In March 2015, the former Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Harry Harris, while giving a speech in Australia, dismissed the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) building of seven artificial islands in the South China Sea (SCS) as nothing more than a “Great Wall of Sand” that would not alter the U.S. Navy’s freedom of navigation operations or American deterrence capabilities in the region.
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The U.S. Navy approved more than $750,000 for a project that, while purporting to “equitably” increase the number of students interested in serving in the Navy’s STEM fields, prioritized recruiting underrepresented minority students, documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) proposed a way to encourage students to pursue degrees in fields of science, technology, economics and math (STEM) amid pressures for the U.S. military to out-compete adversaries in technological development, according to the since-approved application obtained by the Functional Government Initiative through a records request and provided to the DCNF. Although the project was framed as providing an opportunity for all students to break into the STEM fields based on the students’ qualifications, the Navy granted a budget extension to include 75 scholarships for underrepresented minority students and gave them first selection for the few on-campus paid research internships created through the program.
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Each U.S. military service saw a notable decline in white recruits over the past five years, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, likely factoring into the military’s crippling recruiting crisis.
The Army, Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting objectives by historically large margins in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, as the broader American public has grown wary of military service, according to Department of Defense (DOD) statistics, officials and experts who spoke to the DCNF. Since 2018, however, the number of recruits from minority groups has remained steady — or, in some cases, increased — while the number of white recruits has declined, according to data on the demographics of new recruits obtained by the DCNF.
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According to the website Statista, the United States has the third largest standing “Army” in the world. The website says that we have 1.3 million soldiers under arms. By “soldiers,” they’re referring to all of our armed forces—Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. Third largest in the world. Not bad, if you’re into measuring things. China and India are the only countries with larger militaries. Russia has one about the same size as us, as does North Korea.
In addition to our active force, Statista says we have over 760,000 reservists attached to our armed forces. For those unfamiliar, a reservist is also a soldier (generic term) who can theoretically be called into duty to do things the active forces do. They’re called reservists because they are the first line of replenishment for the active force. Reservists serve in various capacities in all of the branches of the US military. They train once a month with their unit and have a two-week annual training event where they go to an installation and ensure their skills are ready for wartime. Some call them weekend warriors. I call them heroes—many or most have other jobs and serve our great country because they want to serve. Of key importance is that all of these service members are federally authorized and work at the direction of the president.
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The Biden administration spent millions on diversity trainings for federal agencies, including some for the armed forces, in 2023.
Taxpayers were on the hook for the more than $16.3 million the federal government spent on diversity trainings taking place in 2023, according to a government spending database. Past government diversity trainings have instructed federal workers that asking an Asian colleague for help with a math problem could be racist, that men can become pregnant and that “social pain” can be the same as physical pain.
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The Pentagon came up short on its recruitment goals.
The Defense Department’s senior officials testified Wednesday about shortfalls in Army, Navy and Air Force recruiting in the fiscal year that ended in September at a hearing of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. The Marine Corps and Space Force made their recruiting goals.
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The student group that defeated affirmative action in the Supreme Court is turning their attention to American military academies exempted from the ban.
The group is currently collecting experiences of students who applied to the Air Force, Army and Navy military academies.
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The Navy is all in for DEI. At the Navy website if one clicks on “who we are,” one of the first things that shows up is “diversity and equity.” It must be important to show up so prominently.
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The Navy said has acknowledged having recruited a sailor who also was a non-binary drag queen to participate in a “Navy Digital Ambassador” pilot program designed to boost low recruitment numbers.
Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, was one of five active-duty personnel who participated in the digital ambassador program that ran from October 2022 to March 2023, a Navy spokesperson told The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in a story published Monday.
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Fiscal year 2023 is projected to be the most difficult year for military recruiting since the inception of the all-volunteer force in 1973. Every branch of the military is reporting extreme challenges in recruiting enough volunteers to fill their ranks. Not only are fewer people volunteering, but there are fewer eligible Americans to recruit as the prevalence of obesity grows and disqualifies an ever-increasing number from military service.
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The U.S. Department of Defense is taking new measures to help U.S. service members deal with rising costs as inflation continues to put the pressure on Americans.
Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder laid out a series of changes from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to help families deal with the recent rise in costs, particularly in food, housing and childcare.
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More than two dozen members of Congress and nearly half the states are supporting Navy SEALs in their legal efforts to secure religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates, rejecting the Biden administration’s invocation of judicial deference to military decisions.
They filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week, arguing the “near-total denial rate” for religious requests and preference for nonreligious requests violates the Free Exercise Clause, the “overwhelmingly bipartisan” Religious Freedom Restoration Act and state RFRAs.
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The First Liberty Institute (FLI) on Monday amended their lawsuit against the Department of Defense and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to sue for religious protections for all members of the U.S. Navy.
The suit, which originally only included U.S. Navy SEALs, claims the Navy has been unwilling to grant religious exemptions to the coronavirus mandate handed down by President Joe Biden.
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The Navy cannot force service members with religious objections to COVID-19 vaccines to take them so long as the exemption process remains “by all accounts … theater,” a federal judge ruled Monday.
“Our nation asks the men and women in our military to serve, suffer, and sacrifice. But we do not ask them to lay aside their citizenry and give up the very rights they have sworn to protect,” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wrote in approving a preliminary injunction against the mandate as applied to the 35 service members who sued.
“Every president since the signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has praised the men and women of the military for their bravery and service in protecting the freedoms this country guarantees,” O’Connor said.
