US Military Leaders School Matt Gaetz, Hard!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday Army General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee where committee member Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Republican, questioned Milley on what Gaetz saw as the military's promotion of training on "critical race theory."

General Milley listened patiently to the young congressman, and then replied:

"I do think it's important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read . . . and it's important that we train and understand.  I want to understand white rage, and I'm white.  What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building (the US Capitol) and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?  What caused that?  I want to find that out.   I want to maintain an open mind here, and I do want to analyze it . . . It is important that the leaders now and in the future understand it."

Gaetz made a derogatory allusion to the military being "woke," a slang term referring to being alert to injustice in society and, in particular, being aware of racism.    But the General wasn't having any of that either.  He snapped back at the Congressman that he found the accusation "offensive."

General Milley made the case for being aware of how society and the world function.  He stated:

"I've read Mao Zedong.  I've read Karl Marx.  I've read Lenin.  That doesn't make me a communist.  So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country from which we are here to defend?  I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our noncommissioned officers, of being "woke" or something else because we are studying some theories that are out there."

 

The camera panned on Rep. Gaetz as General Milley was making his comments, and the Republican congressman was shaking his head negatively.  Later Gaetz tried to turn his political fire on Defense Secretary Austin, who is himself a former General and the first black individual to run the Department of Defense.  Gaetz began by charging that Bishop Garrrison, Secretary Austin's senior adviser for human capital, was a "critical race theorist," and the secretary snapped back that it was news to him and labeled Gaetz's claim as "spurious."     Later the two got into an exchange about whose information from the troops was more accurate, with each man, Austin and Gaetz, informing the other that people were probably telling them what they wanted to hear.

When the day was over and the dust had settled, the United States military reigned supreme, and a non-veteran sex-trafficker had crawled off to lick his wounds.   What some people condemn as being "woke," others laud as "being aware," and the two leaders of the US military offered no apologies for wanting to know what is going on in the world - and for wanting their troops to function in reality.

The venomous congressman did spit one final attack on the general with this tweet:

"With Generals like this it’s no wonder we’ve fought considerably more wars than we’ve won. 

 

But he quickly pulled it down. It was happy hour somewhere.