May 20, 2025
Dear Friends and Family,
The excerpts for this segment are all from The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. The book was written by Pete Hegseth in 2024 prior to his confirmation as Secretary of Defense. It will be of interest to see how much of what he advocates in this book is implemented in his military. Such points of advocacy include:
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
The excerpts for this segment are all from The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. The book was written by Pete Hegseth in 2024 prior to his confirmation as Secretary of Defense. It will be of interest to see how much of what he advocates in this book is implemented in his military. Such points of advocacy include:
- Elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) – every aspect of the ideology.
- Reinstitute the high standards of the past with no differentiation for anyone.
- No climate change initiatives.
- Elimination of all Cultural Marxism including military academy curriculum.
- Firing of “woke” and feckless generals.
- A reduction in the number of generals.
- Reinstitute merit-based promotions throughout the military.
- Require fitness and a high school education or the equivalent in recruiting.
- Rescind the 2023 Biden order that all people in combat zones be presumed to be civilians until proven otherwise.
Happy Learning,
Harley
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH – SEGMENT 10
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: THE MILITARY – EXCERPTS
INTRODUCTION: Today our military brass is following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness. Americans with common sense are fighting this on many fronts, but if we can’t save the meritocracy of our military, we’re definitely going to lose everywhere else. The military has long been a place for turning mere boys into fighting men not just by teaching them honor and sacrifice but by channeling daring, building strength, and accumulating skills. The so-called elites directing the military today aren’t just lowering standards and focusing on the wrong enemy; they are overtly working to rid the military of this specific (essential) type of young patriot. They believe power is bad, merit is unfair, ideology is more important than industrious, white people are yesterday, and safety! is better than risk-taking. The only way we can fight back against the Left’s antiwarrior radicalism is to recover a true vision of the value of strong men, the importance of normality, and a true sense of honor. The American military is one of the great deradicalization machines for aimless young men – but only if it’s working correctly.
Yet, America, and her military, are going quietly into the night. Powerful leftists have leveraged their disdain for America to systematically confuse, neuter, and weaken the greatest fighting force for good this world has ever seen. It happened, and is still happening, rapidly. Each year, the Heritage Foundation publishes its Index of U.S. Military Strength. Its 2024 report is blunt, “as currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America’s vital national interests,” For the second year in a row, our military is rated as “weak” relative to the force needed to defend national interests. Weak … two years in a row. Things must change and quickly – for the sake of our country and our warfighters.
Civilian leadership and military discipline are foundational to who we are. But what we really seek, what we need – and what we crave – is military leadership that fiercely preserves the core purpose of the military and … political leaders who don’t treat the 101st Airborne like Harvard University. Our troops are fighters, not gender studies freshmen. They could have enrolled in college if they wanted more indoctrination, but instead they serve. This is more than simply a misunderstanding, or a difference of priorities – it’s a fundamentally differed view of the purpose of warriors. The real question is: How did the military allow itself to go woke? It’s one thing when a corporation or university goes “woke.” It’s an entirely different thing for the United States military to go woke. It’s fucking scary, and I’ve had a front-row seat – along with a generation of warriors, most of whom are now getting out and not encouraging their kids to join. Where does that end? How does it end? Not well that’s for sure—unless we do something about it.
Our military cannot survive a long-term infection of radical left-wing social justice policies designed to isolate, resegregate, and stigmatize certain troops based on a specific racial, gender, or political philosophy. Our military cannot survive the intentional cratering of “good order and discipline” in the name of “equity.” Standards ignored, at every level and in every realm. Our key constituency is normal men, looking to be heroes and not victims. Ordinary men, willing to be extraordinary – or die trying, for God, country, and their brothers. We aren’t a collection of aggrieved tribes. Equality is our bedrock; lethality is our trademark. There is no black and white in our ranks. We are all green. Our strength is not in our diversity, but in our unity and in our love for each other, our families, and, most of all, our nation. We have standards and we enforce them – with consequences. If we don’t stay free, then we’re just another country with a flag. I won’t fight for just any flag, and I hope my kids will not either.
