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“You’re fired!” It’s the line that made Donald Trump famous on “The Apprentice,” and it’s working pretty well for him in the federal government to kick off his second term.
He began with offering buyouts to federal workers. He continued with gutting USAID of 99% of its employees and firing a slew of other executive branch personnel. Then he turned his sights on America’s military academies, firing the boards of visitors for all of them.
“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard.” He added, “We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) February 10, 2025
According to Fox News, “The boards consist of appointees from various sources, with six members being chosen by the president, four from the speaker of the House, three from the vice president, and one each from the House and Senate Armed Services committees.”
Firing them isn’t unprecedented, of course. Joe Biden did the same thing to Trump’s appointees in 2021. However, since retaking office three weeks ago, Trump has been relentless in his mission to root out the radically left-wing elements of the federal government.
The firings follow other changes at the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promised to drop a bomb on DEI in the military, and so far, he and the commander-in-chief have delivered. Trump quickly signed multiple executive orders restoring meritocracy to the ranks and prioritizing readiness. Part of that is banning “transgender” individuals from joining and halting “gender-affirming care” for any already enlisted. “Effective immediately,” says a new memo from Hegseth, “all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused, and all unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members are paused.”
In compliance with Trump’s executive orders, the Defense Department began cracking down on left-wing books and other learning materials distributed at all schools serving U.S. military families last week. This action affects roughly 67,000 students in 160 military schools worldwide.
Meanwhile, West Point has shut down roughly a dozen DEI-centered clubs. West Point has had its share of trouble in recent years. For example, there was that communist cadet, the teaching of Marxist critical race theory, and stripping “Duty, Honor, Country” from its new mission statement.
The U.S. Naval Academy, which was sued in 2023 for racial discrimination in its admissions practices, launched a review of its clubs for the same purpose. The U.S. Air Force dropped its Diversity and Inclusion Studies minor and is reviewing other things. In short, big changes are afoot.
The DOD guidance states, “Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.” Establishing groups or gearing admissions based on race or sex, by definition, divides the force.
Hegseth put it this way: “I think the single, dumbest phrase in military history is, ‘Our diversity is our strength.’ I think our strength is our unity.”
Two weeks ago, I predicted that these sorts of changes would be a boon to recruiting. Last week, that prediction came true. It seems that Trump, Hegseth, and the military are only getting started restoring greatness to the ranks.
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