The idea, “go woke, go broke” is one we are seeing more frequently

August 20, 2024

The current mentality that is gaining acceptance considers so much of our culture and history as false or troublesome and in need of replacement, and is succeeding to a dangerous degree. 

Commonly known as being “woke,” the beliefs it supports are things like white people are automatically and always oppressors and non-white people are always oppressed, that historical things and people that are viewed as bad by the “woke” should be removed or destroyed, that what has been traditionally taught as American History is false, and so on.

In trying to calm things down, people frequently join the parade in removing and changing things so that they are less upsetting to those who find them offensive. In some cases, this might be acceptable.

This movement has caused a lot of confusion and emotional distress. And there is at least one area where this is very dangerous and must be stopped. That is in the military forces of the United States of America.

Those who are or have been in our military, or are otherwise familiar with it and its nature, understand how dangerous this is. Even so, some in higher positions have been infected with this idea to the degree that they are imposing changes to how our military operates in order to smooth things out.

However, in smoothing things out, they are making the military less well equipped and weaker to the point that it is less able to do the only thing it exists to do: Defend the country and its interests, protect us from threats and invaders, and eliminate anyone who seeks to harm the USA.

In 2015 a Marine Corps study showed that gender-integrated combat formations — those with both men and women in combat — did not move as quickly or shoot as accurately as men-only units, and that women were twice as likely to suffer combat injuries. The Secretary of the Navy at the time, Ray Maybus, rejected the study because it did not meet the Obama/Biden administration’s political agenda.

However, that same year Defense Secretary Ashton Carter imposed “gender-neutral” operational standards so that female service members could meet the qualifications for combat positions. When it turned out that women were scoring lower than men, the standards were abandoned, and despite their lower performance on qualifying tests, women were, and presumably still are, allowed to be in combat units.

In 2016 Maybus ordered a change in Navy job titles, doing away with titles like “corpsman” and replacing them with gender-neutral titles. However, the enlisted sailors strongly objected, preferring the historic titles from previous decades, and the Navy reversed that change. As “wokeness” continues to infect the military, this change may be, and perhaps has been, reinstituted.

In 2021, the Navy began using a training video explaining the importance of using the correct pronouns. In order to not upset some sailors, inclusive language is now required, such as saying “hey everybody” rather than “hey guys.”

Outside of the military and in the country generally has been promotion of the idea that America is actually a country where racism and white privilege abound. This flawed concept has crept into the military, where men and women service personnel are required to sit through indoctrination programs. These sessions push the Marxist-based idea of critical race theory, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), and other similar ideas.

However, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the House Armed Services Committee: “We do not teach critical race theory, we don’t embrace critical theory, and I think that’s a spurious conversation.”

Others in the Pentagon argue that critical race theory actually is being taught, and that charge is supported by abundant evidence.

Even if CRT was a valid aspect of America, taking up the time of military members with these indoctrination sessions is at odds with the duties and responsibilities of our military services. And the reported billions of dollars of costs associated with these new ideas is a dangerous use of military funds, which should be used for national security and military readiness purposes only.

As the late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh frequently said, the role of the military is to “kill people and break things” in defense of our country. It is precisely the most improper place to indulge in promoting social issues.

Whether our military forces are all white, black, Asian, or Hispanic, or all male or female or some mixture of all of those, it must be the absolute best equipped, most highly trained, and most efficient military possible.

You might expect that, of all people, those in leadership of the Defense Department would understand that. However, many of those in top positions have apparently abandoned their sworn duty and common sense. Fortunately, the rank and file personnel under their leadership — the ones that put their lives on the line and live or die from their policies — do understand the true purpose they must fulfill.

We must quit playing games and focus only on the mission of the nation’s military forces. With the existing threats to our national security, we cannot allow our service personnel to be required to worry about using the proper pronouns, and other idiotic ideas that weaken our security.

There’s never a good time for military weakness. Especially now!