If we lose our military, the world’s last best hope is toast. And then freedom is toast – because that military, eventually will be turned on us. If we want to live free, we’d better be willing to die trying. Unlike our enemies, we don’t fight because we hate what’s in front of us, we fight because we love what’s behind us. We fight so our kids may inherit that which can only be purchased with blood: our God-given constitutional freedoms and rights. John Stuart Mill once said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse”
The current woke victory is broad, but it is not deep. The shoehorning of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory (CRT), feminism, genderism, safetyism, climate worship, manufactured “violent extremism,” straight-up weirdo shit, and a grab bag of social justice causes that infect today’s fighting force have nothing to do with making our military more capable. They are anathema to everything the American military stands for; a natural antibody is poised to kick in, if we fight to unleash it. It will take stone-cold leadership, unbending courage, and unyielding fidelity to the Constitution.
Politicians with radical social philosophies – from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama – come and go; the real story is how an institution founded on the fidelity to the Constitution has allowed itself to be captured by anti-American, anti-constitutional Marxist philosophies.
A huge part of this existential threat to our fighting force lies in the type of personality we attract and promote into the general officer ranks. The promotion system has never been perfect but for over two hundred years, it has been largely based on one core tenet: merit. In recent years, certain commanders in chief have used promotions into the general officer ranks to exorcise the perceived racial, gender, and social demons of the past. Quota first, quota often! The sad truth is that abandoning merit-based promotions for social equity advancement only locks in a grievance culture. Rising to the rank of general – or chairman of the Joint Chiefs or secretary of defense – used to mean reaching the pinnacle of the “Profession of Arms.” But not anymore. Starting largely under Obama, and again under Biden, reaching that level means a willingness to blindly impose social and political goals, the Constitution be damned. Pushing Critical Race Theory, undermining merit-based performance, convincing recruits to join the military for gender-reassignment treatment, pushing women in to combat roles, prosecuting warfighters, targeting certain political persuasions, and new “green fleets” are all agendas being peddled by the Department of Defense’s taxpayer-funded budget. They are all extraconstitutional and contrary to the dictates of a robust and ready military. They demand that the soldier genuflect to an ideology that is both foreign and antithetical to their own core beliefs. Busy killing Islamists in shithole countries – and then betrayed by our leaders – our warriors have every reason to let America’s dynasty fade away. Leftists stole a lot from us, but we won’t let them take this. Time for round two – we won’t miss this war.
CRITICAL RACE THEORY: Tennessee representative Republican Mark Green, a combat veteran himself, issued a press release in May 2021 announcing a bill to ban DEI and CRT in our military. He said,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: THE MILITARY – EXCERPTS
INTRODUCTION: Today our military brass is following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness. Americans with common sense are fighting this on many fronts, but if we can’t save the meritocracy of our military, we’re definitely going to lose everywhere else. The military has long been a place for turning mere boys into fighting men not just by teaching them honor and sacrifice but by channeling daring, building strength, and accumulating skills. The so-called elites directing the military today aren’t just lowering standards and focusing on the wrong enemy; they are overtly working to rid the military of this specific (essential) type of young patriot. They believe power is bad, merit is unfair, ideology is more important than industrious, white people are yesterday, and safety! is better than risk-taking. The only way we can fight back against the Left’s antiwarrior radicalism is to recover a true vision of the value of strong men, the importance of normality, and a true sense of honor. The American military is one of the great deradicalization machines for aimless young men – but only if it’s working correctly.
Yet, America, and her military, are going quietly into the night. Powerful leftists have leveraged their disdain for America to systematically confuse, neuter, and weaken the greatest fighting force for good this world has ever seen. It happened, and is still happening, rapidly. Each year, the Heritage Foundation publishes its Index of U.S. Military Strength. Its 2024 report is blunt, “as currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America’s vital national interests,” For the second year in a row, our military is rated as “weak” relative to the force needed to defend national interests. Weak … two years in a row. Things must change and quickly – for the sake of our country and our warfighters.
