight and win our Nation’s wars. Everything else is a distraction.

The Warrior Ethos:

o I will always place the mission first

o I will never accept defeat

o I will never quit

o I will never leave a fallen comrade

Scott Sturman, MD (USAFA ’72)
STARRS Board of Advisors

Scott Sturman is a distinguished graduate from the Air Force Academy, where he majored in aeronautical engineering and serves as the Class of 1972 class president. He flew helicopters in the Air Force, attended medical school, and practiced medicine for 35 years.

I came to the Air Force Academy (AFA) in 1968 from Wyoming, where my hard scrabble ancestors homesteaded in the 1800s. Wyoming’s residents were predominately rural, white, patriotic and claimed the highest per capita participation rate of members of the armed forces during World War II.

The Air Force Academy became my window to the world, where I had the opportunity to meet and interact with fellow cadets from every state in the union. They represented a melting pot of races and ethnicities, all with unique experiences and perspectives, who were united by the desire to serve our country.

In this highly competitive, merit driven system, our class withstood and ultimately surmounted the challenges of this physically, psychologically and academically demanding environment. The key to surviving this cauldron of unrelenting pressure required classmates to band together as one entity, who knew no other identify than being members of the class of 1972.

Now over 50 years since graduation, the Academy’s administration has abandoned the ethos that prizes ability over appearance, unity over division, and service over self. Critical Race Theory and its ideological step child, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, form the institutional mechanisms to prioritize division based on identity politics at the expense of cohesion and trust.

In January 2023 on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day, Cassandra Benson, a Cornell educated economics instructor at AFA, addressed some of her white male students as White Boy #1, #2, and #3, since in her opinion, all whites looked the same. Women and minority cadets were addressed by their formal surnames. Benson’s overt and inexcusable use of racist terms has never been adequately explained by the academy administration, nor is it known if she received a reprimanded or her contract terminated.

This humiliating experience of White Boy #2 is not an isolated event. While attending a mandatory leadership class, his professor, Colonel

Melissa Youderian, the former AFA Preparatory School Commander, asked him to explain his white privilege. To the young man’s credit, he explained that he, like all of the other cadets in class, was privileged to attend the AFA and have the opportunity to serve his country. Colonel Youderian apparently was unpersuaded by his response and awarded White Boy #2 a “C” in her class in which no formal tests are given.

White Boy #2’s experience is the tip of the iceberg. On a daily basis, cadets are subjected to intimidating indignities solely because of the genes transmitted to them by their parents. Marginalization and discrimination based on phenotype and sexual orientation are the first steps in the dehumanizing process that destroys morale and leads to rationalizing immoral behavior.

Since antiquity military campaigns have depended on morale, courage, cohesion, and trust of combatants waging war. General George Marshall noted that morale is the key to victory, and Napoleon stated it is the most important factor that determines an army’s effectiveness. Eisenhower remarked, “Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.”

Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day Speech highlights the paramount importance of unity and trust among soldiers that are called upon to give their lives to overcome insurmountable odds. Denying the band of brothers and sisters these sustaining values and substituting them with the decisive and misguided principles of Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ensures the destruction of the armed forces.

Captain Tom Burbage, USN ret (USNA ’69)
President, Calvert Group

Tom Burbage is a Naval Academy graduate, Naval Aviator and former Navy Test pilot. His industrial career included leading the F-22 Raptor program and the F-35 Lightning II program for Lockheed Martin. He is currently the President of the Calvert Group.

The Calvert Group is a fraternity of Navy veterans, mostly but not exclusively Naval Academy graduates, that was originally formed to enjoy the comradery of retired life.

Many of us were multi-generational veterans with both parents and offspring that have served.

In 2020 we came off the golf course when we realized something was fundamentally wrong at our Service Academies.

It was triggered by a legal case caught up in the anti-police controversy of the Summer of Discontent marked by national rampant lawlessness and racial divide.

What we discovered was a genuine shock to all of us.

