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It is not often that I write a book review and find that the book has gotten under my skin, so to speak. When this happens, as was the case in reading Don’t Give up the Ship: Woke Politics are Endangering our Military and our Nation by The Calvert Task Group, it is because I felt as if I were in the presence of a rare and lost breed of military men: patriotic and possessed of punctilious courtesy, refined manners, liberal education, and personal honor.
Such is the nature of the men who are the authors of this unprecedented book. They are a group of Naval Academy graduates from the Class of 1969. The moniker for the group is derived from Vice Admiral James Calvert who was the inspirational Superintendent of the Naval academy during their attendance. As you read this stupendous book of personal stories, policy recommendations and, as importantly, an analysis of the way in which woke ideology is weakening our military and demoralizing the Department of Defense (DoD), you will witness a phalanx of honorable men, devoutly dedicated to the armed forces of America and to their country who are still putting up a brave fight. They have given every American a secular Bible functioning as a moral inoculant against the idea pathogens infecting our military.
The ultimate goal of the book is to describe and provide solutions for the manner in which Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies, and Critical Race Theory (CTR) are destroying our military.
A Great Reset is taking place in the military of our beleaguered republic. All this is happening while China and Russia are mocking the United States and expanding and accelerating their imperialist plans.
As two of the authors, Brent Ramsey and Michael D. Pefley, point out in one of the essays, Social Justice imposed by the state is annihilating the military. Despite the fact that 45% of the military identify as minorities, the DoD insists that DEI are military necessities.
But let us define our terms here. The authors spell out very clearly what is meant by DEI. Diversity is the promotion of division based on identity quotas or targets; Inclusion is a code for exclusion of specific groups based on race, gender and sexual identity; and Equity—not to be confused with equality—is based on equality of outcomes (usually quotas) which is reformulated Marxism.
If you want to know why today’s youth are not motivated towards military service and the ways in which they are unqualified from an academic and physical-readiness perspective, then read this book and process the solutions and recommendations offered by its authors.
There are mores and protocols that guide and sustain comradery and fraternal order in the military. DEI initiatives destroy the consecrated order that governs and protects the lives of military men and women.
The most alarming details that emerge from the book are the nefarious ways in which CRT and woke ideology have infiltrated our most elite military institutions. The level of indoctrination taking place at West Point Academy and the United States Military Academy is shocking. The ideas of bestselling “anti-racist” Ibram X. Kendi, who promulgates the idea that white supremacy is a hallmark of American society, and that the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination, are taught alongside those of slavery reparations proponent Ta-Nehesi Coates. The latter implicates all whites as racists, and indicts American civilization as imperialistic, and as intrinsically and irreversibly bigoted. The books of these America-bashing authors are required reading for our service men and women.
The inexorable consequence of sadistically accusing white military service men and women that they are racists, and responsible for every disparity between blacks and whites, is an exodus from these elite military academies by some of its most honorable and patriotic and non-racist cadets.
To read of the priorities of the DoD is to encounter a strange citadel. There you will find the origins of the crushing woke policies that followed Joe Biden’s declaration that white supremacy today was the greatest threat to American democracy. Those policies invade every aspect of military life. You will read of how the military is being deliberately transgendered and radicalized in a manner that will leave you totally stunned. Sailors are inducted into a cult of sexualized identitarian politics which commits them to modes of conduct that every American should find appalling. The harrowing details of this form of indoctrination, alone, are worth a copy of the book.
In an email exchange with one of the book’s main authors, Brent Ramsey, I asked how this malarkey and indoctrination were allowed to continue under the Trump administration. His response was very revealing. He wrote that all this began
long before Trump. It started in 2008 and really got rolling in 2011 under President Obama from a comprehensive DEI Executive Order he issued right after his inauguration that permeated the entire Executive Branch including DOD. And it was done quietly so as to not arouse a lot of attention. So much of it was kept secret that no one could figure out for the longest time what was going on.
What caused the breakthrough for us was in 2020 with the riots following George Floyd’s death and the release of a video promoting BLM by the Football coach at the Air Force Academy caught the attention of a bunch of us retired folks. That is when I got involved with STARRS[i] and other groups like them like Calvert Group. What got Calvert Group started in 2020 was the Naval Academy trying to throw a midshipman out of the academy for private Facebook posts he made in support of the LA Police Department during the riots in LA. This midshipman’s parents, both of them, were LA PD officers and their lives were jeopardized by those riots. For his statements in support of the police and against the violence of BLM, the Superintendent at Annapolis tried to throw him out of the Navy and make him pay back several hundreds of thousands in education costs that the Navy had provided him for 3 years. We found out about his plight, came to his aid, raised money for an attorney and he won his case and was allowed to stay at the academy. That young man just got his wings at Pensacola and is going to be flying F-18’s for the Navy….he finished first in his flight school class.