Civilian leadership and military discipline are foundational to who we are. But what we really seek, what we need – and what we crave – is military leadership that fiercely preserves the core purpose of the military and … political leaders who don’t treat the 101st Airborne like Harvard University. Our troops are fighters, not gender studies freshmen. They could have enrolled in college if they wanted more indoctrination, but instead they serve. This is more than simply a misunderstanding, or a difference of priorities – it’s a fundamentally differed view of the purpose of warriors. The real question is: How did the military allow itself to go woke? It’s one thing when a corporation or university goes “woke.” It’s an entirely different thing for the United States military to go woke. It’s fucking scary, and I’ve had a front-row seat – along with a generation of warriors, most of whom are now getting out and not encouraging their kids to join. Where does that end? How does it end? Not well that’s for sure—unless we do something about it.
Our military cannot survive a long-term infection of radical left-wing social justice policies designed to isolate, resegregate, and stigmatize certain troops based on a specific racial, gender, or political philosophy. Our military cannot survive the intentional cratering of “good order and discipline” in the name of “equity.” Standards ignored, at every level and in every realm. Our key constituency is normal men, looking to be heroes and not victims. Ordinary men, willing to be extraordinary – or die trying, for God, country, and their brothers. We aren’t a collection of aggrieved tribes. Equality is our bedrock; lethality is our trademark. There is no black and white in our ranks. We are all green. Our strength is not in our diversity, but in our unity and in our love for each other, our families, and, most of all, our nation. We have standards and we enforce them – with consequences. If we don’t stay free, then we’re just another country with a flag. I won’t fight for just any flag, and I hope my kids will not either.
If we lose our military, the world’s last best hope is toast. And then freedom is toast – because that military, eventually will be turned on us. If we want to live free, we’d better be willing to die trying. Unlike our enemies, we don’t fight because we hate what’s in front of us, we fight because we love what’s behind us. We fight so our kids may inherit that which can only be purchased with blood: our God-given constitutional freedoms and rights. John Stuart Mill once said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse”
The current woke victory is broad, but it is not deep. The shoehorning of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory (CRT), feminism, genderism, safetyism, climate worship, manufactured “violent extremism,” straight-up weirdo shit, and a grab bag of social justice causes that infect today’s fighting force have nothing to do with making our military more capable. They are anathema to everything the American military stands for; a natural antibody is poised to kick in, if we fight to unleash it. It will take stone-cold leadership, unbending courage, and unyielding fidelity to the Constitution.
Politicians with radical social philosophies – from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama – come and go; the real story is how an institution founded on the fidelity to the Constitution has allowed itself to be captured by anti-American, anti-constitutional Marxist philosophies.
A huge part of this existential threat to our fighting force lies in the type of personality we attract and promote into the general officer ranks. The promotion system has never been perfect but for over two hundred years, it has been largely based on one core tenet: merit. In recent years, certain commanders in chief have used promotions into the general officer ranks to exorcise the perceived racial, gender, and social demons of the past. Quota first, quota often! The sad truth is that abandoning merit-based promotions for social equity advancement only locks in a grievance culture. Rising to the rank of general – or chairman of the Joint Chiefs or secretary of defense – used to mean reaching the pinnacle of the “Profession of Arms.” But not anymore. Starting largely under Obama, and again under Biden, reaching that level means a willingness to blindly impose social and political goals, the Constitution be damned. Pushing Critical Race Theory, undermining merit-based performance, convincing recruits to join the military for gender-reassignment treatment, pushing women in to combat roles, prosecuting warfighters, targeting certain political persuasions, and new “green fleets” are all agendas being peddled by the Department of Defense’s taxpayer-funded budget. They are all extraconstitutional and contrary to the dictates of a robust and ready military. They demand that the soldier genuflect to an ideology that is both foreign and antithetical to their own core beliefs. Busy killing Islamists in shithole countries – and then betrayed by our leaders – our warriors have every reason to let America’s dynasty fade away. Leftists stole a lot from us, but we won’t let them take this. Time for round two – we won’t miss this war.
CRITICAL RACE THEORY: Tennessee representative Republican Mark Green, a combat veteran himself, issued a press release in May 2021 announcing a bill to ban DEI and CRT in our military. He said,
Critical Race Theory is based on a massive and purposeful misunderstanding of the American founding, American history, and America as it exists today. This is a Marxist ideology created to tear American institutions down. It teaches Americans and members of the Armed Services to judge one another by the color of their skin instead of by the “content of their character.” America should never go back to this kind of thinking. The United States military service academies are designed to train leaders and warrior for combat – men and women of every race, creed, and religion. Critical Race Theory’s divisiveness will destroy the unit cohesion necessary to win in combat and defend this nation.