We found a DEI Office that was not diverse, a student body-based DEI organizational element disassociated with the basic chain of command, a questionable faculty focus on left leaning academic study and the emergence of numerous affinity groups mostly based on racial differences.

It was clear that this had not been a short-term dynamic. It was the resulting outcome of a slow and steady policy-based transition of Government institutions that began more than a decade ago.

We met with combat experienced Navy Seals being forced out for refusing to take a highly questionable vaccine. We met with Naval Academy leadership focused on “rooting out systemic racism” in the Brigade of Midshipmen. When questioned about the result of their search, their response: “Didn’t find any”.

In three short years, our military has experienced a dramatic movement. It has moved from a patriotic, all volunteer, battle-hardened force forged in 20 years of continual wars.

That force had been motivated by the “Never Forget” mantra following 9-11. It seems like we have forgotten.

And the world has become even more threatening at the same time our resolve has weakened.

Look at any of the metrics.

At the Naval Academy level: have we compromised admissions standards? Is there a leadership focus on academic curricula and on leadership development?

At the Department of Defense level: is there a recovery plan for recovering retention and recruiting shortfalls? Other than lowering standards both physical and educational. Is there a real focus on Command excellence? Is there accountability for outcomes like Afghanistan?

We are very proud of our roots but believe the mission, the honor concepts, and the required focus on developing the leaders of tomorrow have been compromised by the DEI movement within the military.

Our feedback continues to be that the focus on identity and racial politics is driving people out of the Navy and impacting the ability to attract the necessary new numbers to sustain the force.

Inevitably, and we are seeing it today, physical and educational standards will be compromised to meet numbers.

The result will be an inability to man and effectively operate the operational units that are central to maintaining our national identity as a Maritime force to be reckoned with.

We believe that the last bastion of a strong America is our military.

It has fundamental differences than our larger society needs.

It cannot be a laboratory for social experimentation.

Its mission must remain focused on developing a uniform, lethal fighting force intended to deter our enemies but…if combat is required, to rapidly defeat them.

Studies like DACODAI can only be effective and influential if the underlying assumptions are robust and fact-based information is fully understood and incorporated into their recommendations.

Thank you for listening. I would now like to introduce The Honorable Mike Rose STARRS Executive Vice President and General Counsel.

The Honorable Mike Rose (USAFA ’69)
STARRS Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Mike Rose is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, New York University School of Law and Harvard Business School, and served four terms as a South Carolina State Senator. He is an attorney with the highest professional rating of “AV” and on the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and is the plaintiff winner of a landmark US Supreme Court Freedom of Information Act decision. He has lectured at various universities, colleges, professional organizations, and television programs, including on CBS “60 Minutes.” He serves as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of STARRS

Marxist Ideologies Deteriorating Quality of Military Leadership

The great esteem and respectful awe I heard farmers repeatedly express for the military and the legendary West Point and Naval Academy graduates (MacArthur, Eisenhower, Patton, Nimitz) who were their top commanders during World War II made a profound impression on me as a young boy living in the hills of Kentucky during the 1950’s. These Appalachian bred combat veterans had not been officers because they were uneducated, but quickly rose up the enlisted ranks because of their rugged individualism and natural leadership. Their words internalized in me that graduating from a military academy was the epitome of achievement and respect to which to aspire. I could not realize then, from the perspective of my one room schoolhouse, to and from which the teacher rode a mule daily and where I skipped two grades, that in 1969 I would become an academy graduate.

Tragically, the culture of unity, accountability, pride and noble purpose in the military and the qualities of competence and integrity in military commanders, including academy graduates, these rural farmers admired have seemingly “gone with the wind.” Instead of admiring today’s military leaders’ competence and noble focus on deterring and winning wars, many military members feel abhorrent revulsion against toxic Marxist ideologies being divisively imposed on them by leaders whose priority appears to be to fundamentally transform rather than protect the United States as a Constitutional Republic. This radically Left culture shift is particularly manifest by multiple examples of military leaders disregarding the Constitution and other laws they swore to protect and defend.

