“Fire Marine Corps Commandant David Berger,” I wrote about the infestation of woke virtue signaling in the Marine Corps.

Berger began his presentation, not with the threats to the United States that the Marine Corps existed to fight, but by declaring that, “our nation has engaged in a long overdue conversation on race and social justice sparked by several visible incidents of institutional racism”. By that, Berger meant that Black Lives Matter mobs had torched a number of cities and their leftist allies had purged everyone who disagreed from every institution.

Berger assured House Democrats that he was happy to lead the purge of dissenting Marines.

“We have and will continue to actively work to identify recruits and Marines who hold extremist views and we look forward to participating in the Secretary of Defense’s new Countering Extremism Working Group to develop additional methods of keeping extremists from within our ranks,” Berger vowed, declaring war on fellow Marines instead of on America’s enemies.

“In this era of profound ideological division within our nation, some individual Marines regrettably bring with them, or fall victim to while in service, misogynistic, racist, and homophobic/ transphobic ideologies driven by hate, fear, and ignorance,” he promised. “I have instituted even more rigorous policies than previously existed to ensure we identify such individuals during enlistment and accession screening, I remain committed to identifying and holding accountable any Marine unable to uphold our core values.” 

Berger is back to talking about reinventing the Marines to reflect society.

The goal that’s driving what amounts to a cultural shift within the service, is for the Marines “to reflect America, to reflect the society we come from,” Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition.

It’s not a matter of being politically correct or “woke,” he said.

The core of America’s strength lies in its diversity, Berger said, adding that the same is true for the military.

“Our advantage militarily is on top of our shoulders,” he said. “It’s not actually our equipment. We are better than anybody else, primarily because we don’t all think exactly alike. We didn’t come from the same backgrounds.”

It’s still woke gibberish. And not all that long ago, Berger was demanding that everyone think alike and go woke. Thinking differently isn’t a matter of race, or identity politics category.

But let’s forget the politics of it for a moment. We’ve gone from the few and the proud to a reflection of the society we come from. Should the Marines or your local FD or PD really reflect society? Do we want a complete sampling of society to show up next time there’s a fire or a firefight?

Do we want a 13-year-old, a 73-year-old grandmother, or me showing up in the middle of an ambush?

The whole point of heroes is that they don’t reflect society in the demographic sense. They reflect our aspirations. The men at the Alamo were not a perfect demographic representation. Neither were the men raising the flag at Iwo Jima despite the revisionist history trying to depict them as such. You can have heroes or you can have diversity quotas, but you can’t have both.