He's right, of course, but nobody listened. The DoD was not discussing or researching “white rage.” They were accusing their members of “white rage” and consigning them to reeducation classes to lure them of their perceived wrongdoings.
Obama, harboring a famous distrust of military generals, started to remake the Pentagon in his image. First, he staffed top civilian defense positions with like-minded left-wing political appointees. Then he started rewarding – and promoting – generals and admirals who were willing to kowtow to those ideologues. Generals who did not follow the Obama line were admonished, sidelined, or fired. As such, the signal was sent down the ranks: comply with the new social justice priorities or your career is toast. So, for eight years – and now for four more years under Biden – the pipelines of future military leaders have been primed with social justice, politically correct parrots. Parrots who love “first” instead of fighters. Puppets who will spout “our diversity is our strength” when they know damn well that it’s the opposite in the military: our unity is our strength. They are dangerous idiots, and they are in charge.
CAREERISM: The current state of the military is careerism. It no longer centers on our core task: to win wars. Indeed, the ethos is: Where’s my next command? How am I going to advance myself” That pushes our leaders toward protecting careers and we never filter out the turds. Careerism is about winning, but only personally. You can’t win a war if every soldier’s out for himself, and especially if a leader is so focused on covering his ass that he can’t be honest about failure. Today’s military lacks a core value from our leadership that we all demand of every soldier that serves. Integrity. At the highest levels of command, they’re not living up to our core values. I heard it from every soldier I spoke with for this book, dozens and dozens. They don’t agree on everything. But the one thing they do agree on is that US military leadership has an integrity and accountability problem. The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired.
Currently the DoD has forty-four four-star generals with a total force of 1.2 million serving. In World War II, there were only seven four-star generals and over 21 million were serving. It’s upside down, and ripe for firings – without replacements.
RECRUITMENT: The Army I know, the Army we need, should be focused on outcomes. On forging individuals. On building teams. On shared missions. On winning battles. On winning wars. On outcomes. Anything that doesn’t accomplish the mission is just a distraction. And, in war, distractions get people killed. A man who has a feeling toward a female and acts differently in combat – gets people killed. A woman who can’t do the same job as a man in combat – gets people killed. A “trans” soldier who doesn’t have his/her meds is combat ineffective – and gets people killed. A competent, experienced white soldier who leaves the Army because he’s been told he’s the problem – gets people killed. Likewise, a black or female soldier who get promoted, primarily because of the color of their skin or the genitalia between their legs – gets people killed. The only thing that matters is mission accomplishment. Trained individuals. Trained teams. Shared missions. No distractions. Maximum lethality. Anything else is bullshit. And right now, we have a steaming pile of it inside the Pentagon courtyard.
How else do you explain a January 2024 revelation that Army recruitment number of white Americans have dropped precipitously in the past five years? From 44,000 white kids joining the Army in 2018 to 25,000 white kids joining in 2023 – a staggering 43% decrease. It is a long-held conservative American tradition to speak softly … and walk away from organizations that offend our values. America’s white sons and daughters are walking away, and who can blame them. Joining the military is not a jobs program. It is a commitment, a passion, an act of sacrificial love. There is no draft. No one is forced to join. Those who join do so because they believe in the nation that they will be serving. Our recruits are intelligent, educated, morally upright, and good citizens. They are wise enough to know that they are giving themselves and their futures to the leadership of the United States of America.
STANDARDS: In today’s military – ask anyone still serving or recently separated – our soldiers are fatter and slower. It doesn’t help that 77% of military-age Americans do not qualify for military service due to weight issues, medical problems, drug use, or a criminal background. This is true, and DoD recruiting makes this excuse every single day. But it’s only part of the military recruitment story. For those still eligible, in order to be more inclusive for all genders we lower our standards. The United States Air Force in January 2023 lowered their height and weight standards again – they had to. They changed the “tape” standard, otherwise known as the Body Composition Assessment. They evaluate an airman’s obesity by using a tape measure to compare height to circumference measurements around the hips to determine overall body fat. Also, the Air Force dropped the requirement of high school or GED diplomas for new recruits. No more high school degrees needed.
