Elizabeth Warren and her naming commission add to military recruiting crisis

EVERY DAY MORE ARTICLES COME OUT on our military recruiting crisis caused by Biden's Woke policies, the worst of which replaces merit with racist Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, but things are going to get much worse.

Now comes Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission to rip the fabric of our country apart.

Warren's legislation in the wake of the Floyd riots is like the Communist cultural purges of the past century or something out of Nazi Germany against the Jews.

It has falsified or erased a substantial part of American history to humiliate political rivals in the red state South from where 44% of our military is recruited.¹

Legendary Southern soldiers like Alvin York and Audie Murphy are not welcome today in Warren and Biden's military that discriminates based on skin color and sexual orientation, uses drag queens for recruiting, puts men in women's barracks, is committed to racist Critical Race Theory, and spent millions upon millions planting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucracy in the military.

See "'Once In A Generation Crisis': Vets Blame Biden's Focus on Woke Priorities for Low Military Recruitment Numbers, Biden's Pentagon has pumped around $114 million into diversity, equity, and inclusion programs," Washington Free Beacon, March 28, 2023.

Recruits and their parents know that if you don't check the right Diversity, Equity and Inclusion boxes you can be denied opportunity. Who in his right mind would join an organization like that or suggest that their precious children join?

DEI is racist and breeds mediocrity.

Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who got an amendment into the House version of the FY 2024 NDAA requiring merit over DEI said:

America's military became the greatest fighting force in the history of the world by promoting excellence, embracing colorblind principles, and attracting our nation's best and brightest . . . The Biden DoD's indefensible race and gender-based treatment of servicemembers is making our military weaker and our nation less safe. Anti-woke legislators should continue to roll back the Biden administration's radical attempts to deny Americans' equal protection under the law.²

The Defense Department started pressuring military leaders to adopt racist DEI  immediately after Biden was inaugurated.

For context, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (often abbreviated to DEI) promote a divisive and poisonous ideology that's dismissive of merit and discriminates based on characteristics such as skin color and sexual orientation. Individuals who qualify for a certain position due to their merits but don't meet the discriminating entity's goal of being more "diverse" are passed over in favor of those who meet the preferred identitarian standards.³

That's why today's military leaders are incapable of solving recruiting problems. Many are mediocre people picked based on DEI and not merit. It is this way throughout Biden's administration. Remember the Afghanistan withdrawal when we lost 11 Marines, a Navy Hospital Corpsman and a Soldier, saw people falling out of the sky off fleeing aircraft, left Americans behind, and gave the Taliban billions of dollars of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet.

U.S. Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth and others have said Woke ideology has nothing to do with the recruiting crisis because they supposedly asked potential recruits if it did, and recruits said no.

In spite of examples of extreme public revulsion to Wokeness such as Bud Light and Target, Wormuth and her ilk are blind as a bat, or required to be blind by the head of the rotting fish.

It is racist Wokeness that is destroying goodwill and traditions that have long supported our military, and it can't be ignored or covered up forever by the corrupt news media or White House.

It will eventually damage the military so much it will cause a panic and real trouble. Missing recruiting goals by 25% is bad but wait until it is 40%. Wokeness and DEI have to be culled out of the military 100% and now.

Rep. Banks gave the Secretary of Defense until late 2024 to come up with a plan replacing racist Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with merit. That is way too long. He should have demanded the plan be in place in January, 2024.

Law suits should be filed over this immediately because DEI in the military and everywhere else in society is clearly racist discrimination that is illegal. I thought the Civil Rights Movement was supposed to get rid of all that.

The Wall Street Journal article above has a subtitle: "Pentagon scrambles to retain the main pipeline for new service members as disillusioned families steer young people away."

The children of military families make up the majority of new recruits in the U.S. military. That pipeline is now under threat, which is bad news for the Pentagon’s already acute recruitment problems, as well as America’s military readiness.

“Influencers are not telling them to go into the military,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview. “Moms and dads, uncles, coaches and pastors don’t see it as a good choice.”⁴

Already military personnel serving today are under extra stress taking up the slack from lack of recruiting. See Army Times article "Soldiers under 'enormous strain,' warns Army's top enlisted leader" by James Clark, May 12, 2023.

