By J.P. Jones

Recent “virtue signaling” by the acting SECNAV is dangerous and will likely end up weakening our USN/USMC team, all in the name of “diversity.” Being a Naval Academy graduate and having served in uniform for more than 36 years, and as a Navy Civil Servant for eight years, I have always believed that our military, perhaps more than any other entity, must be a meritocracy, consisting of the best qualified, most dedicated, most loyal Americans we can recruit, educate and train. To select military members on any factors other than their being the best qualified candidates available to preserve our national security, and that they love our nation, is to fail in our mission and to invite defeat in future conflicts. Our adversaries have been watching very carefully as our nation has allowed various “new” schools of thought to “reshape” our military over the past generation.

It is with that backdrop that I am deeply concerned about a memo from Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Harker, laying out the latest plans for SECNAV staff leaders “to oversee ‘transformative and meaningful steps’ that will further equal opportunity and diversity,” and to review the names of Navy and Marine Corps bases and other assets “to improve diverse representation.” Additionally, they are to “assess precepts for selection and assignment boards,” so as “to remove potential barriers to diversity.” Just what they hope to achieve remains to be seen, but there are many concerns in the fleet about potential results of this kind of “reshaping.”

As to selection and assignment boards, many are concerned that changes to Navy and Marine Corps selection and assignment processes could result in a codified quota system to ensure higher minority representation, although both Services will deny they already have de facto “quotas” when referring to selection of minorities. Such a system would not necessarily ensure that the best qualified personnel are selected, but only that the best qualified personnel from within each defined group are selected. Isn’t this the “systemic racism” that some claim exists in America?

A very relevant argument against such quotas is that, if you needed brain surgery, would you care more about what race or gender the surgeon was a member of, or their documented ability for having successfully performed the surgery in the past? While this may seem like an extreme example, consider the Sailor or Marine who has their finger on the trigger of a weapon that is locked on and ready to shoot at an inbound gunboat or aircraft with unknown intentions. In today’s environment, that is not an unlikely scenario. That Sailor or Marine must be exceptionally well-trained and able to think critically, as must be the NCOs and officers above them in the detect-to-engage/kill chain. It would be nothing less than malfeasance to knowingly select a less qualified individual to be in that position simply because they are of a particular gender, race, sexual orientation, or other group.

As a retired officer who served on five Navy ships, virtually back-to-back, I can attest to the kind of stress that exists in a shipboard environment, particularly on combatants. Sailors undergo a great deal of training, either online, in a brick-and-mortar schoolhouse, or on the job while shipboard. There is also a great deal of pressure for mid-grade and senior enlisted to get a college degree, despite their already overloaded schedules. The last thing the officers and crews of our ships need is additional, politically motivated “training,” which many would say is more indoctrination than training. Our strength as a military lies in the sense of unity members gain from supporting an important common mission. Diversity, despite what some may say, works against the unity of military units.