On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth argued that criticisms of “a woke military” are “undermining our recruiting at a time where we really can’t afford that.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough asked, “So, our troops are the best and the brightest. We’re stronger than we’ve been relative to the rest of the world at any time since World War II. And yet, we’ve got a lot of politicians in Washington, D.C. trashing them. I know you don’t want to get into the politics of it all, but I am curious, all of the trashing of our men and women in uniform by Republicans, all of the suggestion that they’re weak and woke, all of the suggestions that they wish that they were more like Russians, is that hurting our recruiting in middle America?”
Wormuth responded, “Well, Joe, I would say, first of all, we’re not a woke Army. We’re a ready Army. We’re certainly far more ready than the Russian Army. The United States Army is the world’s greatest land fighting force. And I do think that that constant drumbeat that we sometimes hear about a weak military, a woke military, is a little bit of a negative drip, drip, drip that is undermining our recruiting at a time where we really can’t afford that.”
She added that “when I talk to members of Congress, they’re often saying, hey, we want to help you with recruiting. And so, my answer to them is, if you want to help, talk about all of the opportunities that the Army offers to young people, talk about how ready we are, how hard we are training, how lethal the United States Army is. That’s, I think, the message that I’d really like to see members of Congress sharing with their constituents back home.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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