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The Navy and Air Force are allegedly issuing predetermined blanket denials of requests for religious exemptions from the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, in violation of federal law and regulations.
Vice Admiral John Nowell, deputy chief of naval operations for manpower, personnel, training, and education, created a 50-step standard operating procedure streamlining the denials of these requests, known as religious accommodation requests (RARs).
The military is required by law to evaluate RARs on an individual basis to ensure due process under the Fifth Amendment and protect service members’ First Amendment right to religious freedom.
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The Navy has made the rare decision to remove two high-ranking officers from their posts – commanders of the littoral combat ship Montgomery – citing a “loss of confidence in their ability to command.”
The announcement Thursday by the military service provided no specific information about why Cmdr. Richard J. Zamberlan, the ship’s skipper, and Cmdr. Phillip Lundberg, the vessel’s executive officer, were relieved of their command.
However, two Navy officials told The New York Times, on the condition of anonymity, that Lundberg and Zamberlan’s removal resulted from their handling of a sexual harassment investigation.
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After the 2020 summer of riots, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations stood up Task Force One Navy (TF1N) on July 1, 2020. After a six-month effort, the final 142-page report was submitted on January 28, 2021 Its two operating assumptions are, first, that the Navy, as an institution, is systemically racist, and, second, that “Mission readiness is stronger when diverse strengths are used and differing perspectives are applied.” Notwithstanding several key military principles—such as unit cohesion, strict discipline across the chain of command, and, well, uniforms—the Navy is now ideologically committed to the mantra that “diversity is strength.”
Not surprisingly, considering the key entering assumptions, the task force report identified problems with Navy systems, climate, and culture; and submitted almost 60 recommendations aligned with four lines of inquiry: Recruiting, Talent Management/Retention, Professional Development, and Innovation and STEM (as well as a fifth line for miscellaneous recommendations).
One should be skeptical, however, about the entire exercise and the recommendations that flow from it. It inaccurately depicts the proud institution of the United States Navy as systemically racist—a slander that has more potential to undermine morale, good order, discipline, and military effectiveness than any geostrategic adversary.
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After the 2020 summer of riots, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations stood up Task Force One Navy (TF1N) on July 1, 2020. After a six-month effort, the final 142-page report was submitted on January 28, 2021 Its two operating assumptions are, first, that the Navy, as an institution, is systemically racist, and, second, that “Mission readiness is stronger when diverse strengths are used and differing perspectives are applied.” Notwithstanding several key military principles—such as unit cohesion, strict discipline across the chain of command, and, well, uniforms—the Navy is now ideologically committed to the mantra that “diversity is strength.”
Not surprisingly, considering the key entering assumptions, the task force report identified problems with Navy systems, climate, and culture; and submitted almost 60 recommendations aligned with four lines of inquiry: Recruiting, Talent Management/Retention, Professional Development, and Innovation and STEM (as well as a fifth line for miscellaneous recommendations).
One should be skeptical, however, about the entire exercise and the recommendations that flow from it. It inaccurately depicts the proud institution of the United States Navy as systemically racist—a slander that has more potential to undermine morale, good order, discipline, and military effectiveness than any geostrategic adversary.
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The U.S. Marine who posted public criticism on social media of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will be released from the brig Tuesday pending a trial by court martial, Capt. Sam Stephenson, Training and Education Command spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. is being released from confinement today, Oct. 5, 2021, as a result of a mutual agreement between Lt. Col. Scheller, his Defense counsel, and the Commanding General, Training Command,” Stephenson said in a statement. “No additional details regarding the agreement may be released at this time.”
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Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher (R-08-WI) wrote a letter to Vice Admiral John Nowell opposing the use of photographs when making decisions about promotions in the Navy. Gallagher and five other members of Congress wrote the letter because he believes that basing a decision about giving a naval officer a promotion on their headshot is not a good criteria.
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The United States Navy’s official curriculum is set to include new books on “anti-racism” and “gender politics” that will further push the message of social justice in America’s military ranks, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Of the 37 books included in the full reading list, 16 books are listed under the category of “personal and leadership development.” Of these 16, four of them deal directly with social justice; among the titles are How to be an Anti-Racist, The New Jim Crow, and Sexual Minorities and Politics. These four stand out in particular against the other 33, which focus on the more traditional subjects such as military strategy and the history of the Navy.
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The recent revelation that a senior Navy task force is proposing an oath to be taken by every member of the Navy was a warning of how deep woke-think has penetrated American institutions – even the Defense Department.
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President Donald Trump promised Wednesday that neither the Navy nor the Department of Defense will cancel contracts with Catholic priests allowing serving military members.
“The United States Navy, or the Department of Defense, will NOT be cancelling its contract with Catholic Priests who serve our men and women in the Armed Forces so well, and with such great compassion & skill,” the president tweeted Wednesday morning, tagging the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan. “This will no longer be even a point of discussion!”
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The U.S. Navy has reportedly ended Catholic church services on San Diego-area bases for cost purposes, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The Navy declined to renew contracts with priests who were contracted to assist the Chaplain Corps, an active-duty group containing few Catholic clergy members, according to a Tribune report on Saturday. The new changes are from a national realignment announced in August.
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The leader of the Archdiocese for the Military Services compared the Navy’s banning sailors from attending religious services to the treatment of the Catholics in 17th century Japan depicted in the movie “Silence.”
“The persecution was systematic and destined to eradicate the faith from the islands,” wrote Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who has led the Catholic military chaplaincy and its programs since 2008, in a public letter posted Sunday.
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