The Patriot Post® · U.S. Army Prioritizes Inclusion Over Readiness

Just when Americans might think a CIA recruitment ad featuring a 36-year-old “cisgender Millennial” Latina CIA agent, who identifies as an “intersectional woman of color” and who has been “diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder,” might be the bottom of the woke barrel, the U.S. Army proves them wrong.

The Army’s latest recruitment ad features a girl raised by two mothers, a lesbian wedding, and a civil rights protest, all aimed at “shattering stereotypes.” It opens with some music and the cartoon pictures of a soldier morphing into their photos. Then comes the narrative. “This is the story of a soldier who operates your nation’s Patriot Missile Defense Systems,” an animated female soldier named “Emma” states. “It begins in California with a little girl raised by two moms.”

“Although I had a fairly typical childhood, took ballet, played violin, I also marched for equality,” Emma says, while images of a “Pride” demonstration are shown. “I like to think I’ve been defending freedom from an early age.”

Whether she knows it or not, Emma is already in trouble. As the Democrat Party and the Biden administration have made clear, “equality” and the meritocracy implied by it must give way to “equity” and mandated outcomes that ostensibly redress historic injustices.

Emma then tells the story of one of her moms becoming paralyzed after an accident that occurred when Emma was six years old. “Doctors said she might never walk again,” Emma says. But after tapping into the family’s pride and working hard, she adds, her mom was able to “to get back on her feet, eventually standing at the altar to marry my other mom.”

Emma then says she graduated at the top of her high school class, attended university, and joined a sorority “full of strong women,” but as graduation approached she felt empty, especially when compared to her sorority sisters who were “studying abroad in Italy” and “climbing Mount Everest.” “I needed my own adventures,” she decided. “My own challenge. And after meeting with an Army recruiter, I found it. A way to prove my inner strength, and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way.”

Cartoon Emma then morphs into U.S. Army Corporal Emma Malone-Lord. “And I answered my calling,” she says.

The ad closes with the words, “What calls you?”

For a United States Army that is also determined to “morph” from a lethal fighting force into a social justice-besotted enterprise, it appears one’s “calling” has far less to do with protecting national security than ticking off the politically correct boxes that satisfy progressive sensibilities.

Moreover, those sensibilities countenance no deviation whatsoever from leftist dogma. That is precisely why Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a 60-day stand-down order requiring military leaders to discuss “the importance of our oath of office; a description of impermissible behaviors; and procedures for reporting suspected, or actual, extremist behaviors.” Austin used the Capitol riot on January 6 as the impetus for doing so, because some of those rioters were active-duty service members and military veterans.

Perhaps Austin might have more credibility if he voiced concern that the only lethal force used during that riot was directed at 35-year-old Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer. An officer whose identity remains unknown and whose actions have been deemed by the Justice Department as insufficient evidence to bring any charges.

He might also have more credibility if he voiced an equal amount of concern for the thousands of homeless military veterans afflicted with any number of combat-related disorders precipitated by fighting in endless wars, where equally “enlightened” military brass were far more concerned with “winning hearts and minds” than with defeating our enemies. So much so that American troops were required to remove the magazines from their weapons while quartered at bases with armed Afghans they were training to become policemen and soldiers. Astoundingly, it took more than 100 deaths for a military brass neck-deep in the PC swamp to figure out that the presence of armed Afghan trainees in the presence of unarmed American trainers gave our so-called “trusted Afghan partners” a decided tactical advantage.

That they’re still in the PC swamp is unsurprising. During the Obama administration, what could be best described as a purge of top military leaders took place. “I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not toe the party line,” a senior retired general said at the time.

And not just top generals. In 2013, Breitbart compiled a list of more than 197 military commanders, mostly at the rank of colonel or above, who were terminated by the Obama administration beginning in 2009.

No one should be surprised by those previous machinations, the current ones precipitated by Austin, or the production of woke recruitment videos. The military has long been perceived by leftists as the last bastion of conservative opposition to their agenda, and thus its ongoing bastardization proceeds apace, even if national security is compromised in the process.

It should also surprise no one that the military.com website offers the following assessment regarding the fact that nearly half of female soldiers taking the Army Combat Fitness Test are failing it, and that enlisted women are struggling the most. “The data again raises questions about whether the Army’s attempt to create a fitter force is creating more barriers to success for women,” it states.

Barriers to success for women? That such a contemptuous calculation would attach itself to putting men and women in harm’s way, where the only thing that should matter is the ability to do the job — one that requires a high degree of fitness — is highly indicative of the moral and intellectual rot that passes for military wisdom. The only thing worse is the apparent abandonment of anything resembling an effort to make our military wholly lethal — and wholly committed to achieving victory.

Here’s the U.S. Army’s recruitment video. Here’s a Russian army recruitment video. The differences couldn’t be starker — or more ominous — for America going forward. While the U.S. remains technologically superior, that superiority becomes an illusion when the will to win is supplanted by political correctness. Nothing makes that more obvious than Afghanistan, where the military spent two decades engaging a far less lethal force of guerrillas.

Guerrillas that will bring the Islamist status quo back to that nation — after we unceremoniously withdraw.

The current video is part of a series titled “The Calling.” It’s intended to be the first of a five-part video series following five “diverse” soldiers from different backgrounds who all joined the military. The bet here is that none of the five videos will “divert” from progressive orthodoxy.

It’s what happens when a PC-addled command structure prioritizes inclusion over readiness — and courts disaster by doing so.