Would you be willing to fight and die for multiculturalism? Would you put your life on the line for “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity” (DIE); “Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance” (ESG); or other Marxist worldviews? Would you go to war to preserve the right of delusional men to use women’s restrooms and dominate women’s sports? Would you fight for any government that hunts down and imprisons J6 protesters as political hostages but celebrates Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters who cause physical injury and property damage?
I sure as hell wouldn’t. I will not fight for institutionalized racism, corporate Marxism, viewpoint discrimination, or the profits of multinational investment houses. I will not fight for people who wish to erase the First and Second Amendments while paying lip service to what’s left of the Bill of Rights. I will not fight for the Federal Reserve’s continued manipulation of the dollar or BlackRock’s control over foreign policy. I will not fight for a government that is guilty of murder, rape, drug-trafficking, and other violent crimes because the Department of Homeland Security refuses to enforce our sovereign borders. I will not fight for the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, or any other international body that seeks global control over local communities. I will not fight for a D.C. Deep State that calls me a “domestic extremist” or “terrorist” because I believe in freedom, family values, and God. I will not fight for a gaggle of worthless Pentagon politicos who think “patriotism,” “duty,” and “honor” are all dirty words. I will not fight for people who wish to destroy my country.
From the looks of it, I am far from alone. Writer Michael Letts brought a Rumble video to my attention in which Colonel Larry Wilkerson (retired) tells high school students bluntly: “I recommend none of you 18 and 19 year olds go into the military, because all your military is doing today is being led by people who are insane, infested with lust for money, who want to get out of the military and make seven, eight figures with defense contractors, [and] want war after war after war.” The 31-year Army veteran, who served in the Vietnam War, is devastated to “be saying that to young kids,” but he does not trust those in charge.
Who wants to volunteer for an organization that has watered down physical and mental fitness requirements and brags about unfairly promoting personnel based on their race or sexual identity? Who wants to serve under a politically motivated leadership class that views “white supremacy,” Christianity, and “climate change” as America’s existential enemies? Who wants to risk life and limb for Defense chiefs who punished service members for refusing experimental “vaccines” (and would do so again)?
The military recruiting crisis is so bad that the Army is now seeking retirees to come back in a desperate move to fill “critical position vacancies.” According to the directive, “There is no age limitation, although personnel older than 70 are not normally recalled.” No worries, America. Everything’s fine. We’re just looking for a few good men with experience — and senior citizen cards! Criminelly, I guess all those commercials highlighting a “woke” military culture and fondness for men in drag didn’t quite puff up enlistment figures enough to intimidate global adversaries.
Truth be told, bringing back the Old Dogs might be the only way to save an otherwise sinking ship — but only if yesterday’s soldiers are permitted to turn today’s soldiers into something more than their preferred pronouns. The Armed Forces are in dire need of an ideological fumigation that can drive the “woke” mind virus out for good. Unless the branches return to a culture that celebrates honor, strength, and merit, DIE-obsessed Marxists will continue to transform America’s once-intimidating fighting forces into a puny pack of politically correct toy poodles. Nothing invites aggression so much as perceived weakness.
Our current weaknesses are entirely self-inflicted. Despite the raging “woke” Cultural Revolution that is demolishing the West, America is still blessed with an outsized population of exceptional warriors who possess courage, discipline, self-sacrifice, and honor. If today’s military leadership fiercely defended those virtues against the invasion of Marxist groupthink and Orwellian political correctness, it would have no trouble filling its ranks. Instead, it has jettisoned the warrior’s code for some squishy ideology built around rewarding mediocrity and obsessing over feelings.
When General George S. Patton rallied troops before the Allied invasion of France, he roared, “Americans love to fight. ... Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. ... That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to America.” Although “Old Blood and Guts” was highly effective at motivating the Third Army during WWII, his conviction that we could never lose a war has proved less prophetic.
That’s not because rough-and-tumble Americans love to fight and win any less than prior generations. It’s because too much of today’s military and political leadership not only “tolerate” losers, but also are downright “hateful” to America. America’s fighting forces cannot be effectively led by an untrustworthy crew of pompous showboats, unethical sellouts, self-serving ladder-climbers, politicians in dress uniform, anti-American globalists, intellectual lightweights, tubby couch potatoes, medal-polishers, or wimps. Wars are lost when losers are promoted and winners are kept down.
Frankly, the U.S. government has done so much damage to personal liberty and private property rights here at home that fighting any war overseas seems extraneous compared to the need to restore constitutional order. As a bankrupt nation with insurmountable debts, fighting unwinnable wars is not only foolish but also suicidally extravagant. Why should young men and women volunteer to die in foreign lands so that BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street can add trillions to their portfolios? Why should warriors rally around the flag just so politicians and former military officers can cash enormous checks? Who wants to fight for empire abroad when freedom is under attack right here on American soil?
“There are only two things we should fight for,” Major General Smedley Butler famously argued. “One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.” Known by his fellow Marines as “Old Gimlet Eye” and the “Fighting Hell-Devil,” Butler came to that conclusion through hard experience. Having received the Medal of Honor twice over the course of a 34-year military career in which he saw combat in China’s Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine-American War, the Mexican Revolution, the Banana Wars, and World War I, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history at the time of his death in 1940. After his retirement in ’31, the war hero became a critic of America’s many foreign entanglements, concluding that he had primarily served as “a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.”
“The trouble with America,” Butler observed, “is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.” Not only did he demand an end to war profiteering, but Butler insisted, “Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.” Why? Because the cost of any war “is always transferred to the people who do not profit.” War is the only “racket” in which “profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
The “Fighting Hell-Devil” was right. Americans should fight for their homes, their freedoms, and their way of life.