The willingness of military leaders to disobey the law was evident when they continued to teach their subordinates Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) even after President Trump, their Commander-in-Chief, had issued an order in September, 2020, prohibiting such teachings in any federal agency including the military. Many became aware of the dangers of CRT in the military when then Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a top mid-level Space Force commander, published in 2021 his book Irresistible Revolution – Marxism’ Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, which resulted in his removal from command.

Disregard of the law by military leaders was widely on display when they punished thousands of military members for refusing to take the COVID vaccine despite their religious objections, in violation of the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act according to at least six federal courts. Court evidence shows that virtually all of the thousands of religious exemption requests were purposefully and systematically denied by military commanders contrary to law, and over 8000 military members were involuntarily discharged from the military for adhering to their religious beliefs by not taking the vaccine. The effect, and apparent motive, behind not granting these religions exemptions as required by law was to purge from the military white conservatives with traditional values, like the Appalachian bred military enlistees who taught me to revere the military as a boy.

Disrespect for military superiors especially was fostered by foisting the COVID vaccine on military members when the vaccine provided little or no value, by not preventing the spread or ill effects of COVID, but endangering the health and lives of the young military members taking the vaccine. In addition, many military members justifiably believe that the military’s COVID vaccine mandate itself was illegal, as a federal court ruled banning as illegal the military’s Anthrax vaccine mandate in 2004. The justified perception that military superiors intentionally violated the law by punishing their subordinates for not taking the vaccine bred distrust, disrespect and lack of confidence in the military and its leaders.

Belief in the integrity of military leaders has been further undermined by their routinely hiding and lying about the Leftist cultural shifts military leaders deliberately have been imposing. Dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests have been ignored or stonewalled by the military, including in particular at the Air Force Academy, resulting due to court orders in the production of hundreds if not thousands of documents that should have been produced IAW FOIA years earlier. Military officials falsely deny publicly, even to Congressional committees, teaching and promoting Leftist ideologies which military members plainly see and are forced to endure.

The Department of Defense sought to enable the spread of Marxist ideologies at West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy by avoiding Congressional oversight by suspending those academies Congressionally created Boards of Visitors on February 2, 2021. Apparently recognizing that suspending these BoVs was illegal, DoD unsuspended them soon after a federal lawsuit was filed challenging the legality of the suspensions. Afterwards, President Biden fired and replaced all members of the BoVs appointed by President Trump, thereby ensuring the BoVs were Leftist approved rather than politically balanced as Congress intended and regulations require. In addition, DoD further attempted to undermine oversight by the BoVs by authorizing special “subcommittees” of the BoVs to which NON-members of the BoVs could be appointed by DoD, thereby diluting the required politically balanced memberships of the BoVs by “packing” them with appointees not authorized by Congress.

Military recruiting and retention have fallen dramatically as present and prospective military members and their families and friends are repulsed by the radical cultural shifts intended to transform the armed forces. This widespread disapproval is similar to the public’s rejection of recent woke advertising campaigns by Bud Light, Disney, Coke, and Target. Angst and disgust are pronounced particularly among the generations of academy graduates and other veterans who contrast the incompetence, dishonesty and political activism of current military officialdom with the revered military leaders of the past. The military must return to the core values which enabled it to deter and prevail over its past enemies or suffer catastrophic defeat in the future. The “Go Woke, Go Broke” lesson that Bud Light, Disney, Coke, Target and many other businesses learned by suffering devasting financial losses by going woke applies especially to the military, because a broken military means lost lives, blood and Gold Star families, not just damage to financial bottom lines.

Scott McQuarrie, USMA ‘72
President, Veterans for Fairness and Merit

Claude M. McQuarrie is a 1972 USMA graduate and former Army Infantry/JAGC officer. He is founder and president of Veterans for Fairness and Merit, whose 627 members of all ranks include 21 Medal of Honor recipients, 45 former POWS, and 119 Flag Officers (12 4-stars). They served 934 combat tours and held 476 combat leader positions, many at the platoon, company and battalion levels. They received over 900 combat valor decorations and 215 Purple Hearts. They seek a return to equal opportunity, race neutral and exclusively merit-based military accessions, assignment, command selection and promotion policies.