A story sent to me by a friend was written by a man with many years of active service in the United States Air Force. His story began, “Tomorrow morning will be the final day I lace up my boots and put on my Air Force uniform. I have now served my country in uniform for years but it is time to go.”

He said it wasn’t the pay and benefits, although he made less than the $15 per hour that some people think every person ought to make, regardless of skill, experience or value of the job. He said he wasn’t thrilled to have been deployed in some 25 countries, but that wasn’t the reason, either.

“I currently am an AMMO troop,” he said. “Our mission is to build bombs and process numerous other munitions to take the fight to the enemy. We pretty much put ‘Warheads on Foreheads!’"

He holds the position quaintly stated by the late Rush Limbaugh, that the military “is designed to kill people and break things.” That description engendered much backlash, and many still argue against it. But the underlying truth still rules: The U.S. military has a very specific, demanding and critical responsibility; it must never be side-tracked from that vital and narrow obligation.

Our airman agrees. “Even though our mission is to kill, we are more worried about upsetting someone’s feelings versus getting the mission done,” he wrote. “We spend more time doing ancillary training than actually training. Even though I have a military driver’s license I have to be signed off in another database to drive a vehicle and then have a competency card saying I know how to drive on top of that. That is just a few examples of why I have decided to call it quits.” 

He said that the country needs to focus on what is really important, not what is politically correct, or we will no longer be tough enough to defend ourselves from those who wish to destroy us. “Perception is reality, and right now we are more scared of speaking our mind and hurting someone’s feelings versus doing the right thing,” he wrote.

Another person with a military background agrees. Josiah LIppincot, writing in The Federalist, said, “Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress in June that he wanted to understand ‘white rage,’ why ‘thousands of people’ tried ‘to assault this building and … overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.’”

“As a Marine Corps officer who served at the tail end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he continued, “I saw firsthand the rapid ideological transformation pervading the military in the wake of these disasters in the Middle East.”

Also recognizing the dangerous transformation of our military’s philosophy is columnist Kurt Schlichter, writing for Townhall.com.

“Fire all the generals. Invite a few back, maybe a dozen,” he wrote. “Clean out the Pentagon. Can all the ‘Diversity Consultants,’ ‘Equal Opportunity Officers,’ ‘Climate Change Mitigation Specialists,’ and every other strap-hanging oxygen thief who doesn’t contribute to the only thing the military should be focusing on right now”; protecting America.

This transformation of the military began under the presidency of Barack H. Obama, according to Retired Army Major General Paul Vallely. “He's intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged,” he wrote in March of 2014, after listing 99 military officers, including 16 flag officers, who were fired or driven out.

Two others in Vallely’s article agreed: Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady: “There is no doubt he (Obama) is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.” 

Retired Army Lt. General William G. Jerry Boykin: “Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause.”

The Afghanistan mess is also plagued in part by the goofy PC atmosphere that has invaded our military. Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender and racial equity, and other such things have no place in the U.S. military.

We need the most qualified person in every job, whether that is a position fighting the enemy, or a supporting position. And it makes absolutely no difference their skin color, whether male or female, and certainly not whether those categories are equally or fairly represented among active and reserve military personnel.

“A serious organization does not alternate its designation of America’s most serious threat between the weather, ‘racism,’” and other such things, Schlicter wrote.

Rest assured that generals, admirals and national leaders in China, Russia and the rest of the radical nations are not drumming their fingers on the table wondering what to do about alleged “supremacy,” racism, equity, how to defeat climate change, or which historical statues to take down and which buildings and bridges to rename.

We don’t need to be woke; we need to wake up, and get our act together, or before too long we’ll be kneeling before tyrants who kept their focus on what was important to them.

A Trump mandate: We have to restore America’s military strength

Everyone knows that the U.S. military is critical to the nation’s security, and that it is also important how foreign countries perceive America’s strength. That perception of our military and its civilian leadership can encourage careful, thoughtful and peaceful behavior by other countries, or a cavalier, carefree “we’ll do as we please” approach.

