TargaGTS in reply to Virginia42. | May 1, 2024 at 8:02 am
I can tell you who started it (George W Bush) and exactly how and even when it started: March 13th, 2007. That was the day Gen Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said this in defense of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe that the Armed Forces of the United States are well-served by saying through our policies, “It’s OK to be immoral in any way.”

Pace, a former CO of mine and one of the finest Marines I have ever known, is a devout Catholic and offered his opinion in response to a direct question on the subject. So, ‘conservative’ president George Bush had Pace’s back, right? Nope. Bush immediately threw him under the bus and Pace became one of the only CJCS who wasn’t renominated for a second term.

That incident sent a message to O-4s and O-5s (like myself at the time), that if they were traditionalists, religious and/or held conservative social views, they had no home and NO CAREER PATH in the military. So, when they reached a point in their tenure when they were eligible for retirement, they took it.

Bush replaced Pace (a decorated combat veteran and Academy grad), with Mike Mullins, a naval officer who was known to possess ‘progressive’ social opinions. Mullins was also the first CJS who did not rate the Combat Action Ribbon/Badge. The slow embrace of everything woke began under Mullins. He was the architect of what we have today…all thanks to George Bush.