A RECOMMENDATION FOR DACODAI

Members of the commission, thank you for this opportunity to meet with you.

I begin with a recommendation.

Recommendation: DoD should discontinue using identity preferences in service academy admissions, other officer accession programs, service school and civil schooling selections, command and other assignment selections, and promotions. All such personnel actions should be equal opportunity, race neutral, and based solely on individual merit, fitness, capability and performance, undiluted by identity preferences. That is, in fact, what is required by DODI 1350.02, paras 2.8 (a)(3) and (c) and constitutionally mandated equal protection.

I urge you to include that recommendation in your report to the Secretary of Defense.

Discussion:

Ladies and gentlemen, identity preferences in military personnel actions, based on race, are happening. They violate our Constitution, our duty to warfighters, and our duty to maintain the trust and confidence of the American people. They also ignore a published, current DoD policy directive.
Many general officers have privately related their experiences with pressure to “select more diversity” candidates in promotion boards. Two independent and very reliable witnesses have privately confirmed that racial preferences have been used at the Army’s Battalion Command Assessment Program, whereby lower scoring minorities have displaced higher scoring non-minorities because of their race. Similar practices are occurring in school selection. And finally, after decades of concealment, race-based service academy admissions practices are starting to be exposed.
These practices have become commonplace in our military because leaders at many levels lack the moral courage to say “No” when, in the name of Inclusion, they are pressured to use racial preferences, choosing instead to violate their oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.
Active and retired military leaders who deny that these practices occur, or, worse, who conceal them, have lost the trust of the rank and file. They are deluding themselves when they think their ends justify their unlawful and immoral means and that their actions are helping our military. Why would anyone who takes seriously the oath to “bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution” want to serve in an organization that expects ignorance, and worse, violation, of that oath?
The best of the best often leave in disgust. Why are service academy graduates’ five-year retention rates no longer published? What does DoD want to avoid having to explain to Congress and to the American people why so many of our best and brightest officers, who came to the academies wanting to serve, are so disillusioned that they leave as soon as they can?
DoD is defending its practices in court with the legally contrived claims that they are needed to achieve some level of officer-enlisted racial demographic parity and that such parity is “critical to combat effectiveness and unit cohesion.” Those claims are demeaning and offensive on multiple levels. They are also not credible. They are, in fact, the opposite of the truth.
The truth is that over the last 40 years, our military has, while requiring dignity and respect by and for all, fielded a combat effective force without having officer-enlisted racial demographic parity.
Warfighters need and deserve only the best-qualified leaders, 100% of the time. Combat leadership is the most difficult leadership there is. It is also the most consequential. In combat, incremental differences in leader quality often make the difference between mission success or failure and a warfighter’s life or death.
Warfighters care about their leaders’ competency, moral courage, and character, not race or ethnicity.
When identity preferences dilute merit, we undeniably lower quality and fail in our moral and professional duty to provide warfighters the best-qualified leaders. That is now happening with a significant percentage of appointments at our service academies. It is an intolerable moral and professional failure.
DoD’s obviously far-fetched, “critical to combat effectiveness and unit cohesion” claim not only erodes trust in the chain of command, it contributes to erosion of already reduced public trust and confidence in our military’s leadership. The consequences are in plain view. Why are Army enlistment percentages of whites declining disproportionately compared to enlistments of other demographics?
DoD’s attempt to gain judicial exemption from constitutional compliance to facilitate its continued use of race-based preferences under the guise of “Inclusion” will fail. Those who advocate for racial preferences are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the Constitution.
Nothing justifies DoD’s ignoring its own Equal Opportunity policy directive, further sacrificing any trust it might expect to have with the American people.
Neither the Constitution nor DODI 1350.02 contains exceptions for personnel actions that will “make military leaders look more like those whom they lead” (the current Pentagon mantra), a not-so-thinly veiled reference to using identity preferences in officer personnel actions.
I call on DACODAI to act with moral courage, to remain faithful to your oaths, and to recommend to DoD that it follow DODI 1350.02 to the letter, and to follow the Constitution by discontinuing its consideration of race in all personnel actions.