Simply put we are lowering the standard for everyone in the name of promoting women, fat people, and now high school dropouts. Our so-called military leaders, obsessed with recruiting and retention problems of their own making, don’t want anyone with a pulse prevented from joining or being pushed out of the military. A quick reminder: unlike in the civilian world, when you suck at your combat job, you literally can get a sucking chest wound from multiple gunshots or lose a leg from a hidden IED. Somehow that gets missed in all this feel good, inclusive ass-hattery.
The standard should be the same standard for everyone. But if we are going to maintain gender-based standards, then you have to tier it by military occupational specialty. Want this to be the infantry/the standards will be higher for both men and women. Want to work at a desk job? Ten pushups will suffice. Want to fly drones? It’s okay if you’re a little fatter, but you’d better have twenty-twenty vision. The problem the gender cultists have with this is that, yes, it will mean very few women qualify for the infantry, and more generals asking, “Why are so many women failing?” And the cycle continues. Politicians with bad ideas and bad intentions, and feckless generals coming to heel. They have forgotten their oath. They don’t want to attempt to see the world from anywhere, but their windowless room at the Pentagon.
SUPPORTING DEI MEANS SOLDIERS DIE: In an organization where “good order and discipline” are maintained by adherence to standards and commitment to mission success, anything that undermines the meritocracy in competence wounds the effectiveness of the war machine. First it erodes it, then it destroys it. That is what Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have done to the American military. DEI amplifies differences, creates grievances, and excludes anyone who won’t bow down to the cultural Marxist revolution ripping through the Pentagon. Forget DEI … the acronym should be DIE or IED. It will kill our military worse than any IED ever could.
Elevating an unqualified person into leadership will never increase the effectiveness of a team or a unit. It will only increase the chances of your team being unprepared for the challenges that you will face – or erode the authority of a leader who deserves to be there but is seen as a “diversity hire.” In an office environment, this dynamic means certain people lose out on opportunities. You risk lowering morale and maybe a change at a quarterly profit. At war, this policy gets soldiers killed. Morale plummets and the mission suffers. Everyone loses – and some lose their lives.
The military isn’t about celebrating differences of emotions – it’s about celebrating commonalities and forging discipline. It’s an institution that makes and requires adults who can think beyond their individual needs to the betterment of the group. Woke ideology undermines this by obsessing over divisive history and victimhood. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo – a West Point graduate – wrote: “How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist? How can we ask them to view their brothers and sisters in arms through the narrow prisms of race or gender? The clear and obvious answer is that we cannot – not without putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. A woke military is a weak military. Woke and weak are exactly what our military is becoming under Biden’s leadership.”
INTERNATIONAL LAW: In 2024 – if you want to win – how can anyone write universal rules about killing other people in open conflict? Especially against enemies who fight like savages, disregarding human life in every single instance. Maybe, instead, we are just fighting with one hand behind our back – and the enemy knows it. This is a big reason there hasn’t been a war declared globally since the 1950s and, quite frankly, why America hasn’t won a war since World War II. If the world cannot agree on principles of honor or morality, how can we ever prescribe global terms of fair war? Land warfare, historically understood, is defined by how many people you can slaughter in one space, at one time – limiting the will and capacity of your enemy to fight. We send men to fight on our behalf and then second-guess the manner in which they fight. I saw it every day. In some cases, our units were so boxed in by rules and regulations and political correctness, we even second guessed ourselves. That needs to end.
The Biden administration made the lives of the warfighters even more difficult. Citing no new evidence, the Biden administration in July 2023 added that persons and objects in combat zones – in places where US troops are fighting – must be presumed to be civilian. They must be assumed to be innocent. In short, this means our troops are going to have to hesitate every time they fire. When you send Americans to war, their mandate should be to lethally dominate the battlefield. If that makes you uneasy, keep us at home.
We have a big problem, and it’s metastasizing. For a long time now, most American children in government schools have not been taught history, patriotism, or anything about God, let alone the Christian God that informed our founding. It has been just the opposite: they have been taught about what a horrible racist country we are. Since most people don’t want to be horrible racists or support horrible racists, why would they sign up to fight for such a country? Or, knowing they are not racist, why would they sign up for a military that sees them as the new second class citizens? So, they don’t join. They skip military service, understandably so. And the militant Left gets more of what they want.
