The purpose of our American armed forces is simple: To close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Any policy that improves our military's ability to do that is good. Anything that distracts or detracts from that ability is bad. It's as simple as that. We need a military not of grievance-mongers but of warfighters, and fortunately, that's how Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth - a former Army National Guard officer - sees it.

In a furtherance of that goal, the Department of Defense has issued two orders. The first order concerns a review of all material in military libraries, in the various service academies and training centers, to remove all DEI, "anti-racism" and other such materials.

The Pentagon has ordered military leaders to remove and review all library books that relate to diversity, anti-racism or gender issues within the next two weeks, according to a new memo issued Friday.

The order, signed by acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Timothy Dill, marks the most wide-reaching directive in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to eradicate diversity and equity programs, policies and reading material across the military.

There's no room in the service academies' libraries for grievance-mongering. If military members wish to read these materials, let them procure them themselves and do it on their own time - but the second order makes it plain that the service academies will have no truck with DEI-based admissions or promotion. 

The second order, directly from the Secretary of Defense, directs the service academies, which include West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, to admit candidates based solely on merit; no other considerations apply. Secretary of Defense Hegseth even underlined a key word in the order. (Emphasis added)

Hegseth also put out a memo Friday ordering the service academies to admit students “based exclusively on merit,” with “no consideration of race, ethnicity, or sex,” underlining the word “no” on the document. Academies must confirm within 30 days that they are adhering to those standards.

“This ensures only the most qualified candidates are admitted, trained, and ultimately commissioned to lead the finest fighting force in history,” Hegseth writes. “Selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our warfighting readiness, and undercuts the culture of excellence in our Armed Forces.”

You can see SecDef Hegseth's memorandum on the service academies here.

Note that the release refers to these as "memoranda." Some non-military people may take that to mean that this is a suggestion, that there is some wiggle room; there isn't. It's a basic tenet of our military that any request from a higher-ranking officer has the force of an order, and there is only one person higher in the chain of command than the Secretary of Defense, that being the President of the United States.

See Also: Hegseth Touts 'Less Generals More GIs' Policy, Vows Major Cuts in Top Ranks

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These are good moves on both counts. DEI and "anti-racism" are as toxic as can be imagined to a military force, which relies on unit cohesion to function. When I reported to Army Basic Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in the last few years of the Cold War, one of the messages the drill sergeants hammered home was that there was no race in the army, no color mattered but Army green. That's how it's supposed to work. That's how it must work. The armed forces are like no other institution in our republic. They protect the liberty and property of the citizens, and they are the ones who, given that ultimate test, must be able to work as a unit, to function as a team, to reduce the bad guys' pronouns to "was" and "were."

Anything that helps that purpose is good. Anything that hinders it is bad. DEI and "anti-racism" hinder that goal. So does the selection of officer candidates based on anything but the candidate's individual merit. Secretary of Defense Hegseth gets it.

Thanks to President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.

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