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October 3, 2022

Other than a well-fought win over rival Navy, the United States Air Force Academy had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. 

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First, came the story that the Academy gave diversity training to cadets encouraging them to stop using such patently offensive words as mom and dad.  This was followed up closely by a story that the Academy was promoting a fellowship that was open to just about everyone, but straight white men need not apply.  Finally, the school that used to be underpinned by its notable lack of tolerance for lying, cheating or stealing was put on two-years probation by the NCAA, complete with a rather long list of punishments, for apparently cheating at recruiting.

What ties these three stories together is the complete breakdown of values at the school, which are reflective of the breakdown in values across the military.

Both my wife and I graduated from USAFA in the 1990s.  At the time, the school’s values were integrity, service, and excellence.  Cadets were encouraged to put their classmates and country ahead of themselves.  Even the smallest lie or anything that could be construed as cheating, to include poorly documented homework, was a one-way ticket home.   

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Those values have been turned upside down in the school’s commitment to the military’s new value system of diversity above all.  For the Air Force-Navy game, the Falcons wore their new uniforms honoring the Space Force. Semper Supra, which means always above, was displayed prominently where names are normally shown.  The motto is somewhat ironic since in today’s military, that’s where diversity and inclusion rank in the priority list, always above and eclipsing everything else.  All other values are subservient to it. 

2019 US Air Force Academy graduation (public domain)

While the element of the diversity training that suggested cadets should refrain from using words like mom and dad got most of the attention, the bigger problem is the overall philosophy that pits people into tribes and places the individual over the group.  We are now suggesting that we should be conscious of color and “value people for their uniqueness.” 

In other words, individuality based on color of skin takes precedence over forming a common bond across the unit.  This is a complete reversal of the military’s traditional values.  Military service is no longer about Service Members subordinating their own desires to be part of a cohesive group that is serving something greater than themselves.  Instead, it puts individuals in the spotlight and then values some higher than others based upon nothing more than their skin color or sexual desires.

We’ve gone from Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind society 180 degrees in the other direction to where we no longer judge anyone based upon the content of character, but instead focus almost entirely on the color of skin.    

This has gradually strangled the military’s values.  General Douglas MacArthur’s famous “duty, honor, country” approach cannot co-exist alongside such a demented worldview that is both tribal and individualistic.  

In February, all the cadets were forced to sit through a lesson from George Takei, a strident promoter of the left’s new religion, to kick off their National Character and Leadership Symposium.