When <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Biden</a> declared on “60 Minutes” last week, “The pandemic is over,” he made more of an observation than a declaration. The vast majority of Americans left <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/covid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID</a> fear and restrictions behind long ago and have gone back to living their lives in much the same way as they did before 2020.
Yet not everyone has been able to move on. On September 23, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, allegedly discharged seven cadets after denying their requests for religious exemptions to the military’s COVID vaccine mandate. Now, two highly-decorated retired admirals are demanding to know why.
All between the ages of 18 and 22, the cadets say when their religious exemption appeals were <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/cadets-ordered-off-coast-guard-academy-campus-for-refusing-covid-vaccination">denied</a> on August 18, they were told they must leave campus in less than 24 hours or face being escorted off the grounds by guards. This forced two, who did not have homes to which they could return, to respectively live out of a car and find refuge with another cadet’s family.
“When I tried to explain that I did not have a good home life, and was in tears about having to return to my family, I was simply [asked], ‘Why hadn’t you thought before of what to do if this happened?’” one of the cadets, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, told The Daily Wire. “They told me I needed to patch it up with my family. I was not given any support or offered additional housing opportunities.” When she later contacted the Academy to let them know her family was not, as she’d expected, willing to take her in, she says it took the Academy two days to respond, and then only to tell her to “be ready to engage local law enforcement if needed.”
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_441456" style="width: 343px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-441456" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-441456" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="333" height="333" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/F6F8A456-DAF3-4A5D-8D32-D7F01E8C3989.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px" />Six of the seven discharged cadets. Photos Courtesy of Mike Rose</div>
As the Academy allegedly did not provide the cadets with money for travel, they were obliged to charge hundreds of dollars in unexpected expenses to their credit cards, leaving them in dire financial straits while they waited for reimbursements they say they have yet to receive. They then lived in limbo for over a month after their sudden disenrollment, unclear if they could pursue jobs or other education as they waited to find out their fate with the Coast Guard.
All of this treatment, Ret. Vice Admiral William “Dean” Lee and Ret. Rear Admiral Pete Brown tell The Daily Wire, is unacceptable.
<div id="attachment_441458" style="width: 255px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-441458" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-441458" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-245x300.jpg" alt="" width="245" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-245x300.jpg 245w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-470x576.jpg 470w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-768x941.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-1253x1536.jpg 1253w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/RADMBrown2star-1-1671x2048.jpg 1671w" sizes="(max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px" />Ret. Rear Admiral Pete Brown, Photo courtesy of Brown</div>
Brown, himself an Academy graduate and former instructor, says it’s becoming harder to be proud of the military branch he served. “The core values on which the Coast Guard ought to be operating are respect and devotion to duty,” he says. “And these are young folks [who] really have a service orientation. They&#8217;re trying to do for the country, not trying to take from the country. And that opportunity is now being denied to them for reasons that truly seem arbitrary and capricious.”
Lee, who served as director for the Department of Homeland Security’s Task Force East joint interagency Maritime Counter Narcotics and Alien Migration mission, says the president’s recent comments make the decision even more indefensible.
“When the commander-in-chief himself says the pandemic is over, it’s time to let loose of this stuff and stop talking about it. Stop discharging trained people who want to serve, who are ready to serve. And let’s stop creating these gaps because the gaps equal reduction in readiness,” he says.
Lee points out that one of the cadets, a black, Haitian immigrant, was set to be honored with an award for exemplary leadership, as voted on by his peers. He received the news in an email following his disenrollment. Now that he’s been discharged, he will never receive it.
“That this young man was elected for that leadership award by his company is a big deal,” Lee says. “You get voted by your peers if you actually have leadership capability. So is the argument, ‘While we find him to be an extraordinarily capable and suitable leader, we find him unsuitable for military service because he won&#8217;t take a shot that is unnecessary and won&#8217;t even prevent the disease, as we now know?’”
The Coast Guard’s actions mark a striking difference from other service academies like West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy, which have allowed officers-in-training to remain while the issue makes its way through the courts.
Already, three federal courts have issued injunctions prohibiting the Air Force, Marines, and Navy from penalizing their service members who have outstanding religious exemption requests. Most recently, in September, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the federal government’s request to overturn a lower court order protecting Air Force service members from facing disciplinary action over faith-based refusals to take the vaccine. This likely led to the Marines and Navy deciding to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/marine-corps-rescinds-penalties-service-members-seeking-vaxx-religious-accommodations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rescind</a> their policies of penalizing service members for claiming religious exemptions.