Once we realized what was going on at Annapolis to promote BLM [Black Lives Matter] and DEI and all the rest, we formed our group and have been fighting the rot ever since, a lot of us writing articles such as those you read in the book trying to publicize what was happening to the military.
When Trump came into office, he was opposed at every turn and had his hands full trying to be President with the deep state trying to sabotage his every effort. So, the DEI industry during his term, went underground and kept on pushing DEI, etc. It will be different this time, if he is elected. He now knows how embedded the deep state is and will be much more effective at rooting the rot out.”
Such are the details that you will find in this extremely well-written and acutely documented book. If one wants to see how a monstrously top-down imposition of norms, policies and legal obligations that are inimical to military life play themselves out in the lives of decent military folks, then every American ought to purchase a copy of this book.
We are not fully prepared, in my estimation, after processing the massive research and data collected in this page-turning book, for a unilateral defeat against a full-scale invasion of the United States—were such a horrific onslaught against our sovereignty to occur. It is not because we lack the technological capabilities to fight off an invader; rather, our cadets are being taught to hate the United States of America, to feel guilty for the privilege of being Americans, and for the benevolent role our military has played in delivering numerous states from tyranny and despotism. They have been demoralized in so evil a manner that the perpetrators truly deserve to burn in hell.
This is one of the most important books of the last decade. It is written by the greatest generation of men who have created the modern world. The book is not just a compilation of documented moral atrocities that are afflicting our men and women in the military. It is also a work of faith, hope and courage. The contributors to the book believe in the resilience and goodness of the American people. They have fought for their country, and served with honor, resilience, tenacity and grit. The book, therefore, is a paean hymn to an America that can return to its Constitutional foundations. The authors believe that it is we the people, with our commonsense logic and problem-solving spirit and capabilities, who will wrench the country from the fake elites who wish to create a Marxist dystopia and an anti-natalist society by making up and imposing a shoddy set of amoral ideologies on the American people. They know that Americans cannot be pushed around for too long. It is in the name of the best and noblest and most heroic virtues embodied in these men, that can also be emulated by extraordinary ordinary Americans, that the book is written. These are the Americans who, regardless of background, demand a return to a truly meritocratic society.
The authors end their book as they begin it—with an invitation to remember the words of our late President Ronald Reagan:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
The brave authors of this book, many of whom have shed their blood to protect our nation, are moral warriors to the end. And they state proudly and defiantly, “If America is to lose its freedom, our final thought is and will remain – NOT ON OUR WATCH.”
[i] STARRS: Stand together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services.
Time to totally remove all Snowflakes and whining little twats from our Military
This Started in 1984.
I left the Army because of it.
I could not serve under the New Conditions.
The most shocking aspect of the rot through the four-star level is the eagerness with which the lemmings have fallen in line. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly claimed he would call his Chinese counterpart to warn him if he learned President Trump was planning offensive action against China? Is that not treason? The phenomenon helps explain how an industrialized, educated country such as Germany fell under the spell of the uneducated psychopath and destroyed itself.
Hope is warranted, however, in the formidable election results of 2024. Americans will no longer tolerate the lying, cheating, and stealing carried out by the enemies of The Constitution.
If one visits the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, you’ll quickly notice where Rear Admiral James Bond Stockdale ranks in the pantheon of US Navy legends and heroes.
I bring up his name because of where and for what he was awarded his Medal of Honor.
If you recall your Vietnam War history, Stockdale was the Senior Ranking Officer out of hundreds of US POWs held in the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison.
As a former Naval Aircrewman myself, I was required to attend the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE School), aka Prisoner of War training. At that time in 1988, SERE was still utilizing vast archives of Vietnam POW interviews and “Lessons Learned” from their years of horrendous torture and neglect in order to train young pilots, Aircrew and SEALs for possible capture in combat.
Stockdale is revered for his brilliance in unifying and strengthening the will of hundreds of American POWs, in the face of wickedly sadistic pain and suffering inflicted by their North Vietnamese and Soviet prison guards. Scholars since have attributed Stockdale’s incredible leadership to his vast knowledge of classical literature.
