President Donald Trump has made clear he intends to remake the culture of the entire U.S. Military, starting at the very beginning.
“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years. I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard,” the Commander-in-Chief announced Monday afternoon. The Boards ensure accountability and civilian oversight at institutions like West Point. “We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) February 10, 2025
“Trump campaigned on a promise to purge the U.S. military of officers he deemed ‘woke’ and has used the start of his second term to try and rid the Pentagon of diversity initiatives by executive order,” Politico reported. “The purge has begun to extend to the nation’s service academies, where Republican lawmakers have long complained that so-called ‘woke’ literature is seeping into the curriculum. The Washington Post reported on Friday that the U.S. Defense Department had begun restricting access to some books in its school systems. The service academies themselves had already begun disbanding student clubs focused on diversity in response to Trump’s executive orders, with West Point getting rid of a dozen such organizations last week, including the Asian-Pacific Forum Club and the National Society of Black Engineers Club.”
It is unclear if the President can fire members of the Boards of Visitors, who are appointed by the President to serve a term of three years.
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As President Trump’s newly sworn-in national security cabinet members get to work in their new roles, they are making clear their priorities will be his: getting rid of “woke.”
Trump’s announcement on the firings came just one day after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared he had “met with the leadership” of each service academy last week.
“My message was simple: stick to leadership, standards, excellence, war fighting, and readiness. These are MILITARY ACADEMIES, not civilian universities. I was impressed by the changes already underway and look forward to visiting each institution. Social Justice and DEI are OUT; History, Engineering, and War Studies are IN. We must restore the warrior ethos to the @deptofdefense — and it starts with our future leaders.”
Secretary Hegseth, who officially took office on January 25, was criticized for his remarks after the mid-air collision between a commercial airplane and an Army helicopter that took place near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and claimed all 67 lives.
The next day, Secretary Hegseth tried to blame “DEI” — diversity, equity, and inclusion — for the crash, following President Trump’s lead.
Now, Hegseth is again engaging in “culture war” attacks, this time attacking transgender service members, another attempt to purge “woke” from the Trump administration.
In a memo on Monday titled, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” (the exact same title as a Trump executive order,) the Defense Secretary announced a “pause” for all medical treatments of transgender service members, and a pause on accepting any new transgender service members into the U.S. Military.
Also on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins posted a statement in line with Republicans’ recent attacks on the news site Politico.
“Ran across a $178,000 contract VA had with Politico and we promptly canceled it. That money can be better spent on Veterans health care!” Secretary Collins wrote.
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Longtime veterans’ activist and political commentator Paul Rieckhoff blasted Collins, and issued a warning.
“This is the first action item he [Collins] posts about as VA Sec. The very first. Not suicide, not healthcare improvements, not even bureaucratic changes. He’s taking action against Politico. The Trump administration messaging machine is synched up. And growing this week to include [the] VA. Look for attacks on DEI, trans people and the press any minute now. The culture war at VA under Collins will run in direct parallel with Hegseth at DoD. And it’s all just getting started.”
Rieckhoff has been sounding the alarm bells about Trump’s apparent takeover of the military.
“He’s daring the world to stop him, just like he has his entire life, and they’re not stopping him,” Rieckhoff said Friday night about Trump in a panel discussion on MSNBC.
He also talked about Trump’s “radical extreme agenda of taking over the government and snatching the levers of power,” and warned: “we should be really watching when he says, ‘I’m going for the military.’”
“He went with Hegseth first, he’s going for the Pentagon first because when you break into a house and take it over, you go for the gun closet first,” Rieckhoff remarked. “He knows the military is the most powerful, he knows it’s the most influential. It’s the biggest biggest employer. It’s got the biggest budget, and it’s got the guns, so that’s where he’s going first and he’s leading his entire strategy with and at the Pentagon.”
Before the 2024 election, the liberal political action committee VoteVets, posted video (below) showing how Trump, using the Project 2025 playbook, could take over the U.S. Military and turn it “into his own MAGA military.”
Almost all the suggestions have begun to be implemented.
Watch that video below or at this link.
🚨This is Donald Trump’s roadmap for turning our US Military into his own MAGA Military.
A lot has been said about Project 2025, but not nearly enough about what it means for the future of the United States Military.
WATCH NOW:pic.twitter.com/VhRyWlXQwZ
— VoteVets (@votevets) October 7, 2024
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Image via Reuters
