The Pentagon’s top general told lawmakers Wednesday he finds it “offensive” that some are accusing top military officers of being “woke.”
Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley made the comments as some Republican lawmakers are accusing the Defense Department of pushing “wokeness.” Top defense officials say the programs are intended to rid the ranks of extremism and promote diversity, but the conservatives see political correctness going overboard.
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“I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our noncommissioned officers of being quote ‘woke,’” Milley told lawmakers Thursday.
He implied that troops who enter the training programs do not leave them after being transformed into woke warriors — just better educated about others.
“I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” Milley said. “That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding … the country which we are here to defend?”
But the training programs have drawn the ire of conservatives, including some military veterans-turned-lawmakers.
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Texas GOP congressman Dan Crenshaw, a retired Navy SEAL, recently launched a web portal designed to allow troops to share examples of what he dubbed “woke ideology” in the military.
“Enough is enough,” Crenshaw wrote on Twitter. “We won’t let our military fall to woke ideology.”
