WFFJ-TV

By:  David Deschesne
Editor/Publisher,
Fort Fairfield Journal
August 9, 2023

The Russian, North Korean and Chinese military leaders must surely be laughing at the U.S. military now. Since Joe Biden’s handlers took control of the military (Joe Biden is in control of nothing), woke transgender policies have proliferated throughout the service branches, watering down our military’s readiness and effectiveness.

I’m about to say something scary: The purpose of a military is to kill people and destroy things.

But, in reviewing a February 2023 U.S. Army Memorandum from the Defense Health Agency, it is safe to conclude that a culture of wokeness in the military is setting up a system and mindset that is going to dramatically impact the military’s ability to effectively and responsibly engage in its mission (to kill people and destroy things) and make the U.S. less effective against opposing militaries who have not adopted these destructive woke ideologies and policies.


The Rot Within Has Been Going on for Decades
When I went through U.S. Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina in 1986, the standards were already loosening.

I processed through the Reception Station which is where recruits are prepped for entry into Basic Training. One of the preparations was the Physical Fitness station to determine if the recruit is even physically capable of participating in the upcoming training. Men were required to do 13 correct push-ups while women were only required to complete one. I did my 13 then stood by and waited for the others in my line to do theirs. The women’s line was on the other side of the room. I watched as several of the young female recruits could not muster enough strength to push their bodies off the ground for one complete push-up (some men could not even do 13). Anyone, male or female who could not complete the initial physical requirements at the Reception Station (push-ups, sit-ups, 2 mile run at a minimum time) were required to remain at the Reception Station and receive additional physical training to get them up to a level where they could be admitted into Basic Training and begin their 8 week course. There was no such thing as “transgender” back then. But, the military is now embracing that concept wholesale.

At the end of Basic Training, men were required to do 30 correct push-ups in 2 minutes in order to test out and move on to training for their job. Meanwhile, the females only had to do around 12 correct push-ups. Standards were likewise weighted in favor of the female recruits for the other physical training requirements but I don’t remember the specific details.

This is not to say women can’t compete at the same physical level as men—some can, and they would likely clobber me in a fight. But the majority of the female recruits were allowed to test out of Basic Training at a physical readiness level below men in order to satisfy the “equality” goals of politicians at the time.

With the introduction of woke transgender policies, that readiness is now rapidly eroding even further.


MEDCEN Memorandum
On February 1, 2023, the Defense Health Agency released MEDCEN Memorandum No. 40-517 entitled, “Care of Service Members Who Identify as Transgender.”[1]

Transgender means a person who thinks they are the opposite sex—but that is an illusion in their mind, not a biological fact. A transgender man is a real woman who thinks she is a man and a transgender woman is a real man who thinks he is a woman. It is a psychological issue and with this medical memorandum, the U.S. Army is now taking on the financial and medical responsibility to accommodate these people at the taxpayer’s expense.

The memorandum builds an entire medical infrastructure around coddling and accommodating these psychologically disabled service members, starting with the Market Transgender Care Liaison through to a “Transgender Care Team and various medical providers from various disciplines with experience and knowledge working with the Transgender Population.” The Transgender Care Team will then “monitor the transgender service member’s mental stability through the gender transition process.” [Sec. 8 ¶6]

What does any of this have to do with the military’s mission to kill people and destroy things?

But this is the new woke military. In Section 7, paragraph a of the memorandum it states;

“The overarching goal of treatment for Transgender Service Member (TGSMs) is to provide a safe and effective pathway to achieve lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves to maximize their overall health and promote psychological well-being and self-fulfillment, while allowing them to continue to pursue their military service goals.” [Sec. 7 ¶ a]

From what I remember about Basic Training, they weren’t too concerned about my “lasting personal comfort” or “psychological well-being and self-fulfillment.” Neither will the enemy be in an actual war.

I was training in an infantry Battalion which had as its mission to psychologically harden the recruits and turn them into killing machines. Yes, the Army trained us to kill people. That’s what Armies do. They do not exist to provide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion jobs to psychologically disabled recruits. Or, at least they never used to have that as a mission.
The memorandum goes on to list some of the treatments the transgender service member may require;

“speech/voice therapy, cross-sex hormone therapy, laser hair removal, voice feminization surgery, facial contouring, body contouring, breast/chest surgery (colloquially referred to as “upper surgery”), and genital reassignment/confirmation surgery (“lower surgery”). [Sec. 7 ¶ d]

Huh? This looks like it’s a taxpayer-funded gravy train for trans folks who sign up in order to get all of their gender hormones and surgery for free.  Again, this has nothing to do with the military’s mission of killing and destroying the enemy.

