Above is a former Special Forces soldier, who made the transition — see his story. According to the leaders of the US Armed Forces, the future is a more diverse military. A Military Times article about the future special operations:
The days of Oakleys’ bearded, burly Oakleys man as special operations face might be over. Special operation forces require a new focus, according to the director of strategy and plans for Special Operations CommandCentral.
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She acknowledged that there is a place in the door-knocker approach, but she said that the people, the mindset and the creativity that they are trying to recruit are very different.
It might be that some of this focus is on the civil affairs or psychological operations sections of SOCOM. These organizations do more “hearts, minds,” work before a conflict reaches the point that operators are going after high value targets in the middle-of-the-night.
The other could be indicative of SOCOM’s recent commitment towards diversity and inclusion. It aims, most notably to recruit more women or minorities to SOF organizations.
“… but it is difficult for them promote and bring in talent that looks different from them,” Crombe said about the existing leadership. He spoke of those who were there in the era of the bearded, burly operator but also in a time when combat deployments were more important than any other measure or leadership.
She said that if someone takes time from the deployment churn in order to further their education, or to take a job outside of the prescribed pipeline, it “just, it doesn’t count somehow in these [selection] boards.”
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She stated that the issue is not just preserving this diversity but also keeping it in the organization so that they can be promoted to the top ranks and leave a lasting impression.
SOCOM must put people in leadership positions it would not normally choose, but it will also have to learn to accept the results.
Haver stated, “And I believe that that’s probably one of the most diverse takeaways.” It’s going look very different from what most people are used to, so we will have to be uncomfortable as we move forward. It’s a team effort, which is the best part.
Can you believe it? This is about war-fighting. Pentagon refers to recruiting and promoting other characteristics than those that can fight wars. Is it possible to be “agree with the results” even if things don’t go as planned? We should accept losing a war but know that we did it with a diverse fighting force.
This ideological madness will have to end. America must get its teeth kicked in major war. Stalin had a history of transferring capable officers to the Soviets who were not ideologically reliable. This is one reason why they did poorly in World War II. Are there any white male officers who are leaving the US military because of its politicization or won’t be able to fulfill their potential because they are disillusioned?
This is what kind of military it is. For one, the British military. Sky News report from the past summer:
Defence sources claim that the head of RAF recruitment quit in protest over an “effective pause” on offering jobs to white male recruits in favor of women and minorities.
According to sources, the senior female officer gave her notice in recent days because she was concerned that such temporary restrictions on hiring could weaken the fighting strength Royal Air Force (RAF).
They claimed that the service was trying to achieve “impossible diversity targets”.
Defence sources claimed that Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston (head of the RAF) appeared willing to compromise UK security in a time when Russia and China are growing threats. This was in pursuit of important, but not necessarily unimportant, goals like improving diversity and inclusion.
One defense source pointed out that General Sir Patrick Sanders (the head of the army) has compared today’s security problems to those of the Second World War. He warned that the UK is now facing its “1937 moment”.
The source stated that “Then, you can look at the head RAF and he’s willing to break the operational requirement for the air force just so we meet diversity [targets]”.
“I believe he should be taken to the Ministry of Defence. They should tell him: This is the defense agenda. Get on it!”
The Chinese have been paying high-dollar to former Royal Air Force fighter pilots in order to train communist fighter pilots. Did Lenin say that capitalists would sell them the rope they use to hang them?
I have had the pleasure of working in newsrooms that made diversity recruitment a top priority. This resulted in minorities being hired based on their ethnicity, and not their ability to perform the job — and it paid off. However, this is not to suggest that racial minorities cannot do journalism well. This would be not only racist but also absurd. Instead, it is important to note that if you hire people to do work for other reasons than their ability to complete the mission, you can’t avoid compromising it.
It was odd that it was happening at a time newspaper journalism was in decline. I would have expected that newsroom leadership would have been focused on making newspapers that are sustainable. “Best” is defined as something that people are willing to pay for. It didn’t. ASNE, the trade association for journalists, sent me emails obsessing about the failure of newsrooms in meeting diversity recruitment targets. They didn’t care about the quality or diversity of “diverse” applicants; they only saw them as representing their race. They didn’t say it, but they believed that diversity was a quality.
Journalism is different if it offers a deeper and more comprehensive view of the world than a monochromatic newsroom. For example, a newspaper serving a majority-minority or high percentage of minority cities might consider seeking out minority journalists. However, this is only possible if the journalist is otherwise capable of fulfilling their mission. Many people outside professional journalism are unaware that there are far fewer Latino and black professional journalists. Big papers with big pockets grab the most talented journalists right away. Newsroom leaders are obsessed with increasing minority representation. This was the case when I was a journalist.
A friend of mine is a white award-winning journalist. He told me years ago that he was resigned as an associate city editor at his newspaper. This title meant that he had to go back and report stories submitted by minority employees. My friend stated that these young journalists were terrible at their jobs and that he would need to spend much of his time re-reporting the news from scratch to ensure his paper did not report false information. When he realized that he might miss something during the re-reporting process and end up publishing untrues, he quit. The newspaper and he were sued for libel. As I said, this guy was, and is, super-liberal, but he saw up close the cost of management’s diversity-at-all-costs mania.
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Although there were officially accepted Diverse(tm), the mania for diversity was restricted to a few categories. Although the market for a newspaper might be conservative at 45 percent, American journalists executives would not consider recruiting for viewpoint diversity. The world of conservatism was a mystery to newsroom leaders, and they didn’t want it to be revealed. This is probably even more true today, though I have been out of newsrooms for over a dozen years.
This is why I bring it up. Failure of newspapers to place the mission first results in second-rate journalism and eventually to failure. A nation can survive the demise of its newspapers. A military that loses wars will not allow it to survive. All of us are dependent on soldiers, sailors, and airmen who do their job well.
It’s as simple as this: Do you think the NFL and the NBA would hire diversity-minded people? It’s not possible! Professional sports are all about winning. If a coach thought it was a good idea to balance his hirings racially, he would be fired immediately and rightfully so. Why is it that winning games is more important than winning wars for us as a nation?