This is not fair and puts them in danger, and is another deterrent to recruiting. The WSJ article continues:

“I’ve been studying the recruiting market for about 15 years, and we’ve never seen a condition quite like this,” said a senior Defense Department official.

The U.S. Army in 2022 had its toughest recruiting year since the advent of the all-volunteer military in 1973 and missed its goal by 25%. This year, it expects to end up about 15,000 short of its target of 65,000 recruits.

The Navy expects to fall short by as many as 10,000 of its goal of nearly 38,000 recruits this year, and the Air Force has said it is anticipating coming in at 3,000 below its goal of nearly 27,000. The Marine Corps met its target last year of sending 33,000 to boot camp, and expects to meet its goals this year, but its leaders described recruitment as challenging.

Only 9% of young people ages 16-21 said last year they would consider military service, down from 13% before the pandemic, according to Pentagon data.⁵

One of the reasons only 9% of young people are willing to serve is because of the constant hatred of America and our history pushed by the left.

Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state under President Trump, talks about Woke policies in the military:

'How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist?' . . . 'How can we ask them to view their brothers and sisters in arms through the narrow prisms of race or gender? The clear and obvious answer is that we cannot - not without putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. A woke military is a weak military.'⁶

Pompeo also said in a Fox News article last summer:

Under the Biden administration, warfighting doctrines are being replaced - even at the training level - with doctrines of diversity, equity and inclusion.⁷

Many veterans will no longer encourage anybody, much less sons and daughters, to join the military:

When Marine Corps Reserve Col. Matthew F. Amidon, director of veterans and military families at the George W. Bush Institute, wrote a commentary urging veterans to help during the recruiting crisis by recommending military service to their kids and other young people, Military Times was inundated with hundreds of emails from veterans saying they would do no such thing.

Their reasons varied, but most said wokeness is to blame. They accused the military of becoming so "political," or such a "social experiment," that even proud veterans wouldn't recommend service.

'I'll be blunt. I wouldn't encourage anyone to join today's armed forces and I discouraged both of my sons from considering serving,' wrote Peter Demas, who described himself as a third-generation veteran. 'America's military leaders have sold out the Services for their own advancement and reflect all the poorest qualities of civilian 'leadership' from whom they accepted thirty pieces of silver; instead of being the nation's repository of integrity and moral courage, they have become more political than the political animals they grovel before.'⁸

As I said, with Wokeness, all you get is mediocrity that is incapable of even seeing problems much less solving them.

Army Secretary Wormuth is working on a sweeping "recruiting overhaul."

She declined to provide details but said a key element will be to coordinate with veterans’ groups. “Right now we are not in a comprehensive, structured way leveraging our relationships with veterans organizations,” Wormuth said.⁹

She contradicts herself by saying she wants to call on veteran groups to help with recruiting while at the same time saying she does not want to depend on military families too much because that might create a "'warrior caste'":

Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.¹⁰

Good luck with that. Our military is not a "diversity" experiment.

Some 80% of people who join the military come from military families. How is she going to replace them with "people who have no real connection to the military"?

This is the kind of incompetence you get from the Woke. How about culling racist Woke programs out of the military so that good people will know they can advance based on merit and not be held back by a different skin color because Diversity, Equity and Inclusion calls for it.

To do as Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission suggest and discriminate against your greatest pool of recruits - Southerners - who are enthusiastic for military service and have proven themselves outstanding throughout history, in favor of a Woke social experiment, is idiotic. No wonder they can't recruit.

This is how the Army met its recruiting goals in the past:

It did so by relying heavily on veterans and military families to develop the next generation of recruits, especially in the region known in the military as the “Southern Smile,” a curving region from the mid-Atlantic and down across the southern U.S.¹¹ (bold emphasis added)

The naming commission recommendation to demolish the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery will add substantially to our recruiting crisis.

The Confederate Memorial and names on the Ranger Memorial at former Fort Benning, should not even be in the remit of the naming commission as they claim. The Confederate Memorial commemorates the reconciliation of the United States of America after a war in which 750,000 died and a million were maimed.

The names on the Ranger Memorial represent timeless American valor, patriotism and sacrifice.