Thank you.

Vice Admiral William Dean Lee, USCG ret
STARRS Board of Advisors

Vice Admiral William “Dean” Lee, US Coast Guard (Ret.), entered the U.S. Coast Guard in 1981 and retired in 2016 after serving nearly 36 years as a commissioned officer in various assignments along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts. He concluded his career as Commander, Atlantic Area, serving as the operational commander for a force of 21,000 active personnel conducting all U.S. Coast Guard missions from the Rocky Mountains to the Arabian Gulf, spanning across five Coast Guard Districts and 40 states.

In May of 2020, right before the nation went into a lockdown over the COVID virus, I was given the privilege of being a keynote speaker on the opening day of the Air Force’s annual Leadership Symposium at Maxwell Air Force Base at their air university called Lead-X. I talked about trust that day. I talked about the fact that we, the United States military, was the most trusted institution in our land and about how proud I was to have been a part of that institution for nearly 36 years and how important it was for them as the next generation of leaders to maintain that place on the ladder of trust with the people we serve.

Sadly, I have to say, I could no longer give that speech today because Gallup polls have indicated a precipitous dive in public trust of that great institution of which we all have served at one point or another on this Zoom call. The latest polls say that we’re at our lowest point in 20 years.

And the reason for this is many, but one of the reasons is soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have lost faith in many of their leaders for failing to resist those that want to use the military services as their petri dish for social experimentation and the politicization of the services through policies and practices that are, by all measures antithetical to unit cohesion, caustic to public perception, and certainly incongruent to our core values.

We’ve long held that top spot because the public saw us, the military writ large, as apolitical. But that’s no longer the case. They now see many of our leaders as extensions of whatever party is in charge at a time, willing to do whatever is necessary to secure that next promotion or that next key assignment that they’ve worked so hard for all their lives, all their careers.

What the men and women who are serving now, particularly the enlisted workforce are looking for in leadership, is they want to see some fighter, somebody willing to throw their stars on the table rather than concede to the practices that they know are not helping morale or team cohesion in their specific units. DEI is unfortunately become the third rail of conversational topics by those on active duty.

Nobody wants to talk about it openly for fear of getting labeled a white supremacist or a bigot in some form or another. But behind the scenes they whisper that it isn’t right. It’s divisive and they don’t like it. It needs to be talked about openly, candidly and honestly. We need to recognize the flaws and the fallacies in this ideology that’s been thrust upon them.

At stake fundamentally is our national security. We may not need the best and brightest America has to offer in the cushioned seats and in the lobby shops in Washington, D.C. But we sure need them in the cockpit, in the command centers and in the modern battlefield when our country is on the ropes. The direction we’re going right now, it appears that it’s just a matter of time before we are yet again needed and tested.

This is all we in STARRS are trying to convey. Equal opportunity for all. Let every man or woman compete equally for every position within our military. Let the best rise to the top. And when they do rise, let there be no question whatsoever that they got there on their own merit. Do not rob them of the joy of achievement that one gets when they have attained something hard to get.

Let no one ever say that he or she was a diversity quota. Let them instead say that is one impressive leader. Let us stop equivocating and obsessing about race. As Morgan Freeman once told Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes interview years ago, when he was being baited to say something that they wanted to perpetuate the narrative of racism. I paraphrase, Morgan Freeman answered him–it was one of the best answers I’ve ever seen–He looks at Wallace and he says, “You want to know how to solve the race problem? Stop talking about.” We’re not just talking about it. We’ve become obsessed with it. And all it’ll take is a few good leaders to turn our focus elsewhere so we can once again stop seeing color.

We need to stop for racial hatred in the form of bogeymen that don’t exist and start working with the good men that do exist in all of our services. They are the kind of people with whom I served, and I take umbrage at anyone who wants to divide a workforce into any other categories than soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guard.

Let us get back to Unity and stop looking at this through the prism of DEI. Thank you.