Even the Department of Defense Inspector General has <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/pentagon-in-potential-noncompliance-with-law-in-denying-religious-exemption-requests-to-vaccine-mandate-leaked-memo_4731004.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&amp;utm_campaign=mb-2022-09-15&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;est=q6%2FW7TUm9APK9RPA9Visn1I%2FXX%2B0DA0SHz4uZTIU58A%2FEDGuTL6HJ9utmfY%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acknowledged</a> potential legal issues with the vaccine mandate. In a leaked memo, acting DoD Inspector General Sean O’Donnell conceded that the department is potentially violating religious liberty protections by rejecting service members’ objections to getting vaccinated. This was something 47 Republicans in Congress highlighted when they <a href="https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/republican-u-s-reps-urge-dod-to-end-vaccine-mandate-for-military/article_bfc247a2-350b-11ed-a22d-53dcd87c608d.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">urged</a> the DoD to “immediately revoke” the vaccine mandate for service members.
<div id="attachment_441459" style="width: 250px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-441459" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-441459" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_5669-1-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/IMG_5669-1-240x300.jpg 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/IMG_5669-1-461x576.jpg 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/IMG_5669-1-768x960.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/09/IMG_5669-1.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />Ret. Vice Admiral William &#8220;Dean&#8221; Lee, Photo courtesy of Lee</div>
The cadets cite a variety of reasons for seeking religious exemptions. One takes issue with the fact that the vaccines were developed with the aid of abortion-derived cell lines. Another says that Christians are biblically obligated to treat their bodies as temples, so taking taking a vaccine that has rare but well-documented side effects to provide only limited protection against a virus that poses almost no risk to young, healthy individuals makes little sense. The cadets say that they all provided the Academy with signed determinations from military chaplains that their religious objections are sincere.
Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who also holds a Ph.D. in cardiovascular inflammation, says such <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/cardiologist-spike-proteins-generated-by-covid-19-vaccines-are-toxic-to-heart_4716233.html?welcomeuser=1">objections</a> are not just sincere, but reasonable.
Milhoan says 18 to 22-year-old males not only face the highest risk category of cardiac effects from the vaccine but this is especially true for athletic young men one would tend to find in the military service.
“There is a paper out from the national meeting of the American Heart Association in cell research that shows that the spike protein is a cardiac toxin. So the vaccine is now a known cardiac toxin. Do you want to give cardiac toxins to those who have a very, very low risk from the virus?”
Milhoan says while young women don’t have the same increased risk as young men, their likelihood of adverse reactions is still elevated as compared to the general population. Finally, he argues that as the federal government has now acknowledged the waning efficiency of the vaccine in preventing infection or spread of COVID, there’s even less reason not to respect religious objections.
Lee says he has been trying to get answers through official channels but has been rebuffed. His first email to Admiral Linda L. Fagan, who serves as commandant of the Coast Guard, went unanswered for a week until an assistant replied that she was on extended travel and would respond in a week or so — a reply Lee interprets as a brush off. He says he doesn&#8217;t want to throw rocks at his fellow service members, he only wants to advocate for the seven cadets who have no voice. &#8220;They have been singled out and expelled from the only U.S. military academy not willing to wait for the courts to sort this whole mandatory vaccine mess out,&#8221; he argues.
The Daily Wire reached out to the Coast Guard Academy but did not receive a response in time for publication.
What Lee suspects is that this decision is evidence of Left-wing ideology infiltrating the armed forces. &#8220;I fear that the leaders of my former service have become minions and puppets of the administration, driven, in this case, by the Secretary of Homeland Security,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I say this because we have always remained in lock-step with our sister services on these matters…deviation on this one makes no logical sense.
The cadets’ discharge comes as other academies are embracing the progressive priorities of the Biden administration. On September 22, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/air-force-academy-diversity-training-tells-cadets-to-use-words-that-include-all-genders-drop-mom-and-dad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news broke</a> that the Air Force Academy is instructing its cadets in “gender-neutral language” and to avoid terms like “mom and dad” and “boyfriend or girlfriend.” Many believe it is this kind of focus on politics rather than military readiness that has led to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/why-the-us-military-faces-a-growing-recruiting-crisis.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recruitment crisis</a>, along with a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/02/15/americans-trust-in-scientists-other-groups-declines/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">precipitous drop</a> in public trust.
“The church of woke-ology is alive and well in the United States military armed services,” Lee says. “Thou shalt worship at the altar or be persecuted.”