Now that the Barack Obama presidency is over, we must begin restoring the military and the world’s perception of America’s strength, both of which have been severely damaged over the last eight years. The security of not just our nation, but also of the world to a large degree, depend upon a strong America.

Back in 2015 Obama stated that the U.S. is now “the most respected country on Earth” thanks to his administration. That comment drew ire and fire on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” Host Bill O’Reilly and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer both reacted strongly to the comment, with O’Reilly countering, “No, we’re not respected by Putin, we’re not respected by ISIS and other terrorists, so I don’t know what he is referring to.” Krauthammer wondered, “what planet he's living on,” and pointed out that “allies who’ve depended on us for so long are finding themselves left hanging in the wind.”

The rest of the segment detailed the many foreign policy failures of the Obama administration that contradict Obama’s delusional statement.

Two years ago The Heritage Foundation said this about funding for the military: “Consecutive years of across-the-board budget cuts have significantly weakened the U.S. military. The military will likely need several years of reinvestment to return to a sound footing.”

It is instructive to look at just how Obama’s eight years have affected the armed forces from the perspective of active members of the military.

A poll conducted by the Military Times and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families was a voluntary, confidential online survey taken by 1,664 active members of the U.S. armed forces. 

The poll reflects that 51.5 percent of those responding had a generally unfavorable view of Barack Obama’s presidency, and that 29.1 percent had a very unfavorable view, the largest response of the five possible answers. Only 36.4 percent had a generally favorable view, and only 18.0 percent had a very favorable view.

The Marine Corps had the strongest level of disapproval at 60.3 percent, followed by the Army at 53.0, the Air Force at 49.6, and the Navy was the least disapproving at 45.9. Enlisted service members had a 52.1 percent disapproval rate, while 48.8 percent of commissioned officers disapproved.

Seventy-one percent think overall force levels are too low, and 43 percent think more deployed forces are needed, compared to 32 percent who think fewer deployed forces are needed.

Asked how the following “social” measures affected readiness, participants responded: Repealing “don’t ask don’t tell” helped, by 24 to 18 percent; gender integration within combat units hurt, by 30 to 15 percent; and transgenders in service hurt, by 41 to 12 percent.

Participants believe the U.S. is less safe because of drawdowns from Iraq (59 percent) and Afghanistan (54 percent), and less emphasis on large-scale overseas missions (42 percent), but more safe from greater reliance on special forces (58 percent) and training missions (51 percent). And they believe the top four significant threats to the U.S. come from the Islamic State and al-Qaida (70 percent), domestic Islamic terrorists (67 percent), China (64 percent), and Iran (49 percent).

They say the military is smaller and weaker, and the threats against the nation have increased.

In a campaign speech last September, candidate Trump outlined his view of the U.S. military, and said he planned to ask military brass to present a plan soon after he takes office to defeat and destroy ISIS, and that he will ask Congress to eliminate the defense sequester.

Among the goals he seeks are: Building an active Army of about 540,000; a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions; a Navy nearing 350 surface ships and submarines; an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft; and developing a new state-of-the-art missile defense system. And he intends to offset the spending for these goals by cutting waste and streamlining the bureaucracy, rather than increases in the $600 billion or so spent each year on the military.

"I'm going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody – absolutely nobody – is gonna (sic) mess with us," he said in a video posted on his campaign website.

Along those lines, his choice to run the Defense Department is retired Marine General James Mattis, a man well respected for his service and expertise, and who is expected to operationally strengthen all armed forces.

A strong military is just smart: Better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it. Blessedly, we now have a president who understands that a strong military presence can solve a host of problems before they ever materialize.

And, a president who strongly and unwaveringly supports what is good for America is a great improvement over the weak and tragic performance of the last eight years.

