Hegseth Bids Adieu to Military Wokeness

For the past four years, the very foundations of America have been shaken.

Formerly a nation with “liberty and justice for all,” the United States has seemingly strayed from its founding, claiming equal opportunity for all, while openly favoring some based on immutable characteristics like race or gender. This has posed a critical threat to military readiness and lethality at the Department of Defense.

Changes in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion have occurred across the federal government, redirecting attention away from the core competencies of the military and toward politicized, left-wing concerns.

However, thanks to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, this damaging trend is being reversed.

To abolish inherently racist practices that reward the possession of immutable characteristics, instead of true merit, Hegseth headed the creation of the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force Task Force,” charged with eliminating DEI efforts in the Pentagon.

The task force will champion efforts like ensuring fairness by eliminating the preferential treatment of students based on race or gender at universities, and no longer using gender or race when considering employees for promotions or special tasks.

Under the Biden administration, corrosive DEI policies were forced on the United States’ military. Some of the DEI initiatives the Biden administration implemented ultimately hindered the effectiveness of the DOD. For instance, the former secretary of the Air Force openly advocated for his goal of cutting down on the number of white males serving as Air Force pilots by 33%. This initiative showed that the real priorities were not inclusion or true merit.

In the last year of the Biden Administration, the Department of Defense asked for $114.7 million for DEI “initiatives” as part of Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 defense budget request. 

Hegseth wasted no time in fulfilling the orders of Trump, who just days before had issued an executive order titled “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” rescinding certain executive orders issued by the Biden administration.

Many of President Joe Biden’s orders were tailored to DEI practices within the federal government. Some of these initiatives  include his executive order on June 25, 2021, that “improves the collection of demographic data on the federal workforce, which included information on which employees are able to access professional development and advancement opportunities.”

This shows that Biden was more concerned with prioritizing so-called “inclusion” over an equal playing field for all employees.

Hegseth affirmed his commitment to President Donald Trump’s wishes through his elimination of race and sex as factors for military promotions, and unveiled his intention to set in motion a new task force to champion “merit-based, color-blind policies” in the U.S. military. Additionally, he called for the elimination of months being dedicated to LGBTQ ideals at the Department of Defense.

This task force has several main objectives: eliminating race or sex-based preferences for employees when offering promotions, abolishing sex or race-based quotas, ending instruction/workforce training on DEI, and stopping task forces that deal with subject matters like critical race theory or gender ideology.

In addition to these tasks, the force has been directed to include the teaching of American exceptionalism, as opposed to divisiveness and hatred for our country. Instead of bowing down to the DEI policies that have impacted Washington for so long, Hegseth is embracing new reforms to sweep across the nation that will focus on necessary traits for all DOD personnel like “lethality, meritocracy, and accountability.”

Drill sergeants used to tell soldiers that nobody in the Army was black or white – everyone was green. Highlighting and exacerbating divisions based on race is a recipe for failure that serves only as a dangerous distraction from the serious business of warfighting.

Focusing on what brings us together as Americans and why our troops choose to serve this great nation would be a better policy. Luckily, the Defense Department under Hegseth is once again focused on defending the national security interests of the American people and bringing all our troops together under one flag.

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