By Morgan Phillips | Fox News
After nearly four decades of military service, it was one small task that pushed Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., to the brink and brought an abrupt end to a long, successful career.
“I kind of slowly saw it coming,” the Pennsylvania Republican told Fox News Digital in an interview. He was talking about a trend toward progressivism that he saw as antithetical to a military that was designed to strip soldiers of their individual wants and needs and rebuild them into one fighting force.
“The culminating point for me is when my boss came to me and said, ‘You’re going to be in charge of enforcing the gender reassignment policy in the command,’” he said.
“The military is an organization where you take orders,” Perry said. “So, I decided that that was an order I wasn’t willing to take. And so I told my boss that I was going to be retiring.
“At that point, the military no longer reflected my value, sad to say, and I just didn’t want to be a part of it… Kind of the low point for me about what I was doing there, why I was there.”
In another instance, Perry, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Intel Committee, said he was given a sheet on which to rate his fellow officers’ performance.
“Over the course of my tenure, it came to a point where you had room for about one sentence to talk about the officers’ war-fighting functions, because the whole rest of the space was filled up with things like, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ sexual harassment, equal opportunity,” he explained.
“The military is designed to be lethal, and it’s about lethality and readiness. And it was clear to me that we had long since left that focus.”
Perry, 62, retired from the Army National Guard in 2019 as a brigadier general after 39 years of service. A fighter pilot by craft, he’d commanded units through deployments to Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Iraq. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2013.
The congressman said he believes he is not unique in leaving due to a politically charged environment.
“Many, many good members were just leaving because they no longer, I think, felt like the military reflected their values,” Perry said.
Recruitment issues in recent years have led to the smallest U.S. fighting force since before World War II.
“They act like they don’t know what the problem is, but to me, it’s as clear as the nose on my face,” he said. “For a lot of people, the military was the great equalizer of societal differences.”
This week was the House’s “woke week,” where Republicans passed party-line messaging bills that would root out such ideologies within corporations and industries. It came amid a failed continuing resolution (CR) that left no clear path forward to funding the government beyond Sept. 30.
Military leaders have warned against any CR, or legislation to extend government funding at current levels for a set amount of time, that would delay boosting the military budget for the next fiscal year. They have warned that a government shutdown would “devastate” readiness and Congress must quickly pass legislation that grows its spending capabilities.
“The same military leaders that act like that they can’t sustain some operation throughout a temporary impasse here in Congress are the same ones that say we’ve got to keep on spending this inordinate amount of money on systems that simply fail to produce,” Perry griped.
Congress regularly offers the Department of Defense more money than it asks for — in June, the House passed a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would pave the way for Pentagon funding to stand at $851 billion in fiscal year 2025, after a DoD request of $849.8 billion.
“Anybody that’s worn the uniform has seen the horrific ways — I’ve been in places where we’re throwing connexes of new equipment out. The American taxpayer wants to support their members that wear the uniform and potentially sacrifice their life, but I think that the military as an organization has been willing to abuse that privilege,” said Perry.
The Pentagon’s top testing office, the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, released a report earlier this year that found that less than a third of the nation’s F-35 jets are ready for combat at any given moment.
“What is the cost of that? I would like to see our military leaders address those kinds of things,” said Perry.
“The same people that say that our national debt is one of our biggest national security issues… they say you deal with it, but it can’t affect us.”
“You know guys wearing flip-flops, using motorboats or whooping our tail in the Gulf of Aden,” said Perry, “So with all due respect, when you can buy a $10,000 drone, and we’ve got to service that with a $25,000 missile, something isn’t adding up here to me.”
What People Are Saying
(From the comment section)
“That is why I retired too. That and an organization that valued diversity over experience. I would never recommend that a young person go into the military today.”
“That was one of the reasons, not the main reason, I retired from the service after 24 years. I saw a service member enter the service and came to our unit going through gender reassignment process. They claimed they were a female and started getting therapy sessions. That caused them to be non-deployable. Then they got approved for the surgery to remove parts to make them more female like. That and then the recovery time was over a year and a half. By the time they were fully transitioned and fully able to deploy that service member’s service obligation in active duty was up. So they joined, got paid the whole time, got free tax payer paid counseling, surgery, vacation, medical, and 4 years of tax payer paid college funds for what? Nothing.”
