The poster boys for the modern woke military might be long gone, but the damage they did and the subversive ideology they nurtured are still very much in situ within the rank and file that make the big machine run. They infest every nook and cranny of the military bureaucracy.
There have always been examples of the concept in government. For example, during a shutdown, the National Park Service will go to great lengths to close off open parks, like the monuments in D.C., that don’t require any National Park Service presence to begin with, just to make their point. In much the same way, they recently expressed their ire with the Trump administration by having only one person with keys and restroom rescue knowledge in all of Yosemite. See what happens to the park when the knuckle-dragging Luddites furlough him?
HAH! GOTCHA
This has been the case in the military since the moment Pete Hegseth issued his first directive. What might have been interpreted in the beginning to be confusion at the abrupt change or scrambling to please the new boss without thinking things through is starting to very much shape up as a deliberate campaign of a sort that’s easy to spot.
These elements across the US military are playing what we Marines refer to as [rhymes with] ‘CLUCK-CLUCK’ games. The instrument being employed to warp the intention and public perception of SecDef and the Trump administration is ‘malicious compliance’ – explained here by the extraordinary Nick Freitas.
The term of the day is “malicious compliance.”
It’s how bureaucrats that need to be fired, try to keep jobs, that shouldn’t exist. pic.twitter.com/9Vn4FeYlmr
— Nick Freitas (@NickJFreitas) January 28, 2025
The quiet assault on Hegseth’s authority started when the DEI memo was released. It directed the services to cleanse every trace of DEI/woke.
Every trace of common sense went out the door at the same time. Consequently, the DoD had to start ‘restoring’ treasured icons of American military history who’d been chucked wholesale out the door with the drag queens, transgender colonels, and Pride Month firsts.
And, holy smokes – wasn’t it super convenient how those oversights were caught immediately by eagle-eyed progressives and used to bludgeon Hegseth and the administration? I told Ebola at the time I could understand the enthusiasm for obeying orders, but why not have a couple PFCs looking at stuff before they s**tcanned it, just to be able to raise a hand and ask, ‘Are we sure they meant…?’
The Department of Defense (DoD) on Monday quietly restored a web page it had removed about Army Maj. Gen. Charles Rogers, a Black man who earned the Medal of Honor for his leadership during the Vietnam War.
The removal of the 2021 article on Rogers stoked furious backlash on social media—particularly after critics realized the then-defunct URL had been changed to include “DEI medal.”
“This is blood-boiling,” remarked writer Brandon Friedman in a viral Saturday post on Bluesky, who shared screenshots of the web page’s removal. “Charles Rogers was awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam after being wounded three times leading the defense of a position.”
As time passed with repetitive episodes, it became blazingly obvious why there were no critical eyes on what was being deleted in the name of the new DoD.
Malicious compliance.
And whoever did it will be fired like the last ones. https://t.co/Qm4DoCOLGc
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) March 7, 2025
This is how those doing the purging meant it to roll out.
Exclusive: Navajo Code Talkers disappear from military websites after Trump DEI order https://t.co/dM7TuuNhkh
— Axios (@axios) March 17, 2025
Trump and Hegseth wanted things gone?
This is a passive aggressive form of malicious compliance, where you pretend you’re following some order and doing so dishonestly.
The entire chain of command must be relieved for this stunt. pic.twitter.com/iUYVFBFlVK
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 26, 2025
By God, it was all going.
Ridiculous.
Malicious compliance. https://t.co/hepGXarfyA
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) February 13, 2025
Everyone was in a state of ‘confusion’ about Hegseth’s order, says NPR.
…Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.
But a review of the database also underscores the confusion that has swirled among agencies about what to remove following Trump’s order.
Aircraft and fish projects are flagged
In some cases, photos seemed to be flagged for removal simply because their file included the word “gay,” including service members with that last name and an image of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.
I’ll bet they were.
The service academies are well-versed in this game. Graduates like Spenser Rapone aren’t created in a vacuum nor overnight.
They’re not confused about squat.
