OPINION
Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Or Shipmate…You Can’t Have Both!
By Brent Ramsey
December 3, 2023
Views: 2835
Public Domain
According to widely accepted research including that of the military services themselves, organizations that are effective have common values, teamwork, unity, cohesion, and a shared vision of what it takes to be successful. The literature is full of training that stresses these values. DOD as required by Congress does annual surveys to determine how things are going. The very first question asked in the 2022 survey is about cohesion! The second question asked is about connectiveness. The third question is about engagement and commitment. The fourth question is about fairness. Despite these known factors, and despite the urgent problems that threaten the Navy’s ability to perform its mission, what appear to be the Navy’s priorities? What we see is a leadership obsessed by race and politics that only serve to divide people into categories of skin color or gender or sexual preference. Emphasis on race and politics is a recipe for division and disunity, not the traits that lead to effective organizations. STARRS has recently published hundreds of testimonies from serving and retired Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines expressing their opposition to the identity politics ideology that now is widespread in the military. Those accounts can be found at STARRS. Examples abound of things the Navy does that creates a lack of unity and cohesion.
The Secretary of the Navy gave a speech recently celebrating the naming of the USS Evans for a native American. The officer honored in the naming was indeed a native American. But, that had absolutely nothing to do with his heroic behavior as the Commanding Officer of a ship during WWII. He enlisted in the Navy and performed so well such that he earned an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. After commissioning he served in a variety of positions successfully up until the start of WWII and during the war, he was given the command of the USS Johnston, a Destroyer Escort. He performed exceptionally and heroically, giving his life for his country, like many brave Navy heroes before him and his race was irrelevant to his actions. To politicize the event with the emphasis all on his being native American and to have as the keynote speaker a Biden administration native American official turned an occasion for honoring an American hero into a political story for identity politics. This does a disservice to CDR Evans’ memory.
The Secretary of the Navy announced recently that one of his top priorities is fighting climate change. All the measures being implemented by the Navy in this misguided campaign against climate change have no operational impact but have cost implications for the Navy, i.e., they cost the Navy more for fuel or for other mitigation measures intended to reduce the Navy’s carbon footprint. US officials have admitted that even if the entire US’s emissions went to zero, an impossibility, there would be a zero impact on climate change. US’s emissions represent a tiny fraction of the world’s emissions so what the US does on its own makes no difference. Climate change is a political issue and should not be a focus of the Navy. There is no credible evidence whatsoever that how the Navy operates today is any different than it has operated in its over 200 years of existence due to the climate. Storms are not more frequent or severe. The Navy operates all over the world despite any minor changes in the climate. To emphasize climate change is introducing politics into the military and adds not a whit to the execution of the mission. Furthermore, if fighting climate change was a top priority, why is mitigating climate change less than .4% of the Navy’s budget? It is clear this is injecting politics into the Navy.
https://armedforces.press/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-or-shipmateyou-cant-have-both/