The theme of reconciliation symbolized by the Confederate Memorial is irrefutable and beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is not an opinion. Arlington National Cemetery itself said it repeatedly in multiple places in its application for its Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

It was conceived by a Union soldier, later president, William McKinley, after enthusiastic Southern participation in the Spanish American War. About the 518 Confederate graves in concentric circles emanating out from the magnificent Confederate monument, McKinley said:

. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.

Several other presidents directly participated in the creation of the Confederate Memorial such as William Howard Taft who spoke at a UDC ceremony the evening the cornerstone was laid, and Woodrow Wilson who spoke at the dedication June 4, 1914. Theodore Roosevelt sent the first annual memorial wreath. Warren G. Harding sent a message of condolence to the funeral of sculptor Moses Ezekiel. Veterans North and South enthusiastically supported the Confederate Memorial and spoke.

A hundred page book of all the participants, speeches and history was published in 1914 by the UDC and is available on Amazon, but Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission want to erase all that. The title is: History of the Arlington Confederate Monument, by Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association. It is available in hardback or softcover.

Remember, those were the days of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous handshakes across the wall by the old Union and Confederate veterans.

Every president starting with Teddy Roosevelt, as stated, and including Barack Obama, sent an annual wreath to the Confederate Memorial.

Barack Obama and the others were certainly not commemorating the Confederacy as required by Elizabeth Warren's legislation for the naming commission to have any say.

They were commemorating the reconciliation and reunification of the United States of America. Neither names on the Ranger Memorial, nor the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, should be within the remit of the naming commission as it claims.

Demolishing the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, if it was falsely or incorrectly claimed to be within the remit of the naming commission, has to be illegal and should be the subject of another law suit.

There is also a serious issue of truthfulness with the naming commission's report to Congress and Secretary of Defense Austin concerning the Confederate Memorial.

Naming commission vice chair, Ty Seidule, a leftist who hates the Confederate Memorial in Arlington, admits the reconciliation theme and wrote about it in his book, Robert E. Lee and Me, though he left that critical information out of the naming commission's report to Congress and Secretary Austin, thus making that report NOT THE TRUTH.

I doubt if Austin would have approved demolishing a magnificent 109 year old monument to reconciliation in our nation's most sacred burial ground if he had been given the complete history.

On page 162 of Robert E. Lee and Me, Seidule writes:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .¹²

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)¹³

That is an absurd statement, to say that our country should not have come back together in peace, love and patriotism, but that is a subject for another day.

Please see my white paper, "The Reconciliation of North and South after the War Between the States as symbolized by the Confederate Memorial "New South" in Arlington National Cemetery" in Defend Arlington's book of white papers:

Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation RE: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial

A collection of white papers, articles, testimony, and the Presidential Monument dedication speech.

There is a link below to the entire book in PDF flip-book format.

Elizabeth Warren and her naming commission want to dishonor "those heroic dead," whom McKinley spoke about, which also dishonors their descendants who have spilled oceans of Southern blood on battlefields across the globe for our great country.

Maybe Southern veterans should send Elizabeth Warren, the naming commission, Secretay of Defense Austin and Army Secretary Wormuth letters, and copy President Trump, Ron DeSantis, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers.

Elizabeth Warren and her naming commission also dishonor over 15 states on whose soil "those heroic dead" were born, nurtured and grew to manhood:

Georgia

Tennessee

Virginia

North Carolina

Maryland

South Carolina

Florida

Alabama

Mississippi

Arkansas

Missouri

Nevada

Texas

Louisiana

Iowa

Numerous Unknown

Please see my article: List of the 518 Confederate Burials in Arlington National Cemetery, Concentric circles of graves extend out from the magnificent Confederate Monument . . .

Article includes name, rank, unit info., place of birth and death, infantry, cavalry, or artillery, when known. These are all the names in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, mostly men, some women family members.

Elizabeth Warren and her naming commission would have all those honored dead facing a mangled shaft that was once a monument, about whose creator art scholar Michael Robert Patterson said:

[N]o sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art.

The above quote comes from a white paper by the foremost national authority on Confederate and Union monuments, Ernest E. Blevins, entitled "Headstone of the Confederate States: Moses Ezekiel's Arlington Confederate Monument, Symbolism, Meaning, National Register Eligibility, and Potential Adverse Effects to Alternations or Removal."  It is included in Defend Arlington's book of white papers. There is a link below.

