By Paul Gardiner

This letter is an urgent call for America’s 20 million military veterans and veterans organizations to actively speak out against the “forces” wanting to change America into a Marxist, communist-like state. As explained below, this is a significant national security issue in which America’s veterans need to become very actively involved.

The “forces” are nothing less than domestic enemies of America’s cherished Constitution and individual liberties such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the Second Amendment. If the forces are left undefeated, future recruitments of young Americans into the nation’s Armed Forces will undoubtedly suffer, perhaps greatly suffer.

Today, the weapon of choice of the forces is Critical Race Theory (CRT). Simply stated, CRT is nothing more than a derivation of Marxist, communist ideology wherein a person’s race rather than a person’s class — i. e., working class versus managerial/owner class — is the basis for struggle and conflict. Rather than unite Americans of all races into a strong, vibrant nation, CRT strives to divide Americans and keep them divided into different racial groups in conflict with one another.

One of the most onerous situations today involves substantial numbers of America’s elementary/secondary school children and university students. These young people are being fed a steady diet of what amounts to communist propaganda and ideology couched in terms of CRT, cancel culture, and other anti-American ideologies. Teachers refusing to teach these “doctrines” to school children frequently lose their jobs or otherwise suffer some kind of retribution.

Irrespective of parental and teacher opposition, a growing number of America’s local school boards and administrators are mandating that CRT theory be taught to students. The CRT curriculum of some school districts extends even to kindergarten and first-grade students!

America’s military veterans swore a lifelong oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Hence, the domestic enemies described herein need to be called out and effectively defeated with the help of America’s 20 million veterans and numerous veterans organizations.

A very important and needed action for veterans and veterans organizations is to attend local school board meetings as a group of concerned veterans. As a show of force, their spokesperson would ask his/her fellow veterans to briefly stand (sitting together if possible).

The spokesperson would then explain how the teachings of CRT will undoubtedly have detrimental effects on future recruitment efforts for America’s Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. Among other reasons, fewer young people will be willing to serve in the military (and put their lives at risk) for a nation that they have been indoctrinated to believe is overly racist; where oppressors (white people) are constantly oppressing the oppressed (black people/other minorities). The spokesperson should say that such indoctrination must stop, and if it does not stop, then America has a significant national security issue.

It is truly time for America’s military veterans to once again serve their great nation and be instrumental in defending our treasured freedoms and liberty!

Paul S. Gardiner is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran, and member of the American Legion. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Alabama, and the U.S. Army War College.