[Audio version of this post can be found here]

It’s not a flashy headline, so it often goes unnoticed or falls below the fold. But like a faucet with a slow, annoying drip, word that our military is increasingly unprepared for war has been leaking out.

Recruitment is down alarmingly, munitions supplies are criminally short, the Air Force has far fewer pilots than it needs, the Navy missed all of its recruiting goals for 2023, etc. And of course, the elephant in the room: China has nearly twice as many active personnel in their Army than the United States, and their reserve force outnumbers the United States by over 2-to-1. A simple web search on US military preparedness will lead you to story after story of how bad things are, and how they are only getting worse.

Given all of this, one would think the military would make every effort to retain what skilled troops it has. So it was with no small surprise that I caught the story of Commander Matt Lohmeier of the Space Force. He was recently fired for being publicly critical of the military’s DEI policies and the Marxist Critical Race theory it is founded on. Believing the distraction and divisiveness that the DEI policy caused among his troops undermined their core mission of protecting the nation, he spoke out against it. Was he rewarded for putting America first and being concerned about our nation’s interests and self-preservation? Of course not. He was relieved of his duties and stripped of his pension.

There have been recent efforts to pull-back some of the DEI nonsense. It is acknowledged by some on the Hill as being counter-productive, expensive, and politically motivated by proponents of cultural Marxism. But their efforts to de-fund DEI initiatives in the military have largely failed.

A recent study commissioned by the Arizona State University Center for American Institutions titled “Civic Education in the Military, Are Servicemembers more prepared for Microaggression or Macroaggression” revealed that the Pentagon’s DEI programs encouraged reporting private conversations on dissenting views of DEI and has been steadily increasing its resources. DEI initiatives in the military cost taxpayers $68 million in 2022 and $86.5 million in 2023, with a proposed $114.7 million for 2024.

You could buy a lot of bullets for $114.7 million dollars. Or pay enlistment incentives. Or improve the quality of life for troops in the hope of encouraging reenlistment.

Of course, social engineering in the military goes back a long way. At least as far as President Truman’s racial integration of the Armed Forces in 1948. But it wasn’t until Barack Obama’s administration that things really took a turn for the “woke”. In 2011, the Department of Defense established the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, and with the help of private-sector corporate sponsors, published a 162-page Report titled “From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st Century“. The Report and its recommendations – closely followed by the DoD – shifted priorities away from meritocracy and non-discrimination, moving toward “diversity” and “equity” as paramount goals in the military. Let me repeat that, because it’s critically important to effectiveness of the military in defending our nation and its interests: the Department of Defense Military Leadership Diversity Commission has determined that “diversity” and “equity” are more important than meritocracy, that is to say, a person’s competence or ability to do the job.

Just how critical is that? Think of it this way: if you were chest-deep in your defensive fighting position—the overly bureaucratic terminology for a foxhole—and had outbound artillery flying directly over your head, as I have, would you want the person aiming the artillery to be one who earned that job through demonstrated merit, ability, and competence, or someone who got plucked from the ranks and promoted based on his or her ability to check a DEI box and fulfill a racial quota? If the latter, be sure to dig that hole deep: those rounds are coming in short. How about servicing your jet? Manning your field hospital?

The irony is that this is all top-down social engineering. When I was in the service, we were all Green. My drill-sergeant was Black. My platoon leader was Black. My 1st Sgt was Samoan. The fella in the bunk next to me was Filipino. The Lieutenant was a Puerto Rican. Heck, even our commanding general was Black. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the job done when it needed to be done. Period. True, when off duty, each group typically hung-out with its own. But it worked. Yes, this was before women could serve in combat roles, but there were plenty of them in the support battalions. And it was before Slick Willie’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” – and certainly before this DEI nonsense, so there weren’t any pride flags. But that was fine: the flag we were defending – red, white, and blue – seemed to have enough color in it.

A recent report by the Center for Military Readiness notes some of the negative effects that prioritizing DEI nonsense has on preparedness:

• The Recruiting Crisis:
  A detailed analysis of recruiting data indicates that discriminatory policies are hurting the military as an institution. For several years, the Army, Navy and Air Force have struggled to meet recruiting goals. Examining the data closely, Military.com and the Daily Caller reported that minority recruitment has remained steady or increased, but a steep decline in white recruits is almost entirely responsible for the recruiting crisis.
• Pilot Shortages:
  DEI equity goals to increase non-white pilots may have been a factor pushing mid-career pilots with families to leave the Air Force and to take jobs flying for commercial airlines instead.
  On August 9, 2022, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and then-Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. co-signed a memorandum confirming the Air Force’s intent to reduce the percentage of white male officers from 64% to 43%. In effect, the Air Force told a large cohort of officers, most of them white males, that they were no longer wanted. Not surprisingly, in 2022 the Air Force found itself with a critical shortage of pilots.
• Trust and Confidence:
  The All-Volunteer Force has been a success, but there are signs that the AVF is losing public trust. For example, the annual defense survey by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, released in November 2023, found that only a slim majority of Americans, 51%, would recommend that family and friends join the military. This was a steep decline from the 2018 survey, when 70% said they would recommend joining the military. In July 2023, a Gallup Poll found that confidence in the military is at its lowest point in over two decades. Even among Republicans, the rate of confidence in the military has declined over twenty points, from 91% to 68%.

This latter point, the lack of trust and confidence, speaks to the heart of the recruiting problem. Surveys suggest that young people who consider joining the military don’t care one way or the other about the DEI and Alphabet people agendas in the military. But their older, veteran, more traditional family members do. And they are no longer encouraging their children and grandchildren to join the Service, having watched it become increasingly a DEI/Critical Race Theory playground. Traditionally the military has been predominately manned by rural white young men. Now they are being told they are not what the military is looking for and need not apply. And the powers-that-be in the Pentagon wonder why our Armed Forces are having trouble recruiting and retaining soldiers.

There is a lot covered in here, and a lot more that could be said. But to keep this to a reasonable length, I’ll call it quits here. If you are interested in learning more, be sure to follow some of the highlighted links above.

But here’s a question: Which of these do you think would be more intimidating to an adversary:

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This:

Or This:

Amerika Erwache!