FECKLESS GENERALS: The Obama administration easily manipulated the feckless and politicized military brass that offered little resistance to his radical policies. Once in the Beltway, armed with their newfound academic appreciation for politically correct notions, lifelong officers became willing executors for politicians. In fact, it was the quickest way to get promoted. Their value was not in their devotion to the Constitution or the warrior class, but in their willingness to take orders from a superstar president.
Why would leaders who have served honorably for over thirty years now decide to completely abandon all their commitments and previously proclaimed values to be on the right side of a political narrative? The answer is pretty straightforward: courage has surrendered to safety, merit surrendered to equity, and honor surrendered to ideology. Careers, not the Constitution, are the highest calling of our general class. To save themselves, they have surrendered our warriors.
MARXIST – ADJACENT MILITARY ACADEMIES: Most of the staff at all military academies are civilian professors. And, yes, most of them have the same political leaning as academia writ large. The combination of left-wing civilian professors, and woke guidance from Washington, D.C., has transformed these institutions. The Biden administration is the worst of all worlds.
West Point recently adopted a new undergraduate field of study for cadets. Imagine this: the military academy responsible for some of the greatest warrior generals in the modern era now boasts a … Diversity & Inclusion Studies Minor (DISM).
Obama, harboring a famous distrust of military generals, started to remake the Pentagon in his image. First, he staffed top civilian defense positions with like-minded left-wing political appointees. Then he started rewarding – and promoting – generals and admirals who were willing to kowtow to those ideologues. Generals who did not follow the Obama line were admonished, sidelined, or fired. As such, the signal was sent down the ranks: comply with the new social justice priorities or your career is toast. So, for eight years – and now for four more years under Biden – the pipelines of future military leaders have been primed with social justice, politically correct parrots. Parrots who love “first” instead of fighters. Puppets who will spout “our diversity is our strength” when they know damn well that it’s the opposite in the military: our unity is our strength. They are dangerous idiots, and they are in charge.
CAREERISM: The current state of the military is careerism. It no longer centers on our core task: to win wars. Indeed, the ethos is: Where’s my next command? How am I going to advance myself” That pushes our leaders toward protecting careers and we never filter out the turds. Careerism is about winning, but only personally. You can’t win a war if every soldier’s out for himself, and especially if a leader is so focused on covering his ass that he can’t be honest about failure. Today’s military lacks a core value from our leadership that we all demand of every soldier that serves. Integrity. At the highest levels of command, they’re not living up to our core values. I heard it from every soldier I spoke with for this book, dozens and dozens. They don’t agree on everything. But the one thing they do agree on is that US military leadership has an integrity and accountability problem. The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired.
Currently the DoD has forty-four four-star generals with a total force of 1.2 million serving. In World War II, there were only seven four-star generals and over 21 million were serving. It’s upside down, and ripe for firings – without replacements.
RECRUITMENT: The Army I know, the Army we need, should be focused on outcomes. On forging individuals. On building teams. On shared missions. On winning battles. On winning wars. On outcomes. Anything that doesn’t accomplish the mission is just a distraction. And, in war, distractions get people killed. A man who has a feeling toward a female and acts differently in combat – gets people killed. A woman who can’t do the same job as a man in combat – gets people killed. A “trans” soldier who doesn’t have his/her meds is combat ineffective – and gets people killed. A competent, experienced white soldier who leaves the Army because he’s been told he’s the problem – gets people killed. Likewise, a black or female soldier who get promoted, primarily because of the color of their skin or the genitalia between their legs – gets people killed. The only thing that matters is mission accomplishment. Trained individuals. Trained teams. Shared missions. No distractions. Maximum lethality. Anything else is bullshit. And right now, we have a steaming pile of it inside the Pentagon courtyard.
