shades fills you in

The military’s behind on recruitment. The Army had a shortage of around 12,000 - 15,000 recruits in 2022. Deseret.com asks: Is wokeism to blame?

A WSJ Op certainly thinks so: It’s the military’s “embrace of woke politics”! It’s alienating potential recruits

A veteran writing in a Newsweek Op agrees, and lays blame at the feet of “elite” colleges indoctrinating future U.S. soldiers with liberal ideologies

A Press Herald Op also blames wokeism: Just look at how the Air Force Academy polices gendered language. They asked cadets not to use words like “mom” and “dad”! What a distraction

But a WaPo Op thinks the claim of a “woke military” is way overblown: The U.S. military is still uber-conservative. Welcoming a more diverse set of people will help us protect our country

The Atlantic also supports a liberal military: The Ukraine conflict proves that brains > brawn. Putin’s macho military is failing spectacularly. Maybe a more diverse military would do us good!

A NYT Op agrees: If “woke” means inclusive and diverse... then the U.S. Army *is* woke! And that’s something to celebrate

And a veteran responds in a letter to The WSJ: “Wokeism isn’t why the military’s not hitting their recruitment numbers -- it’s the pandemic, and the fact that the military couldn’t recruit in person”

The Army itself also said its recruiting woes had little to do with wokeism: A nationwide survey found that young people aren’t joining the Army because they don’t want to jeopardize their safety

But Tucker Carlson swears the woke military is real, and a real problem -- it’s turning U.S. armed forces into a bunch of extremists. Watch his video here

Mike Pompeo writes in the ACLJ: “Yeah, all this emphasis on gendered language and anti-racism distracts from the point of our military -- to defend our country”

The Young Turks has a different perspective: The military is an inherently anti-liberal institution. Advertising it as something else is just dishonest. Watch their video here