Retired General: Military Readiness Degraded by Social Experimentation
At the 2015 Value Voters Summit, retired US Army General Robert Dees was on a panel of four Generals addressing National Security. As reported at CNS News:
The military readiness of the United States is being “degraded by social experimentation,” Maj. Gen. Robert Dees (U.S. Army-Ret.) said…
“I think the moral readiness of our forces is even more important than the physical readiness, which is very low,” Dees later told CNSNews.com. “The moral readiness is degraded by social experimentation within our military.”
In many ways, “moral readiness” is like freedom itself: it is unnoticed until it is missing. While it can be difficult to convince people of the necessity of preparing and training for moral readiness while times are “good,” its absence is dramatically notable in failures when times are “bad.”
Gen Dees isn’t alone in seeing bad times in the US military right now. Retired LtGen Benjamin Mixon — who made the news during the repeal of DADT — said the military is misprioritizing transgenders and women in combat over its actual military mission.
The video of the panel, which is well worth the watch, can be seen here.
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Interesting. I find most of our Military members very well rounded, especially in their moral readiness. I also observe a huge disconnect between our what senior officers and those below them view as a degradation of [their] moral readiness. Our troops seem very willing to accept these perceived bad social changes being adopted in our Military and judge our most senior leaders “out of touch” with them.
I have a pretty good mix of the 20 to the 40 somethings on my staff and with differing back-grounds and beliefs, and for the most part, they all accept these as pretty much normal these days. Oh, and they gay 1LT is the life of the party and his mom is a hoot too…really!
Why is it the generals alway decide to come out of the closet, so-to-speak, after retiring, and speak ill of the president or congress for doing the right thing? My troops read this as when on active-duty top brass won’t speak up because they know their careers would be over and that proves to them their only in this for themselves; not to mention it’s against the regs to throw our civilian leaders under the bus anyway.
As a side note, this is another reason why our troops can’t rely on or trust the chain of command to solve their most troubling problems, say like inappropriate command influence or other touchy subjects. Careers are at stake, best to wait until its too late, and no one listens or cares much.
@watchtower
You seem to be focusing on social issues/sexuality far more than Gen Dees was. He seemed to be referring to moral readiness in general — the same moral readiness, for example, that would prepare soldiers not to abuse prisoners in Abu Ghraib because they have been trained to understand the difference between right and wrong — and then “do the right thing, because its the right thing to do.”
As to Generals not speaking up until they get out, that happens on both sides of the ideological fence. And those that do speak out while on active duty do get lashed, as Gen Mixon — who was also on this panel — did. That’s a lesson every service member sees, not just Generals.
I see JD. I didn’t get those particular things in your post, but given his job as Director of the nation’s first faith-based Institute for Military Resilience at “Liberty University” I can see clearly now. You’re the greatest–as always!