Doctor wearing protective work wear injecting COVID-19  vaccine to soldier

Retired Admirals Demand Answers Over Coast Guard Cadets Allegedly Discharged For Vaccine Exemption Requests

Coast Guard

COVID-19 Vaccine

Military

Religion

Vaccine Mandate

Two U.S. veterans from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/alabama" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alabama</a> branded “soldiers of fortune” by Moscow after being captured <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ukraine-russia-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fighting for Ukraine</a> have been spared their date with a firing squad after a Saudi-brokered prisoner swap.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, who were captured in June while defending Kharkiv, were at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia after being freed in the exchange, a representative of their families told Reuters Wednesday.
“We are thrilled to announce that Alex and Andy are free,” the representative said in a statement. “We deeply appreciate everyone&#8217;s prayers and especially the close communication and support of our elected officials, Ukrainian Ambassador Markarova, and our members of the US embassies in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Department of State.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
JUST IN: Ten foreign fighters, including two Americans who joined the war effort in Ukraine before they were captured and held by Russian forces, were released as part of an exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine. <a href="https://t.co/gSAneEZIym">https://t.co/gSAneEZIym</a>
&mdash; NBC News (@NBCNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1572653416228306946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The swap was part of a deal that also included five British nationals, one Moroccan, one Swede, and one Croatian. It was mediated by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi foreign ministry said. Ukrainian officials released an unknown number of Russian captives as their part of the deal.
Drueke and Huynh were the first known U.S. citizens to be captured by Russian forces. Huynh&#8217;s fiancé, Joy Black, told Reuters at the time the men signed up to fight after seeing television footage of the Russian invasion, which began February 24.
Drueke, of Tuscaloosa, and Huynh, of Hartselle, who both served in the U.S. military, did not know each other before joining the fight. They were captured in a village near Kharkiv, <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/07/14/how-2-american-veterans-ended-ukraine-prisoners-of-russian-armed-militants.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Military.com reported in July</a>.
&#8220;A week ago, our team ended up isolated in the middle of a Russian offensive,&#8221; the men&#8217;s unit later posted in a June 15 tweet that announced their capture.
After they were taken prisoner, Drueke and Huynh were held in the Donetsk People&#8217;s Republic, a region in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
Russian state TV aired interviews with the men in which they sympathized with Russia, but their families said they were under obvious duress.
“My name is Alexander Drueke, I am against war,&#8221; Drueke said in a video interview that Russia tweeted. “Ya protiv voyny,” he adds, Russian for “I am against war.”
Russia said shortly after their capture that they would face  a firing squad, because they were considered “soldiers of fortune,” <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11236125/Russia-releases-U-S-citizens-Alexander-Drueke-Andy-Huynh-prisoner-exchange-family-representative.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Daily Mail reported.</a>

