Army Secretary Claims the Military Isn’t Woke. 25 Incidents Prove Her Wrong.
For someone who says she doesn’t know what “wokeness” is, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has certainly presided over her fair share of it. Desperate to change the conversation from the branch’s pitiful recruiting numbers, Wormuth is frantically trying to defend the military’s obsession with “equity, diversity, and inclusion” while the world is teetering on the brink of nuclear war. Her strategy, apparently, isn’t to just ignore the services’ extremism, but to deny it even exists — a doomed mission, if there ever was one.
“You know we get criticized, frankly, sometimes for being woke. I’m not sure what ‘woke’ means,” Wormuth said on Monday. “But first of all, I would say if woke means we are not focused on war fighting, we are not focused on readiness, that doesn’t reflect what I see at installations all around the countries or overseas when I go to visit,” she insisted.
That’s interesting, since the explosion of military radicalism is about as difficult to miss as a North Korean rocket. It doesn’t matter which base Wormuth visits or what service academy she tours, the steady drumbeat of social experimentation is everywhere you look. It’s a cancer of wokeism so deadly that leaders like West Point grad Mike Pompeo are warning that not only will it destroy the military, but America too. “A woke military is a weak military,” he argues. “Unfortunately, woke and weak are exactly what our military is becoming under Biden’s leadership.”
It started barely 24 hours into Joe Biden’s term — and has mushroomed into a culture so pervasive that service members now say, “merely questioning” the mission-compromising wokeism “is punished, and that punishment is swift, harsh, and public.” That’s a far cry from Wormuth’s public posture, which she reiterated Monday. “… [W]e do have a wide range of soldiers in our army, and I think we do have to make them feel included.” So far, that “inclusion” has taken some interesting forms: suspicion, suspension, termination, and investigation for anyone not toeing the radical line.
That’s why Wormuth’s call for neutrality is so ironic. “One of the things I think that’s most important… is keeping the Army apolitical and keeping it out of the culture wars.” To that, most service members and other freedom-loving Americans would say: you first. The president, Pentagon, and branch leaders are the ones distracting our military with this mission-compromising wokeism. They would welcome the return of a real warfighting ethos over the mockery Democrats have made of our fighting force.
As Family Research Council’s Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin told The Washington Stand, “Secretary Wormuth isn’t facing reality. Almost every soldier in today’s Army has a pretty good understanding of what ‘woke’ means, because they have been fed a steady diet of it over the last two years. This ‘diversity, equity, inclusion’ focus is a solution looking for a problem. I encourage Secretary Wormuth to take a realistic look at the wasted training time in today’s Army while pursuing a woke agenda the secretary cannot define.”
In the meantime, if Wormuth needs some help identifying military wokeness, maybe these will jog her memory:
- January 2021: Biden Welcomes Transgenderism back into the Military, Scrapping Trump Policy
- January 2021: Army Punishes Chaplain for Opposing Transgenderism in the Ranks
- March 2021: Pentagon Launches Extremist Stand-Down
- March 2021: White House Announces Taxpayer-Funded Gender Reassignments for Troops
- March 2021: Navy under Fire for Reading List that Promotes America as ‘Systemically Racist’
- May 2021: Space Force Suspends Lt. Colonel for Denouncing Marxism
- June 2021: DOD Asks for Money to Combat Climate Change
- June 2021: Critical Race Theory Infiltrates U.S. Military Academies
- June 2021: Military Defends Drag Show at Largest Training Center as ‘Essential to Morale’
- June 2021: Pentagon Warns Chaplains to Affirm the LGBT Lifestyle
- February 2022: Army Introduces Strategy to Fight the ‘National Security Threat’ of Global Warming
- April 2022: Military Offers ‘Compassionate Reassignments’ for Service Members in Red States
- April 2022: Defense Secretary Considers Adding Nonbinary or ‘Polygender’ Troops to Ranks
- May 2022: Air Force Library Forced to Cancel Drag Queen Story Hour after GOP Pressure
- June 2022: Marines Celebrate Pride Month with Rainbow Bullets
- June 2022: Gratuitous Pride Tweets Circulate across the Branches
- June 2022: Pentagon Hosts ‘Transgender Visibility and Progress’ Event
- June 2022: Langley Air Force Base Hosts a Taxpayer-Funded Drag Queen Show
- June 2022: Democratic Leaders Resurrect Push for Women in the Draft
- June 2022: Navy Launches Training Video on the Correct Use of Personal Pronouns
- June 2022: Army Investigates Chaplain for Celebrating the End of Roe v. Wade
- June 2022: Pentagon Expands Access, Leave, and Travel for Service Member Abortions
- September 2022: Veterans Affairs Announces the Start of Taxpayer-Funded Abortions
- September 2022: Military Accused of Indoctrinating Kids with Woke Gender Ideology, CRT in Base Schools
- September 2022: Air Force Cadets Warned Not to Use ‘Gendered’ Words like ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad’
With a track record like this, it’s no wonder the military can’t find anyone to enlist. As one soldier said, “I would not have my children join for the same reason they are in private schools vs. public schools.” In other words, Wormuth had better figure out what “woke” means — and fast. Or pretty soon, there won’t be anything left to recruit for.
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.