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The Army does not exist to care for soldiers. All that matters was how you form a team to accomplish a wide range of demanding mission sets. We were taught that what came before the Army did not matter. In fact, to вЂњfight and win our nationвЂ™s wars,вЂќ we need conformity toward the mission-first mindset. Diversity is not our strength our shared values and singularity of purpose toward mission accomplishment is our strength. These values were all pitched toward the idea of leaving your past behind, as you had become part of an organization with a larger purpose. So we settled on LDRSHIP (pronounced вЂњleadershipвЂќ): loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. This was done through two long-standing Army traditions, an inability to spell and the overwhelming need to make everything an acronym. These values were drilled into every soldier during initial entry training and reinforced at unit level. The Army used to be a values-based organization focused on mission accomplishment above all else. This is a real and serious change, and politician veterans such as Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Dan Crenshaw are right to be worried about it. That I am not allowed to openly hold the position that war-fighting and combat readiness should be the ArmyвЂ™s top priority, while being force-fed a radical DEI agenda, demonstrates the open erosion of mission-first principles within the military. Examples abound, from the more benign recent recruiting messages depicting cartoon stories - one of an вЂњactivistвЂќ soldier - all the way to creating a new permanent DEI infrastructure to push policies in line with critical race theory.

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The only acceptable position now is full acceptance of all elements of DEI. Our military will suffer if it does not change course.Д«elieving that the Army should be and has been the best example of a meritocracy in the history of the world has become a forbidden position. The new push within the DoD for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goes well beyond measures to ensure equal opportunity and instead looks to create preferences that have nothing to do with merit. But it flips what had long been a soldierвЂ™s commitment to the Army and mission: The new priority turns the Army into a social experiment at the cost of mission readiness. We were taught mission accomplishment before all else, enforced by вЂњmission first and people always.вЂќ Within the Department of Defense (DoD) Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan we are told that вЂњdiversity is a strategic imperative - critical to mission readiness and accomplishment.вЂќ We are also told, by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that it must be a priority for the military вЂњto look like America and not only in the ranks, but our leadership should look like America.вЂќ On the surface, this sounds okay. I used to belong to a war-fighting organization, where we were taught a shared set of Army values. Army paratroopers with the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, participate in a pass-and-review during a change of command ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., June 26, 2019.