There is a lot of this going on caused by either:
– malicious compliance
– leadership/decision makers whose personal partisanship and terrarium-like social circle and information sources push them to make wild outside three standard deviations response to directives.Neither… https://t.co/nrxXY7f1pX
— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) April 3, 2025
I think Sal nails it, especially the ‘terrarium-like social circle’ aspect of these people’s existences. The bubble-people strike again.
This brings me to another segment of the subversives addressed in a super piece in Real Clear Defense today, written by a former Army PAO.
Who are the most prominent proponents and guardians of the progressive agenda – at any cost – in the country today? The media, correct?
Public Affairs in the military is no different, and they are the front line – the public face the military presents to the nation. When the designated messenger is diametrically opposed to the message yet allowed to shape it for public consumption? We have a problem.
The Order Was To Purge DEI, Not History
Several times recently I started to write a warning to the Pentagon’s new leadership that its biggest foe in communicating their message is the leftwing culture shared by a predominance of military communicators, known as the public affairs force. I didn’t finish until now because few among the department of defense care about public affairs, and the civilian world cares even less. Yet recent events demonstrate a continuing reality that one of the biggest obstacles facing the Pentagon’s new leadership in executing its mission is the entrenched left-wing culture of the military’s public affairs force. By law, military public affairs (PA) personnel are tasked with keeping the institution honest with the public. Yet many among them are ideological activists intent on undermining efforts to restore the military’s focus on readiness and warfighting and acting as a resistance force against efforts to cleanse military culture of divisive, progressive social dogmas.
Last week, the Department of Defense reinstated multiple historical websites and social media posts featuring the Tuskegee Airmen, the Enola Gay, the WWII Navajo Code Talkers, the Women Airforce Service Pilots, Jackie Robinson, and the Marines at Iwo Jima, among others. These were not removed due to an official directive or innocent mistake, but rather as an act of internal sabotage—an attempt by military agents to paint the new administration as historically illiterate and regressive. The actual order was to eliminate content promoting Marxist DEI ideologies that divide the military, not to erase American history.
…The Army’s antipathy toward the incoming Trump administration continued when President Trump nominated Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Following the announcement, ProPublica questioned whether Hegseth had been offered admission to West Point. The Public Affairs Division Chief at the academy, Theresa Brinkerhoff, denied that Hegseth had ever applied, stating that he “never opened a file.” This false claim would have fueled a major media slander campaign had Hegseth not produced his 1999 West Point acceptance letter. Only after being confronted with concrete evidence did the academy acknowledge the truth.
Author Chase Spears says the Trump administration cannot hesitate to dig into the rot at the center of Public Affairs if it is to have any hope of reforming it.
…To correct course, the Pentagon’s new leadership must take decisive action to reform military public affairs. This includes removing entrenched PA agents who have demonstrated a pattern of progressive ideological bias and misconduct. Second, Hegseth and Parnell should demand that military public affairs reflects a value of communication professionalism, rather than staffing to enable a progressive echo chamber. Third, military leaders must consistently enforce existing regulations that require truthfulness, rather than continuing to reward wayward PAOs with key jobs. Finally, sober-minded PAOs must spine up, and begin pushing back against weaponized uses of military communication initiatives. This is their fight as much as anyone else’s. Supervisors should no longer feel free to suppress constitutionally minded troops, as is happening right now. Much more will need to be done, but these steps will start the necessary momentum to weed out the amateur mindset that infects much of military public affairs culture.
Many of the service heads and unit commanders are acting in buffoonish fashion as well. Some are suddenly putting extraordinary requirements on troops for excessive uniform inspections and requiring excessive nit picky crap that drives troops insane with frustration in an already challenging environment, while blaming the SecDef’s direction for doing so.
To my jaundiced eye, it’s almost a campaign in itself to build and feed resentment in the ranks as so much of what they’re forcing on their service members is arbitrary, not ordered.
There is still such a thing as commander’s discretion and good judgment, or at least I hope so.
Or couldn’t they ask for clarification?
Do I think everything’s been perfect in the transition? Of course not.
But it’s hard to take that first step up when someone keeps moving the ladder on you, and Hegseth is going to have to get a handle on it all, and fast.
The world might be smoldering, but he’s got a fire in his own wastebasket that he needs to put out first, before it takes his house.
