When I joined the Army, in that fateful last decade of the Cold War, the NCOs at the Reception Station at Fort Dix, New Jersey, along with the drill sergeants in our basic training company (Echo Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Basic Training Brigade), made us very clear of one thing, and that was the primary purpose of the United States Army:
To close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect.
That is what they proceeded to teach us to do, and we went about learning, with the aggression and enthusiasm of young men, accompanied by a lot of shouting. When I had decided to join, my father, a World War 2 veteran, had told me, "This will change you in ways people who haven't been through it will never understand." He was right.
Then, sometime later, the Army in its infinite wisdom saw fit to bestow on me a commission as a second lieutenant, signed by President Reagan. While learning the ins and outs of leadership, I was taught one essential truth of the military: Mission is everything. If what you are doing helps the mission, keep doing it. If what you are doing impedes the mission, stop.
This impedes the military's mission.
Gender-affirming health care services are available throughout the Defense Health Agency at military hospitals and clinics. Each military hospital and clinic has a Transgender Care Liaison who can assist in connecting to local resources.
TRICARE covers hormone therapy and psychological counseling for gender dysphoriaGoes to TRICARE.mil.
- TRICARE generally doesn't cover surgery for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
- However, active duty service members may request a waiver through the Supplemental Health Care Program for medically-necessary, gender affirming surgery.
This pandering to a tiny minority of the population does not advance the military mission. The purpose of the armed forces is not to provide a jobs program for the neurotic, nor to offer taxpayer-funded medical care for their neuroses. The purpose of the armed forces is to protect the liberty and property of the citizens of the United States, and when necessary, to hunt down those who mean our country harm and change their pronouns to "was" and "were."
But it gets worse. In 2022, the Army began mandatory "Gender Awareness" training.
The Army will soon release a slideshow training Soldiers on how to properly interact with comrades who identify as a different gender. The entire slideshow hasn’t been revealed yet, but it has been confirmed as legitimate and part of an upcoming mandatory Army training by an Army spokesman. Several slides in the new gender identity training have been leaked online and through social media.
SCOOP: As Russia Wages War, US Army Forces Officers to Train on on Gender Identity -- Mandatory military training program obtained by @FreeBeacon pushes soldiers to undergo gender reassignment surgery https://t.co/4LAYbYmXIP
— Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) March 1, 2022
"Comrades?"
This is poison, to a structure whose purpose is to kill people and break things. People undergoing these treatments, for one thing, are undeployable, and therefore of limited use in the event of a major conflict. Furthermore, the addition of this mandatory training--and the provision of hormone therapy and counseling--actually serves to attract people suffering from gender dysphoria, who will be seeking to "transition" on the taxpayer's dime - and taking slots away from soldiers, sailors, airman and, yes, Marines, who are deployable. These people are not joining up to serve their country, to fight, to support the mission of finding bad guys and un-aliving them. And that, after all, is the mission.
These policies do not enhance the mission. They are detrimental to the mission.
In 1991, I joined General Schwarzkopf's Traveling Road Show, the Highway of Death Tour. In 1991, the Army was strong, capable, and determined. While I was not on the tip of the spear, my medical unit went up the Highway of Death shortly afterward, while the vehicles were still smoking. We didn't find any survivors.
In 1991, Saddam Hussein had the world's fifth-largest army. After about 48 hours of the air war, his few surviving pilots were looking at their airplanes and seeing coffins. When the ground war started, our troops went through Saddam's army like a dose of salts. It was a rout, nothing but, and that was because our troops were fit, motivated, well-equipped, and had, for the most part, great unit cohesion. It didn't happen because our forces were "diverse." It happened because we understood the mission: To find the Iraqi Army and start revoking birth certificates. It was over in a hundred hours, and that's why.
The armed services are like no other institution in our national life. They exist to protect, to fight, to kill when necessary, to die if it should come to that - although as General Patton famously said, the goal is to make the other poor dumb SOB die for his country. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are essential to our national security, and the Biden administration and the woke generals in the DoD are throwing this all away to appease the far left.
It's unforgivable. It's presenting a danger to our country. It has to stop.