A new poll released Monday by the Heritage Foundation “of active U.S. military members reveals that 68 percent have witnessed some or a significant level of politicization in the military, and 65 percent of those polled say that it is a concern.” When asked “to what extent would politicization of the military impact your decision to encourage your children to join the military, 68 percent said it would to at least some degree.
When asked to what degree certain events had decreased their “trust in the military,” service members’ top three concerns were “changing of policy to allow unrestricted service by transgender individuals in the military” (80% reported decreased trust in the military by “a great deal” or “some”); “the withdrawal from Afghanistan” (71%); and “focus on climate change as a top national security threat” (70%).
An annual poll conducted by the Reagan Institute has revealed a sharp decline in Americans’ confidence in the military, with Americans’ expressing a 70 percent approval rate for the military in 2017, which has dropped dramatically to 48 percent in November 2022. “No other public institution asked about — including the Supreme Court, Congress, the presidency, the news media or law enforcement — has seen such a sharp decline in public trust over this time,” the poll noted. Interestingly, the number one reason for the drop in the public’s confidence in the military is “[m]ilitary leadership becoming overly politicized,” with “62 percent saying it decreased their trust.”
What service members are witnessing is reflected in Army documents recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. These documents show that the Army trains its personnel on “pronoun usage . . . and a serviceman who wants ‘to discuss his newly confirmed pregnancy.'” The training also notes that “[a]nyone may encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex,” but transgender soldiers aren’t “required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers.”
The WSJ Editorial Board concludes, “[t]his type of re-education was accelerated by President Biden’s 2021 executive order directing agencies to ‘increase the availability and use of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility training.’ It’s a form of political indoctrination intended to impose woke values on the . . . U.S. military.”
The Heritage Foundation poll results contradict Congressional testimony by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark A. Milley, who testified in June 2022 in a heated exchange before the House Armed Services Committee, and seemed to contradict each other. When pressed by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) about a course at West Point that discussed Critical Race Theory and a seminar on “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage,” Secretary Austin responded “We do not teach critical race theory. We don’t embrace critical race theory,” and explained that even discussing it was “a spurious conversation.” But Chairman Milley, in later testimony, explained that West Point “is a university” and “I want to understand white rage and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” seemingly in defense of the West Point course and seminar discussed.
Legal Insurrection’s own deep-dive into critical race theory teachings at CriticalRace.Org seems to support the poll results, showing deeply political content being taught at every military service academy, including the Coast Guard Academy, Merchant Marine Academy, and Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
For example, at the Air Force Academy, mandatory diversity training included a video on the subject of Black Lives Matter and “involved eliminating the words ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ in an effort to coach inclusion language usage as part of the diversity and inclusion training.” Additionally, the Air Force Academy provides a “Cadet Wing Diversity and Inclusion Program,” where graduates are given a purple rope to wear across their left shoulder “symbolizing their position as a diversity representative” so that they can “advise students on diversity.”
At the Naval Academy, my alma mater, “the academy’s ‘Midshipman Diversity Team’ is ‘developing a midshipman-led, comprehensive plan to identify midshipman-level shortfalls within our Naval Academy family with the goal of proposing a plan to resolve these issues of privilege, bias, and racial injustice.'” Additionally, the academy’s “Center for Teaching and Learning has several faculty resources including PowerPoint Presentations on topics such as . . . ‘How to Create an Anti-Racist Classroom: Developing and Implementing an Anti-Racist Pedagogy,’ Video Presentations on ‘Teaching Race,’ and books such as ‘How to Be an Anti-Racist’ by Ibram X. Kendi,” despite Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday deleting that book from his recommended reading list after major backlash.
The other service academies are similar, which underscores the results of the Heritage Foundation poll discussed at the beginning of this post.
On a personal note, I am having trouble recalling anything political remotely similar to the above roiling the military during my time on active duty as it is today. This development is deeply disheartening from a subjective, personal perspective, as it is clear that the color-blind meritocracy that once ruled the day is rapidly being replaced by one requiring adherence to diversity dogma, or at best turning a blind eye to the latest political initiatives. It is also disheartening objectively speaking: not only does training on “diversity,” “inclusion,” and proper responses to sharing bathroom facilities with personnel having genitals of the opposite gender necessarily detract from the ever-present imperative to train relentlessly to fight and win our nation’s wars, but overly politicizing the military is likely responsible, at least in part, for the military’s extreme difficulty in meeting its recruitment goals.
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