“I retired in the early 90s before woke was a thought in the US military. I was lucky to be part of a lethal military force. Not today.”
“I came from a multi-generational military family. I served in the US Army. I married a guy in the USAF. When our youngest son got to the point of joining the military, we talked him OUT of it. The way our government/military treated our family the last 5 years that my husband was active duty, we knew that it would only get worse. It has. I’m SO glad we talked him out of joining the military!”
“My son retired from the Navy for the same reason. I worked for the AFROTC and saw the waste of $$$ daily.”
“My brother has 37 years in the DoD and he’s retiring for the same reason. He sits in more white privilege classes than he does the required ship maintenance.”
“After 20 + years, I have had a enough and am also retiring. Anyone who tries to convince you we are the best fighting force on the planet are wrong. we have grown where the service members who join to fight to defend this country are not the majority anymore.”
“I retired from the U.S. Army as a senior officer after over 35 years of active duty service for similar reasons cited by BG (Ret) Perry. The current state of our armed forces is woefully unprepared to engage in and win a conventional war with our current advisories, especially if they join forces. Unfortunately for America, it appears the next war we will be engaged in will be on U.S. soil.”
“Congressman Perry speaks for so many of us that left a career that we loved because we could see the handwriting on the wall. Sad to say but our military has been neutered.”
“I retired at the start of the pandemic as a civil servant in the DoD. I just couldn’t take it anymore. It all started to go wonky in 2009…”
“I’m a retired Army officer. I say to BG Perry, you are spot on. Thank you for taking a position that many of us support.”
“You’re going to be in charge of enforcing the gender reassignment policy in the command,’”—I remember when the U.S. military’s sole objective battle readiness, training & preparedness, not focused on gender, pronouns, feelings and comfort and tax payer funded sex reassignment surgeries. Call me crazy but until every wounded warrior from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, has what they need medically and in support—no service member should be getting sex reassignment surgeries. For the love of God go back to this policy US Military—Life, Liberty and the pursuit of all who threaten it before we get hit hard like at Pearl or on 9/11.”
“I retired in 1997 after 20 years in the Army, this is not my Military and I’m sorry the Best of the Best are retiring or just getting out. We truly need a change the Military is for National Defense we need War Fighters! Warriors! not someone unhappy the way they were born or confused if they should stand up and pee or sit down.”
“I know a young man who graduated West Point and wanted to make the Army his career. He has since resigned his commission for the very reason General Perry did. The Pentagon has become way too woke.”
“$2,633.70 a month for an E4 …. when I was in the Army I got $860 as a sgt in combat. there are perks figured in from time to time . Right now your options aint out there and I will tell you the woke is driving dedicated soldiers out faster than the pay.”
“This is happening a lot and when I talked to people who wanted to go into the military and ex-military they have children coming of age to enter they both are negatively impacted by the woke Division Eradication and Indoctrination policies and programs of the left and the left leadership in the military. People are getting out in large numbers and people are not coming in by large numbers due to these programs and these leaders that will not stand up to their heads and the DoD Sec in their destructive policies that don’t help readiness, training or equipping the services and their members. This is a major failure to their core duties, responsibilities and oath.”
“I served in the Army. My brother and son were Marines. None of our grandkids plan to go into the woke military of today.”
“I retired In 2010 after 30 years. I was a master sergeant and I saw this coming. It kept creeping in, more and more since the 80s. I stuck it out to thirty years and retired. The shame of it all is that the average soldier knows this is crap and dumps it out of their brain as soon as the instruction is over. The only people who care about this are people who develop a gripe about their assignment and want to punish their first line supervisors.”
“”He was talking about a trend toward progressivism that he saw as antithetical to a military that was designed to strip soldiers of their individual wants and needs and rebuild them into one fighting force.” He’s right. There is also another casualty of this progressivism. That casualty is morale. A lack of morale in a fighting force is extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous to lives as well as the security of this country and its interests.”
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