A 31-member Military Leadership Diversity Commission, set up by the Lame Duck Congress a year ago, requested that the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, execute a “social experiment on diversity”; the goal of the recommendations is to change the make-up of the leadership of the US Armed Forces.  The Commission contains a sizable number of civilian-equal opportunity professionals, as well as some retired and active military personnel.  Because ethnic minorities are less likely to meet eligibility requirements for entrance into the US Armed Forces, the Commission is urging the Army, Navy,  Marine Corps, and Air Force to either lower or eliminate the standards that have always been used for acceptance of recruits into the military.  The Commission proposal states education, entry test level scores, criminal records, and drug use that up to this time have been used to disqualify a large numbers of applicants, including some minorities and all felons, unfair and should be eliminated.  The commission completed a 162-page report and strongly recommended that the Secretary of Defense and the Congress endorse the proposals, that they act to execute the Commission’s “social experiment on diversity”.  The Commission wants Secretary Gates to appoint a “Diversity Czar” who will bypass the Congress on all future matters concerning their proposed “social experiment on diversity” and that in the future the Diversity Czar be permitted to by-pass Congress and report directly to the Defense Secretary.   Another of the many recommendations is that at confirmation, all future flag officer selectees be required to demonstrate to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they have a rich background in promoting the “social experiment on diversity”; future promotions to flag would no longer be based upon what senior officers are best qualified to lead military personnel into combat and/or would be most effective at improving their command’s “Combat Effectiveness”.  While the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is driving the current aggressive indoctrination of the US Armed Forces, in order to turn the US Military into an openly homosexual organization, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission is pressing the Pentagon to make additional destabilizing changes to the US Armed Forces in the midst of three theatres of armed conflict.  Among the many initiatives in its study, is a recommendation to open infantry and armor units to women; the study said that women should be allowed into male-only units to “create a level playing field” in promotions “for all service members who meet the qualifications.”

Hardened Combat Veterans say that “direct ground combat” is not like an MP being subjected to exchange of small-arms gunfire with insurgents, or of military personnel being wounded by an IEDs when transiting in a convoy, or a service member being abducted by terrorists while on patrols or on guard duty.  There is a true lack of understanding of exactly what direct ground combat entails, what closing with and destroying an enemy combatant by the most violent means available is; often it is a direct eye-to-eye confrontation, then being required to employ upper-body physical strength that physically fit US Marines, US Army Rangers, or US Navy SEALs train for.   Direct ground combat is defined as an action when opposing forces engage in violent, intense, close-in, hand to hand combat.  According to former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, General Carl Mundy, units which are trained repeatedly into fine-tuned teams to engage and defeat the enemy directly, exist and operate on the basis of masculine cohesion.  “I believe that female service members bring tremendous skills and talents to many sectors of our armed forces, but I believe equally strongly that they are not best suited for the unique demands associated with direct combat units.”

Congressman Allen West as well as Congressman Duncan D. Hunter, 2 of the 12 endorsed Combat Veteran For Congress who were elected in the 2010 mid-term election (out of the full slate of 27 endorsed candidates who won their primary elections), have already gone public on their view of the proposed “social experiment on diversity”; they feel the proposal is  intrusive and inappropriate.   “This is the last thing the military should be thinking about,” said Cong Duncan D. Hunter, a member of the Armed Services Committee who saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan as a US Marine Corps Officer.  “Our military is engaged in a shooting war,” the California Republican stated.  “This is just another distraction that can’t interfere with what’s most important – winning in Afghanistan.  Congressman Hunter added, “some people seem to think the military is a staging ground for social testing, and that attitude only puts lives at risk.”  Congressman Allen West, a Florida Representative, who as a senior Army officer completed a 1 ½ year combat tour of duty in Iraq, and a 2½ year combat tour of duty in Afghanistan said “The US Military is a merit based organization where anybody can succeed.” Congressman West said the report  “is a slap in the face to those minorities who have achieved seniority”. In an interview with The Daily Caller, Congressman West, who is black, was not pleased with the report, saying that the military is not a social experiment for outside groups to impose their theories.

The US Naval Academy Admissions Office now openly practices the “social experiment of diversity”.  The Naval Academy Admissions Board now admits student with SAT scores in math as low as 410 and verbal scores as low as 370; the SAT score cut off for Midshipmen had normally been around 600 out of a possible score of 800.  A former Admission Board Member agreed to make the following statement on conditions of anonymity; he said “ The unfairness is absolutely real.”  The “social experiment on diversity” has been driven by the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff’s and the CNO since their appointments, and has resulted in the admittance of marginal students, mostly athletes and minorities, while by-passing  fully qualified white male students in the pool of 15,000 applicants annually.  The results of the admittance of marginal students has been an increase in serious violations of regulations such as drug use (resulting in multiple dismissals), excessive use of liquor and inebriation on weekend liberty,  increased violations of the Honor Code requiring retraining to retain minority students (as a former member of the Honor Committee there was no such thing as honor retraining; Midshipmen do not lie, cheat, or steal), and recently one Midshipman lied to a law enforcement officer when in custody for a federal offense.  The Brigade of Midshipmen have been negatively affected by the “social experiment on diversity”, and now the US Armed forces will be subjected to that same “social experiment on diversity” during a wartime and combat environment.  The Supreme Court has ruled that admission procedures at institutions of higher education that consider acceptance by setting percentages of race and gender in the make-up of an entering freshman class is discriminatory and those actions by any College Admissions Board is a violation of federal law.

The “social experiment on diversity” imposed on the Brigade at the US Naval Academy, pushing an openly homosexual environment on the US Armed Forces, and now a proposal by the Military Leadership Diversity Committee have collectively put the US Military under unreasonable destabilizing pressure during a wartime environment.  The proposal by the Commission to select future flag officers of the US Armed Forces using some type of litmus test on diversity will not improve the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US Military.   By recommending that senior military officers should only be selected for flag if they pass a litmus test on diversity, and selecting race and gender in some preset percentages, will not result in the promotion of the most qualified senior officers who would improve the “Combat Effectiveness “ of the US Armed Forces (there will longer be flag officers like Admiral Bull Halsey, General Patton, General Chesty Puller, General Jimmy Doolittle, etc., because they would not be “politically correct” selectees, besides they are all white males).  The American people are unaware of the aforementioned coordinated assaults on the most effective and professional military organization in the world, they are not aware that the agenda that is being driven by socialists and liberals who oppose the US Armed Forces’ high standards of duty, honor, country, and its support for the Judeo-Christian religions teachings is hurting the stability and effectiveness of the USD Armed Forces.  Those coordinated assaults by progressives, pushing a “social experiment on diversity”, will weaken the US Military over the long term.  The actions of outside forces supported by the Obama Administration have continued to push the above listed changes that are marginalizing the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US Armed Forces.  The US Military has protected and defended the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Republic for 234 years, experimenting with the structure and make-up of the US Military and assaulting its leadership structure will certainly destabilize the US Armed Forces.  We must rely on the judgment of the 12 elected Combat Veterans For Congress to coordinate their efforts with other C0ngressmen to halt the above listed dangerous experiments with the US Armed Forces. 
  

Joseph R. John, USNA ’62

Capt           USN (Ret)