How else do you explain a January 2024 revelation that Army recruitment number of white Americans have dropped precipitously in the past five years? From 44,000 white kids joining the Army in 2018 to 25,000 white kids joining in 2023 – a staggering 43% decrease. It is a long-held conservative American tradition to speak softly … and walk away from organizations that offend our values. America’s white sons and daughters are walking away, and who can blame them. Joining the military is not a jobs program. It is a commitment, a passion, an act of sacrificial love. There is no draft. No one is forced to join. Those who join do so because they believe in the nation that they will be serving. Our recruits are intelligent, educated, morally upright, and good citizens. They are wise enough to know that they are giving themselves and their futures to the leadership of the United States of America.
STANDARDS: In today’s military – ask anyone still serving or recently separated – our soldiers are fatter and slower. It doesn’t help that 77% of military-age Americans do not qualify for military service due to weight issues, medical problems, drug use, or a criminal background. This is true, and DoD recruiting makes this excuse every single day. But it’s only part of the military recruitment story. For those still eligible, in order to be more inclusive for all genders we lower our standards. The United States Air Force in January 2023 lowered their height and weight standards again – they had to. They changed the “tape” standard, otherwise known as the Body Composition Assessment. They evaluate an airman’s obesity by using a tape measure to compare height to circumference measurements around the hips to determine overall body fat. Also, the Air Force dropped the requirement of high school or GED diplomas for new recruits. No more high school degrees needed.
Simply put we are lowering the standard for everyone in the name of promoting women, fat people, and now high school dropouts. Our so-called military leaders, obsessed with recruiting and retention problems of their own making, don’t want anyone with a pulse prevented from joining or being pushed out of the military. A quick reminder: unlike in the civilian world, when you suck at your combat job, you literally can get a sucking chest wound from multiple gunshots or lose a leg from a hidden IED. Somehow that gets missed in all this feel good, inclusive ass-hattery.
The standard should be the same standard for everyone. But if we are going to maintain gender-based standards, then you have to tier it by military occupational specialty. Want this to be the infantry/the standards will be higher for both men and women. Want to work at a desk job? Ten pushups will suffice. Want to fly drones? It’s okay if you’re a little fatter, but you’d better have twenty-twenty vision. The problem the gender cultists have with this is that, yes, it will mean very few women qualify for the infantry, and more generals asking, “Why are so many women failing?” And the cycle continues. Politicians with bad ideas and bad intentions, and feckless generals coming to heel. They have forgotten their oath. They don’t want to attempt to see the world from anywhere, but their windowless room at the Pentagon.
SUPPORTING DEI MEANS SOLDIERS DIE: In an organization where “good order and discipline” are maintained by adherence to standards and commitment to mission success, anything that undermines the meritocracy in competence wounds the effectiveness of the war machine. First it erodes it, then it destroys it. That is what Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have done to the American military. DEI amplifies differences, creates grievances, and excludes anyone who won’t bow down to the cultural Marxist revolution ripping through the Pentagon. Forget DEI … the acronym should be DIE or IED. It will kill our military worse than any IED ever could.
Elevating an unqualified person into leadership will never increase the effectiveness of a team or a unit. It will only increase the chances of your team being unprepared for the challenges that you will face – or erode the authority of a leader who deserves to be there but is seen as a “diversity hire.” In an office environment, this dynamic means certain people lose out on opportunities. You risk lowering morale and maybe a change at a quarterly profit. At war, this policy gets soldiers killed. Morale plummets and the mission suffers. Everyone loses – and some lose their lives.
The military isn’t about celebrating differences of emotions – it’s about celebrating commonalities and forging discipline. It’s an institution that makes and requires adults who can think beyond their individual needs to the betterment of the group. Woke ideology undermines this by obsessing over divisive history and victimhood. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo – a West Point graduate – wrote: “How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist? How can we ask them to view their brothers and sisters in arms through the narrow prisms of race or gender? The clear and obvious answer is that we cannot – not without putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. A woke military is a weak military. Woke and weak are exactly what our military is becoming under Biden’s leadership.”
INTERNATIONAL LAW: In 2024 – if you want to win – how can anyone write universal rules about killing other people in open conflict? Especially against enemies who fight like savages, disregarding human life in every single instance. Maybe, instead, we are just fighting with one hand behind our back – and the enemy knows it. This is a big reason there hasn’t been a war declared globally since the 1950s and, quite frankly, why America hasn’t won a war since World War II. If the world cannot agree on principles of honor or morality, how can we ever prescribe global terms of fair war? Land warfare, historically understood, is defined by how many people you can slaughter in one space, at one time – limiting the will and capacity of your enemy to fight. We send men to fight on our behalf and then second-guess the manner in which they fight. I saw it every day. In some cases, our units were so boxed in by rules and regulations and political correctness, we even second guessed ourselves. That needs to end.