Blevins discusses the "monument symbology" that "depicts the South's mourning and the war's losses."

I might again remind Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission that 750,000 died in the War Between the States and over a million were maimed out of a national population of 31 million.

James McPherson said about the South's losses:

the overall mortality rate for the South exceeded that of any country in World War I and that of all but the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II."¹⁴

The Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery reunited our country and opened a pipeline of patriotic Southerners to serve with relish in our military.

Until the rise of Wokeness and Elizabeth Warren's destruction and falsification of Southern history, we had no recruiting crisis and our military was the best in all of history.

The recruiting crisis can no longer be tolerated:

U.S. recruiting shortfalls represent a long-term problem that, if not resolved, would compel the military to reduce its force size. With America embarking on a new era of great-power competition with China and Russia, that problem has become more serious. ¹⁵

Let me reiterate how the Army met its recruiting goals in the past:

It did so by relying heavily on veterans and military families to develop the next generation of recruits, especially in the region known in the military as the “Southern Smile,” a curving region from the mid-Atlantic and down across the southern U.S.¹⁶ (bold emphasis added)

Once the pipelines of recruits from families and veterans, and traditions such as the South's are destroyed, the country comes apart. That's why it's call "tearing the fabric of our country."

It can't be fixed quickly, especially when half the population does not even trust our elections, and for good reasons.

We need champions who will call attention to the naming commission's disgraceful recommendation to remove names from the Ranger Memorial at former Fort Benning, and demolish the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

President Trump, Ron DeSantis, Republicans in Congress, state attorneys general, governors, especially of the 15 states represented among the 518 Southern graves in concentric circles emanating out from the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery, and others who realize the threat that Wokeness has caused to our military, PLEASE STAND UP for the Rangers and for Arlington National Cemetery.

The naming commission's recommendation will desecrate Arlington National Cemetery for all time.

You don't have to love the Confederacy to be outraged with the idea of demolishing 109 year old historic monuments in cemeteries. Americans don't do things like that. The Taliban and ISIS do but we don't.

The Confederate Reconciliation Memorial is one of the most magnificent on earth.

Esteemed British art critic and historian, Alexander Adams, writes that "four soldiers are buried at its base" and "include Civil War Soldier and sculptor Corporal Moses Ezekiel . . . " therefore "The [Confederate] Memorial is an actual grave marker, marking the burial site of dead soldiers, and is located in the National Cemetery, making it a functional or symbolic grave marker. It is therefore outside the remit of the Naming Commission."¹⁷

About its artistic significance, Adams writes:

Having viewed a large amount of public statuary from the beaux-arts era (1850-1914), it is my professional opinion that the Memorial is a serious, iconographically complex and technically accomplished piece of art. It my view, it is a handsome sculpture and an entirely appropriate funerary monument. I consider it an internationally significant piece of art of its type and era. Any nation should be proud to host such a magnanimous and dignified monument."¹⁸

Adams also notes that:

[I]t is rare for a nation to mark the sacrifices and loses of the losing side in a civil war. This makes the Memorial internationally significant, as an example of the exceptional history of the USA and the efforts to reconcile the sides after the Civil War. It shows black and white soldiers working together, overturning expectations and putting [on] the record the complexity of historical fact, which it is not our generation's place to suppress.¹⁹

The reason reconciliation was desired by both sides is because both knew the issues of States Rights and secession, on which the Founding Fathers had set up the country, versus an all-powerful central government, as the North was fighting for, were undecided before the war.

President Eisenhower said it best in a letter August 9, 1960 to Dr. Leon Scott defending why he had a picture of Robert E. Lee on his office wall in the White House the whole time he was president. Eisenhower wrote:

Dear Dr. Scott:

Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.

From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee's caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation's wounds once the bitter struggle was over, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

Sincerely,

Dwight D. Eisenhower ²⁰

If Congress will IMMEDIATELY cull out of our military the racist Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucracy that Biden has embedded along with all Woke programs so that our military is unquestionably back to being based 100% on merit, we can stop the damage to important veteran and family pipelines and traditions that serve our military, and, before Biden, made it the greatest in the history of the world.