The U.S. armed forces have been weakened by budget cuts and ideology

In recent years America’s military has experienced operational readiness issues. A good bit of this is due to budget cuts resulting from the 2013 sequestration, but some sources also blame philosophical ideas about the military within the Obama administration.

Sequestration, as explained by CNN at the time, is “a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies, totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The cuts would be split 50-50 between defense and domestic discretionary spending. More than $500 billion will be cut from the Defense Department and other national security agencies, with the rest cut on the domestic side…”

The Pentagon, under then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, planned to reach its mandated cuts through furloughs of hundreds of thousands of civilian workers in combat readiness training and weapons maintenance. He said at the time that the $46 billion in cuts the first year would significantly affect military readiness, and the longer the sequestration lasts, the deeper cuts that will be required to achieve the mandated savings.

Just how badly this has affected military readiness is demonstrated in a Fox News story earlier this month. The U.S. Air Force, the smallest of the four major armed services, has cut staff to the degree that many military personnel now work extra shifts performing administrative jobs previously performed by civilians.

These cuts have put the Air Force in the position of being short 4,000 service personnel to maintain its aircraft and 700 pilots to fly them. Personnel are now cannibalizing parts from planes no longer in service and stored at a desert site called "The Boneyard" and from planes on display in museums to repair active aircraft.

Master Sgt. Bruce Pfrommer, who has worked on B-1 bombers for more than 20 years, told Fox that at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, where the 28th Bomber Wing is located, only nine of the 20 bombers there can fly. Those aircraft are closing in on 10,000 flight hours each, compared to about 1,000 when Pfrommer started working on them 20 years ago.

"Our retention rates are pretty low. Airmen are tired and burnt out,” Staff Sgt. Tyler Miller, of the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Ellsworth, told Fox. "When I first came in seven years ago, we had six people per aircraft — and the lowest man had six or seven years of experience," Miller said. "Today, you have three-man teams and each averages only three years of experience."

The Navy also has operational issues. A Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this month, titled “Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan” (OFRP) discusses problems facing our sea-going service. While the report does not specifically mention sequestration budget cuts, the symptoms support this as a least part of the problem.

An excerpt from the OFRP tells us that:
• Over the past decade, high operational tempo has reduced the predictability of ship deployments for sailors and for the industrial base that supports ship repair and maintenance. For example, carrier strike group deployment lengths have increased from an average of 6.4 months between 2008 – 2011 and 8.2 months between 2012 – 2014, to 9 months for three carrier strike groups in 2015.
• Increased deployment lengths have resulted in declining ship conditions and materiel readiness, and in a maintenance backlog that has not been fully identified or resourced, according to Navy officials.
• The declining condition of ships has increased the duration of time that ships spend undergoing maintenance in the shipyards, which in turn compresses the time available in the schedule for training and operations.

In its 2016 assessment of the four major military branches, the Heritage Foundation shows how true Panetta’s prediction was. The assessment rated the Army as “weak,” and the Navy, Marines and Air Force as “marginal,” rating the U.S. military overall as “marginal.”

In addition to budget cuts, reports of military brass being displeased with President Obama’s policies also pose questions.

Writing in Politico in 2013 Rosa Brooks noted, “In my interviews, however, many senior military leaders complained of feeling baffled and shut out by a White House National Security Staff.”

“The NSS wants to run the show, day to day and minute to minute,” laments a former military official, “so they have no time—they’re almost incapable of strategic thinking.” Another recently retired senior general said, “I don’t understand the process by which the White House is making strategic or foreign-policy decisions. … There’s an appearance of consultation, but you know you won’t be listened to.”

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution provides that the federal government “provide for the common defense.” But in Article Four, Section Four, it states specifically that the “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.” No other power of the federal government shares that strong a requirement for performance.

No reasonable observer would contend that the federal government is obeying its Constitutional mandate to “provide for the common defense.”

How does the Commander in Chief plan to fix this?