After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, I served as a tank captain in Germany during the final days of the Cold War. Our crew patrolled the Iron Curtain; were a conflict to break out, we knew we would be outnumbered in the fight by a margin of seven to one. We weren’t just facing down an enemy army, though: As President Ronald Reagan stated, in facing the Soviet Union, we were facing a true “evil empire,” an empire whose foundation was not just tanks, or infantrymen, or nuclear warheads. Marxism formed the core of the communist lie we fought against. Now, Marxism’s false, empty, and broken ideas – ideas that America defeated over 30 years ago – are taking root throughout our nation’s military. That’s unacceptable. America’s military needs to wake up.
This sickness has most recently taken hold in the Air Force. The United States Air Force Academy – the sister university to West Point – has created a fellowship program that excludes men who identify as men. Academy cadets are being told to avoid committing “microaggressions” by replacing terms such as “you guys” and “terrorists” with terms that have been deemed “less offensive.” Instructors tell cadets that they should use the terms “parent or caregiver,” instead of saying “mom and dad.” You can say “partner,” but not “boyfriend or girlfriend.” Under the Biden Administration, our Air Force cannot call terrorists what they are, yet considers “mom and dad” to be offensive language. We have put pronouns over potency in our fighting forces.
It doesn’t stop with the Air Force. As I have discussed before, on its “Foundational” reading list for sailors, the Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading Program included Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Antiracist. West Point, my alma mater, is now employing aspects of critical race theory in its administration and teaches critical race theory to cadets.
Critical race theory, wokeness, and similar Marxist offshoots propose that race, gender, and other arbitrary characteristics must determine relationships between people, even between soldiers. They propose that racism is, supposedly, still concealed within the fabric of America’s military institutions. Even communist nations today, such as the People’s Republic of China, reject such notions in their own militaries for the sake of military readiness and cohesion.
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. Unfortunately, woke and weak are exactly what our military is becoming under President Biden’s leadership.
There can only be one standard in our nation’s military: excellence. Anything else undermines the core values of faith, honor, duty, and service to others that are the pillars of America’s military power.
When I think of excellence, I think of the young gunner in my platoon. He was an immigrant who had chosen to fight for America. I didn’t choose him to be my gunner because of who he was, or his background, or his race or identity. I chose him because he could hit a moving target at a distance of three miles with a 105-millimeter round. I chose him because he was good, because he was excellent and noble. Not one person in my crew – not one – cared about race or identity. What we cared about was whether you could perform your duties with excellence under the greatest pressures imaginable. That’s what is at the core of a successful and powerful military: excellence. That is what our armed forces should center their training and standards around, just as they have for all of their existence.
We must do everything we can to stop the spread of wokeness throughout our military and put a stop to it. Our national security, and the lives of the men and women who fight for us, depend upon it.
This week I am launching a nationwide campaign to stop the spread of readiness-killing wokeness in our military. I will never give an inch in defense of our nation’s military.
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
In his article “Destabilizing The World,“ Christian author Hal Lindsey criticized the anti-Christian “wokeness” engulfing the American Military under President Biden.
“The American planners forgot that wars are not won by military equipment, but by men — men who believe in the cause, and whose commitment and trustworthiness make them resolute and courageous. And that should deeply concern every US citizen because in recent years our military has changed,” Lindsey explained. “Instead of training men to win wars, we train them to be politically correct. Top levels of the military have changed their focus from readiness to wokeness.”
“Today’s American leaders have no idea of what made America great in the first place,” he described. “The United States was never a ‘Christian nation’ in the traditional sense. Instead of a state-church, our forefathers wrote religious freedom into our constitution. But until recently, this country revered God and the Bible.”
“That reverence put steel into America’s backbone,” he underscored. “The nation often failed to live up to God’s standards, but those standards freed the slaves and inspired the civil rights movement. Those standards became the basis for the Declaration of Independence and for the Bill of Rights. The United States now seems intent on throwing away this great heritage of faith — and with it the rights we once cherished.”