We should also repeal Elizabeth Warren's history-falsifying and destroying legislation that insults and dishonors the South from where 44% of our military is recruited.

As Ty Seidule admitted, even the Confederate base names in the South were done out of reconciliation and not commemoration of the Confederacy as required by Warren's legislation therefore they should be changed back.

Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence suggested changing Fort Bragg back to Fort Bragg. ALL of the bases should be changed back because Elizabeth Warren's legislation is a Communist-style falsification of history so she can pretend she has virtue. It is worthless legislation and a waste of money.

We must restore names to the Ranger Memorial at former Fort Benning and Congress should formally apologize to the families who were victims of Elizabeth Warren and the misguided naming commission.

See also:

Military Times reports "trust and confidence" in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022, Politicization cited as number one problem, Woke policies in the military are worse than politicization, Recruiting crisis is wakeup call but serious damage has already been done

and

Graham Perdue, "Woke Military Ads Prove Infiltration of Woke Politics," March 14, 2023

and

BETRAYAL: Republicans in the Senate Guarantee U.S. Army Base Names in the South WILL Change, No More Fort Benning Thanks to Senate Republicans, No More Fort Bragg Because STUPID Republicans Aligned with Elizabeth Warren Against Their Own Voters, How Stupid Can You Be . . .

TO READERS: There are two law suits preventing the DoD from carrying out Elizabeth Warren's legislation and destroying the Confederate Memorial, and there will be others.

WE NEED MONEY for our crack legal team! Please scroll down for valuable links and to give!

Help us make Woke ignorance and hate DIE at Arlington National Cemetery.

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel's MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

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Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

[email protected].

Please Donate Now -- THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

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Click Here to go to their website

¹ Ben Kesling, "The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join,

Pentagon scrambles to retain the main pipeline for new service members as disillusioned families steer young people away," June 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-recruiting-crisis-veterans-dont-want-their-children-to-join-510e1a25, accessed 6-30-23.

² Shawn Fleetwood, June 21, 2023, "House Committee Advances Amendment Restoring Meritocracy to Military Personnel Decisions," https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/21/house-committee-advances-amendment-restoring-meritocracy-to-military-personnel-decisions/, accessed 6-22-23.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ben Kesling, "The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join,

Pentagon scrambles to retain the main pipeline for new service members as disillusioned families steer young people away," June 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-recruiting-crisis-veterans-dont-want-their-children-to-join-510e1a25, accessed 6-30-23.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Mike Pompeo in Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

⁷ Quoted from the Reagan Institute Defense Survey in Ben Wolfgang article, "The war over 'woke': Republicans gear up to take aim at controversial Pentagon social policies, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/dec/27/war-over-woke-republicans-gear-take-aim-controvers, accessed 12-27-22.

⁸ Meghann Myers, "Is the military too 'woke' to recruit?", October 13, 2022, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/10/13/is-the-military-too-woke-to-recruit/, accessed 1-24-23.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ben Kesling, "The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join,

Pentagon scrambles to retain the main pipeline for new service members as disillusioned families steer young people away," June 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-recruiting-crisis-veterans-dont-want-their-children-to-join-510e1a25, accessed 6-30-23.

¹² Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me, A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020), 162.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ James McPherson, quoted in Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), xii.

¹⁵ Ben Kesling, "The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join,

Pentagon scrambles to retain the main pipeline for new service members as disillusioned families steer young people away," June 30, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-recruiting-crisis-veterans-dont-want-their-children-to-join-510e1a25, accessed 6-30-23.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Alexander Adams, "Testimony regarding Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial submitted to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery Open Secession, 7-8 November 2022." Adams's source is Arlington National Cemetery's National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Historic District received by the National Park Service February 24, 2014, mentioned above. It was approved for the property's entry onto the National Register of Historic Places April 11, 2014. Adams's full testimony is in Defend Arlington's book of white papers by art and history experts, a link to the PDF flip-book is below.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Dwight D. Eisenhower letter, August 9, 1960, to Leon W. Scott, in "Dwight D. Eisenhower in Defense of Robert E. Lee," August 10, 2014, Mathew W. Lively, https://www.civilwarprofiles.com/dwight-d-eisenhower-in-defense-of-robert-e-lee/, accessed 5-3-20