The Biden administration made the lives of the warfighters even more difficult. Citing no new evidence, the Biden administration in July 2023 added that persons and objects in combat zones – in places where US troops are fighting – must be presumed to be civilian. They must be assumed to be innocent. In short, this means our troops are going to have to hesitate every time they fire. When you send Americans to war, their mandate should be to lethally dominate the battlefield. If that makes you uneasy, keep us at home.
We have a big problem, and it’s metastasizing. For a long time now, most American children in government schools have not been taught history, patriotism, or anything about God, let alone the Christian God that informed our founding. It has been just the opposite: they have been taught about what a horrible racist country we are. Since most people don’t want to be horrible racists or support horrible racists, why would they sign up to fight for such a country? Or, knowing they are not racist, why would they sign up for a military that sees them as the new second class citizens? So, they don’t join. They skip military service, understandably so. And the militant Left gets more of what they want.
FECKLESS GENERALS: The Obama administration easily manipulated the feckless and politicized military brass that offered little resistance to his radical policies. Once in the Beltway, armed with their newfound academic appreciation for politically correct notions, lifelong officers became willing executors for politicians. In fact, it was the quickest way to get promoted. Their value was not in their devotion to the Constitution or the warrior class, but in their willingness to take orders from a superstar president.
Why would leaders who have served honorably for over thirty years now decide to completely abandon all their commitments and previously proclaimed values to be on the right side of a political narrative? The answer is pretty straightforward: courage has surrendered to safety, merit surrendered to equity, and honor surrendered to ideology. Careers, not the Constitution, are the highest calling of our general class. To save themselves, they have surrendered our warriors.
MARXIST – ADJACENT MILITARY ACADEMIES: Most of the staff at all military academies are civilian professors. And, yes, most of them have the same political leaning as academia writ large. The combination of left-wing civilian professors, and woke guidance from Washington, D.C., has transformed these institutions. The Biden administration is the worst of all worlds.
West Point recently adopted a new undergraduate field of study for cadets. Imagine this: the military academy responsible for some of the greatest warrior generals in the modern era now boasts a … Diversity & Inclusion Studies Minor (DISM).
Diversity and Inclusion Studies (DISM) is an interdisciplinary minor administered by the Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership that consists of humanities and social science courses. America is a multicultural polity and demands knowledge and pragmatic thinkers who understand the range of human experiences. The DISM helps fulfill the Superintendent’s and Dean’s vision for diversity and inclusion at West Point. Moreover, the DISM at West Point offers cadets a framework for critically and creatively thinking about the broader impact of diversity and inclusion at the individual, organizational, societal, and/or global levels.
The fight for freedom can only be won when there is meritocracy in our military – starting with a new courageous commander in chief. Maybe then our military academies will get back to creating color-blind warriors, not ethnic and gender studies cultists.
CLOSING SUMMATION: We are at a crossroads. The military I joined in 2001 is not the military of today. It has been captured by leftist forces that have captured the rest of our culture. But unlike schools, unlike churches, and unlike different states, we can’t just replace one we don’t like with one we like better. We have one Pentagon. One military. One Army. If we lose those, we have truly lost America. It is up to my generation – in government, media, and culture – to fight for a change in leadership inside our military. It is an uphill battle to right that ship.
Source: The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free by Pete Hegseth (2024)
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
CLOSING SUMMATION: We are at a crossroads. The military I joined in 2001 is not the military of today. It has been captured by leftist forces that have captured the rest of our culture. But unlike schools, unlike churches, and unlike different states, we can’t just replace one we don’t like with one we like better. We have one Pentagon. One military. One Army. If we lose those, we have truly lost America. It is up to my generation – in government, media, and culture – to fight for a change in leadership inside our military. It is an uphill battle to right that ship.
Source: The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free by Pete Hegseth (2024)
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| exec_10l_dod_the_military_--_segment_10.pdf |