September 6, 2025
The return of the War Department
By Robert Arvay
Noted satirist Richard Armour (1906–1989) said of Wild Bill Hickok that he never killed anyone except in self-defense. The problem was, if I recall the humor correctly, that Wild Bill was constantly defending himself.
This might apply in some degree to the Department of Defense.
In 1949, Congress placed the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force under the newly renamed Department of Defense. The name change from the Department of War to a kinder, gentler moniker was at first only cosmetic. The killing, of course, continued.
What was not merely cosmetic was the introduction of left-of-center social policy. The Old Guard was being replaced by a new generation. Some of the new policies were changes for the better — for example, the end of racial apartheid in the military services and the end (mostly) of sexual harassment of women who were serving valiantly in the armed forces. Unfortunately, once begun, the bureaucratic policies developed a life of their own and expanded beyond reason.
My military career spanned the years from 1968 to ’90, during which time I saw the gradual but forceful tidal wave of social change in the armed forces, years in which the best of ideas became warped into harmful absurdities. By now the shameful story is well known to conservatives. In congressional hearings on such matters, General Milley, himself no Trump admirer, seemed to express surprise at testimony that so-called drag queens had been invited into Department of Defense children’s schools for “story hour.”
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/09/the_return_of_the_war_department.html