The woke insanity of the U.S. Army does limit itself, though. The memorandum further states;

“While it is understood that many TG individuals identify as ‘gender non-binary’ and/or ‘gender fluid’, Service Members are required to choose a DEERS [Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System] gender marker of male or female. This is not meant to misgender or disrespect a Service Member’s identity, however, the current medical and Army system views gender as a dichotomous variable.” [Sec. 7 ¶ i. ]

For those who don’t know what dichotomous means, it means “divided into two parts.” That is, male and female only.
But wait, there’s more! The woke Army is embracing the idea of improper grammar usage by stating,

“Once a Service Member has been diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria it is expected that all medical staff use patient’s preferred pronouns when speaking with patient and in their clinical documentation…” [Sec. 8 ¶ a. (2) ]

I doubt the enemy will be as accommodating if they capture any of these transgender service members in an actual war.
The memo goes on to allow a profile/waiver from deployment by stating;

“Upon initiation of cross-sex hormone therapy, Service Members will have a T3 profile entered into the eProfile system. Most Service Members will require up to 300 days to be stabilized on cross-sex hormone therapy, and they will remain in a non-deployable status during that time.” [Sec. 8 ¶ d. (3) ]

This means a trans soldier undergoing these “treatments” cannot be deployed in the field, or a war, for the job they were trained for. Therefore, it is essentially a nearly one year paid vacation. The straight soldiers do not get this kind of special treatment for identifying as their natural, biological sex. They have to carry the load for the non-deployables.

In addition to receiving a waiver from deployment, the transgender service member may also apply for waivers via an Exception from Policy to be exempt from:

- Army Body Composition Program
- Army Physical Fitness Testing
- Military Personnel Drug Abuse
Testing Program
[Appendix K ¶ 5 ]

Sex-change surgery will also be provided by the military. The memorandum allows;

“The service member will be referred for surgical care, if desired once he/she has continuously and responsibly used gender-affirming hormones for 12 months and has been confirmed by the TGCT [Transgender Care Team] behavioral health care provider to meet criteria for gender affirming surgery.” [Sec. 8 ¶ f. (1) ]

The memorandum further notes some of the potential risks involved in hormone treatments for women transitioning to “men” as;

“high risk of adverse outcome with erythrocytosis; moderate risk for liver dysfunction, coronary artery disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and breast or uterine cancer; possible increased risk for irreversible infertility, low bone mineral density, increased insulin resistance and diabetes.”
[Appendix F ¶ 4 (a-c) ]

For men who are undergoing hormone treatment to become “women” the memorandum lists as potential risks;

“increase risk of venous thromboembolic disease, gallstones, weight gain, and hypertriglyceridemia; low risk for prolactinoma and hepatotoxicity; possible risk for irreversible fertility insulin resistance & diabetes, low bone mineral density and cardiovascular disease.”
[Appendix G ¶ 4 (a-c) ]

Look at those risk events again: cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes, low bone density, hypertension, cancer, and all the others. How does this make a strong, effective fighting soldier? It doesn’t. This appears to be a deliberate attempt by politicians who hate the United States military to take it down and destroy it from within.

These woke policies have nothing to do with the military’s mission of killing the enemy and destroying things. I’m not opposed to transgender folks living their lives in the way they see fit, but doing that in a military setting is not the place to do it. There’s just too much extra physical and psychological baggage the military has to deal with which distracts it from its core mission. This is what happens when politicians and public ideologies govern how a military manages its service members and affairs. No good can come from this, from a readiness standpoint, and our enemies know that.


Watered Down Military
In a recent interview, Colonel Douglas McGregor (US Army Retired) explained how embracing soldiers who are substandard tends to drive out the qualified recruits and soldiers from the ranks. “If you say that little Suzzy over there who weighs 90 pounds or 110 pounds is just as good as Bob who’s 6 feet tall and weighs 220 and she can do everything he can do and there’s no difference. Good, you’re going to get a lot of Suzzies, but you’re not going to get the other guy,” said Col. McGregor. “I think if you’re a average 18, 19, 20 year old man, single, a guy who’s even remotely athletic, who wants to be tested, wants to accomplish something in life, wants to join a elite organization, and he looks at what’s presented to him in these commercials and what he sees, he says Thank-you but No Thank-you, I’ll go somewhere else.”[2]

Col. McGregor further elaborated, “You can force whatever you want on federal forces. You can. But the people who are going to show up and fight effectively for you will not stay, they’ll leave. I can guarantee it.”

Some will argue that having transgenders in the U.S. military is not an issue because we have the technological superiority over all other militaries in the world. While that may be true to some extent, the other militaries are catching up with us. More importantly, though, technology cannot occupy the ground. At the end of the day, you need ready soldiers in an area following orders and effectively fighting and holding the ground. If you brought in a bunch of soldiers who cannot be deployed because they are on hormone treatments, or have driven all the strong, masculine, effective fighters out of the military, then you are not going to be able to win wars and occupy land areas.

Perhaps this is what the politicians who are pushing these ridiculous ideologies on the military really want. Perhaps this is 5th generation warfare where our military is being crippled and overrun from within and nobody wants to admit it. Okay, then, I will: Woke transgender policies are 5th generation warfare being used to purposely cripple and overrun our military from within.

There, I said it. Now let the insults and claims of “divisiveness” from the leftists begin. But, while they may be quite effective at hurling insults and ad hominem attacks against me, they cannot successfully defend their transgender position or rebut my conclusion on the facts of this matter.

Notes:
1. https://www.dossier.today/api/v1/file/68dd7794-e12b-47a2-91d8-0d9724ca723f.pdf
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ijiqarzKpE&pp=ygUbdmFsdWV0YWlubWVudCB3b2tlIG1pbGl0YXJ5