But strangely, more than 35 years after my time in SERE, I still seldom see anyone pointing out the obvious regarding the whole Vietnam and Hanoi Hilton experience, and I ask the question… Why were the Marxist prison guards so sadistic and brutal to the Americans? It’s because they’re Marxists, and that’s what Marxists do.
And likewise I ask: Why have Marxist-DEI insurgents infiltrated and taken control of nearly every aspect of our military, our gov’t and American corporations with the intention of destroying them? It’s what Marxists do.
Forgive me, it’s Vice Admiral Stockdale, not Rear Admiral.
Obama did say he wanted his own army, now he’s got it. The first duty of the federal government is to defend against foreign invasion. That means the federal government is now our mortal enemy.
It is by no means enough that an officer in the Navy be a competent Mariner. He must be that of course but also a great deal more. He must be a gentleman of liberal education, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor.
Every midshipman had to memorize that his plebe year at the naval academy from the letters of John Paul Jones. The authors of this book were seniors, or firsties, when I was a plebe in 1969. I graduated 4 years later with the class of ’72.
We must get back to this philosophy, not only in the military but in our government leadership. It is imperative if we are to succeed as a nation
My late father and Three Uncles were all in WW II my dad was in the Navy about the USS Lexington and was at Coral Sea lost his Ship was picked up by a Destroyer one Uncle was in the Sea Bees another in the Coast Guard don’t know where my 3rd Uncle as. Liberal Snowflakes and Demo-Rats are ruining our Armed Forces to appease the Useless Nations and China
About 6-7 years ago my then 14-15 yr oldson wanted to prepare to go into the military wanted to know about ROTC, the academies, plc program, etc.
As a former Marine it broke my heart to tell him avoid the military like the plague.
Dear Mr Book Reviewer,
Please do better research. “The level of indoctrination taking place at West Point Academy and the United States Military Academy is shocking.” There is no “West Point Academy.” The United States Military Academy at West Point NY is the Army’s school. BTW USMA has been setting aside slots for minorities (99%+ black) since at least the late 1970s. Some of these recruits are well qualified, some clearly did not meet the standards required of white, Asian, and Latino candidates. USMA had a special recruiter who targeted only black kids. They also had recruiters who targeted athletes and some of them were otherwise underqualified (all races). In other words, military competence was less important than having a good foot ball team or having the “right color” in the force—this was in the late 1970s/early 1980s and it appears to have only gotten worse.
Add to that the cheating scandal during COVID when the 3-star there excused cheating because cadets were less supervised during tested than normal. Sets a clear expectation that cheating is OK if no one is looking. The 4-year program enables identifying and expelling cadets who are dishonest when working independently. The whole point is to have cadets/officers who are honest especially when no one is looking. Dishonesty/cheating rarely improves over time–more often individuals become more adept at lying and cheating.
I found this to be the case at Ft Benning’s (now Ft Liberty) course for new lieutenants training to be Infantry Officers. On the other hand, I witnessed a battalion commander refuse to allow a highly competent black captain get command of one of the battalion’s companies. In the same battalion I also saw most black NCOs were on a first name basis with black junior enlisted men but not white, Asian or Latino.
One of the greatest failings of woke officers and SECDEF Austin is their unwillingness and inability to describe in concrete terms just how diversity yields strength. WWII, which we won was largely a white boy show. This inability to apply logic leaves inference open to diversity being simply identity politics and only black officers can lead black enlisted and so on. Provably false and destructive to unit cohesion.
My observation as an enlisted in the US Army, 1966-70; was the self segregation of the black soldiers. The rest of us, white, asian and hispanic, all got along with each other. and socialized with one another. I understand the societal changes in the US at that time. FYI I did one year of training, two years RVN and one year in West Germany. When I was discharged I did six years of college and experienced the various ethnic student union environment. Don’t know if that still happens on our college campuses.
I don’t think this is going to change until the census form has been reduced to: male, female, citizen and non-citizen. There is no need to document our ethnicity.
While it is a welcome development to see qualified people finally speak out about this, the fact is that Marxism in various forms has been openly assaulting Western civilization in general and the military in particular for decades if not generations. The rot has now turned into gangrene. One of the worst and most obvious results of the left-politicization of the military is that white men have figured out that they will be blamed, persecuted, marginalized, demonized, and discriminated against in the armed forces just as they are in nearly all of the major institutions in our culture.
In short, this odious and vile evil should have been confronted and rooted out years and years and years ago, and it was not. Some of us saw this coming a long time ago, America, and you called us “paranoid” and didn’t listen. Now there is hell to pay.