Here are my observations and opinions on the latest use of our armed forces to participate in a social justice experiment.

HOW DISAPPOINTING IT WAS to learn that our Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has decided to again subject our military service men and women to social justice experimentation.

LOOKING BACK – While the military has been dealing with homosexuality since the Revolutionary War, it wasn’t until July 19, 1993 that President Clinton announced his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which permitted gay Americans to serve in the military as long as they remained closeted.  It went into effect in February 1994 after passing as a federal statute by Congress.

When President Obama took office, it was said that as commander-in-chief he began viewing the military less as an entity designed to destroy enemies but a tool with which to achieve his progressive goals.  Warriors were turned into social justice warriors.

He promised to repeal DADT during his 2008 campaign, but it wasn’t until September 20, 2011 that it became official.  The ban on women serving in ground combat units was lifted in 2013, and in 2015, gay service men and women were protected from discrimination under the Military Equal Orientation policy.

In his book, “Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America’s Military,” James Hasson wrote, “The Obama administration was packed with far-left ideologues who neither understood nor cared to understand the military under their control.”

“The military is not the stage upon which such whimsy should play out.” – Kyle Smith, NY Post

“Our military has the power to lead the way … driving change not only within the armed forces, but within American society as a whole,” Hasson quotes Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett.

While Jarrett cited frequent meetings with Pentagon senior civilian and military leaders to generate “bold initiatives that will make a real difference,” Hasson wrote that those senior military leaders had nearly unanimous objection to those “bold initiatives.”

While the Obama administration conducted social experimentation, it paid little or no attention to the ability of these warriors to conduct warfare as replacing and updating military hardware was ignored.

During the Obama administration, ships were named after farm labor leader Cesar Chavez and the gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, examples of Obama’s in-your-face position on military tradition.

Clearly, President Trump has improved military morale despite the recent criticism by disgruntled generals and admirals.  He has improved pay and benefits and has obtained funds to restore their hardware needs.  In addition, he has improved the services of the Veterans Administration.  Trump continues to deal with transgender service issues and the medical costs associated with surgery and psychiatric care.

FLASH FORWARD – On June 18, 2020, Secretary of Defense Esper sent a message to military members announcing the establishment of the new, internal “Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion in the Military,” an obvious knee jerk response to the recent attention given “racism.”

“(The board), he said, “will conduct a six-month sprint to develop concrete, actionable recommendations to increase racial diversity and ensure equal opportunity across all ranks, and especially in the officer corps.”

It took Esper the first two pages of his four-page, single-spaced memorandum to lay the groundwork for establishing the Board. “Removing bias and prejudice in all its forms, and ensuring equal opportunity and respect for all will make us stronger, more capable, and more ready as a joint force,” he wrote.

Using our armed forces as his experimental laboratory, weighing issues of race, bias, inequality in the ranks, Esper stated that his goal “is to effect an enterprise-wide, organizational and cultural shift.”

While there was no mention in his message that this experiment was endorsed by the commander-in-chief, come December, when the results are in, I would hope that President Trump would be briefed and consulted on recommended changes.

As an eight-year Air Force veteran, who later experienced the ill-conceived need for diversity training during my aerospace industry career, I view Esper’s experiment as “eye wash” to appease the politically correct on the left.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.