Dear editor:
My letter is in regards to the column by Gail Symons titled "What the Heck did Pete Hegseth just say?"
I wanted to highlight that the first that author is completely out of touch with today's military and that elements of the column are false.
Hegseth never said they are eliminating the EO, he said they are overhauling it to reduce frivolous complaints.
Since the author retired as an admiral's aid in 1997, way before the days of Obama and Biden and their efforts to use the military for the adaptation of far left wing ideology on the country let me offer a few points.
I am a retired Army E9 who served 32 years in uniform retiring in 2020.
During my time, I was forced to sit in a room with 400 other classmates and participate in an LGBTQ celebration.
We couldn't have medical appointments and had to be there. After the celebration, which read a proclamation from President Obama on the day, we were supposed to have a working group with gay military officers and legal on the post to determine the "Way Forward" for new policies.
When the future E9s in the audience started asking meaningful questions about how the policy will be implemented and the panel didn't know the answers, we were all told, "You need to just get with the policy or go home."
I've also had to sit in training sessions that was being taught military-wide, where all of us went into the room as uniformed soldiers and were immediately told that some people in this room need to "check your privilege."
Essentially, we entered the room on the same team and in the same uniform and came out divided.
If the author had done a little research she would have discovered that starting with President Obama, the EO office had been converted to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
The training material they utilized was obtained from the Southern Poverty Law Center which is an action committee for hard corps left wing policies and ideology.
According to this group, religious groups across the country have been labeled "racist."
With a little bit of checking the author could have discovered that Army policy requires at a brigade level and above the existence of a permanently assigned EO rep that has to be trained by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in DC.
The idea is that this individual will be trained and then provide the required training to the troops in the unit.
If the commander does not agree with the training, or feels that it will divide the troops, (ss it does) the commander has no options, as denying the training would result in immediate firing.
While I'm sure the author has a personal and probably political gripe about Hegseth, it would be good if she did a little research before she goes on a tirade.
She could start with the local VFW, she might find a different perspective.
Sincerely,
Bob Brostoski, Cheyenne
