By Capt Tom Burbage, US Navy ret, USNA ’69

All Americans should salute our Veterans who have given so much in defense of the freedoms we enjoy as a unique nation in the world. At this time of reflection on their sacrifices, there is a movement afoot that represents three perspectives. See if you share this view.

1. As Americans, we are concerned about the growing crisis in our nation, our society and our Institutions. Over the last 80 years, America has lost hundreds of thousands of lives and spent trillions of dollars of our national treasure fighting against totalitarian governments.  We now seem to be on a path to allow the same divisive ideology to find a home inside our nation.

There seems to be a slow awakening on how deeply it has become engrained in our institutions of higher learning, in many of our Federal Government organizations and in corporate America. Most concerning to us is that it is now infecting the two institutions which should be most protected:  K-12 (the impressionable, not fully developed minds of young children) and the military (whose members write us a blank check of service with their lives as collateral). This should be a major concern to all Americans.

2. As Veterans, we are concerned about the impact of the changing ideology on the erosion of military readiness and combat capability. Some view the military as the perfect petrie dish for experimentation: a very large captive sample set, comprising a diverse slice of American society and subject to government edict and funding.

But Veterans all took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. All took their oath as a lifetime commitment. For the first time, we are sensing a real domestic enemy emerging.

It is also a matter of Stakes and Mistakes: We believe the stakes are high and getting higher as real enemies see the weaknesses in our current leadership. Taiwan and Afghanistan redux are only two and there are several others. Military readiness, not political positioning must be prioritized.

The recent mistakes ((surface and subsurface collisions at sea, loss of a new capital ship through arson, withdrawal from Afghanistan (the loss of extensive military equipment to a terrorist regime and the abandonment of Americans and Afghani American supporters)) would point to a loss of focus within our military command structure.

3. As Alumni of our Service academies, we are concerned about the impact of these changes on the unique role that the service academies play in transitioning the best and brightest of our youth to the future military, government and industry leadership. Service academies must deal with incoming high school students, in some cases indoctrinated with the DEI/CRT culture and often with very different family values than our older generation would recognize today.

At the same time, the institutions must deal with the flow down of social experimentation from left leaning administration policies. While we all believe in and support the Mission of our Service Academies, we feel an obligation to vocally verify that maintaining a warrior culture as the basic element is critical, not adapting these unique institutions to the whims of societal change.

The Bottom Line

The American people must awaken to the real domestic enemy that now threatens our American way of life. Somehow, we have allowed it to happen, have we been asleep at the switch? No, actually, in the words of Ronald Reagan, we trusted leadership to make the right decisions but we failed to verify, one of the DNA shortcomings of a Democracy. We assume leadership of our critical institutions have the best interests of our Constitution and Democracy in mind. That has proven to be a bad assumption.

There has been a slow awakening to this threat, both in our schools and in our military. Our democratic historical analogy is the unleashing of the sleeping bear. It is time for the bear to come out of his hibernation.

About the Author:

Capt. Tom Burbage is a Naval Academy graduate, former Navy Test pilot and industry leader. He is working with a group of concerned individuals to change the focus of our military and specifically our Service Academies