Russian military tanks and armored vehicles advance in Donetsk

Two Americans Captured Fighting For Ukraine Dodge Russian Firing Squad

Putin

Ukraine-Russia War

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/chris-pratt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chris Pratt</a> definitely got everyone&#8217;s attention Wednesday when it seemed he did a whole lot more than just hint at a second season for the monster hit &#8220;The Terminal List.&#8221;
During the 43-year-old actor&#8217;s appearance on the &#8220;Danger Close&#8221; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1xcDFZ1Dgo&amp;t=4403s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">podcast</a> hosted by Former Navy SEAL and &#8220;The Terminal List&#8221; author Jack Carr, the two talked about the idea of a second season.
Carr would only say &#8220;we&#8217;ll see&#8221; and that there may be some &#8220;cool stuff on the horizon being discussed.&#8221; But Pratt, who plays Lieutenant Commander James Reece in the hit Amazon psychological thriller series, definitely went further.
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Chris Pratt: Becoming James Reece" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r1xcDFZ1Dgo?start=4403&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;To the rabid fans of &#8216;The Terminal List&#8217; out there, you have nothing to worry about,&#8221; the &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy&#8221; star shared. &#8220;We love you and we appreciate your support.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s our life&#8217;s mission to make sure you can come back to the well,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And so we&#8217;re working away.&#8221;
The Amazon series is about &#8220;a former Navy SEAL officer&#8221; who &#8220;investigates why his entire platoon was ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission,&#8221; a description on <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11743610/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IMDb</a> reads.
The Carr series, based on his novel of the same name, has been a massive hit with audiences, despite critics trying to slam it as &#8220;anti-woke&#8221; and more, as previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-media-trash-chris-pratts-anti-woke-terminal-list-audiences-love-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. It hit the streaming site on July 1.
The author recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-didnt-make-it-for-the-critics-author-of-the-terminal-list-responds-to-triggered-critics-trashing-chris-pratt-series" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reacted</a> to &#8220;triggered critics&#8221; who have trashed the series and said it wasn&#8217;t made for them.
&#8220;We didn’t make it for the critics,&#8221; Carr shared. &#8220;We made it for those in the arena. We made it for the soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine that went downrange to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they could sit on the couch and say, &#8216;Hey, these guys put in the work. They put in the effort to make something special and make a show that speaks to them.’”
During the star-studded red carpet premiere that was held in Los Angeles in June, Pratt posed for pictures with WWII veterans as he thanked the men in uniform, who he praised as members of the &#8220;greatest generation,&#8221; as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/honor-them-for-their-great-sacrifice-chris-pratt-shakes-hands-and-thanks-wwii-veterans-at-premiere-for-the-terminal-list" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-pratt-sends-message-to-fans-and-amazon-after-the-terminal-list-soars-to-number-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chris Pratt Sends Message To Fans And Amazon After &#8216;The Terminal List&#8217; Soars To Number 1</a>

“The Terminal List” Los Angeles Premiere – Arrivals

Chris Pratt Has Message For ‘Rabid Fans’ Of ‘The Terminal List’ About Whether Another Season Is Happening

Chris Pratt Suggests Second Season Of ‘The Terminal List’ Is In The Making

Amazon Prime

Celebrities

Chris Pratt

Entertainment

A group of House Democrats has introduced a new bill that would require the military to provide a leave of absence for service members to receive abortions, including military payment to cover out-of-state travel.
The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/2085?s=1&amp;r=9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a>, called the &#8220;Access to Reproductive Care for Service Members Act,&#8221; was introduced to respond to requests for abortions by military members in states that have tightened abortion laws following the Supreme Court&#8217;s overturn of Roe v. Wade in June.
“Abortion access should be a right, not a privilege,&#8221; Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), Chair of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, said in a <a href="https://crow.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-crow-speier-introduce-bill-to-protect-abortion-care-for-us-servicemembers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> on Tuesday.
&#8220;Yet a recent study estimated that 40 percent of servicemembers will have no or severely restricted access to abortion services where they are stationed – something they have no control over. The fallout of being denied care will be catastrophic, as is the threat to our military readiness, recruitment, morale, and unit cohesion,” she added.
The new legislation will seek to add several new aspects to how abortions are handled by the military. First, it would redefine abortion as time-sensitive, requiring a commander to approve leave automatically. In addition, the act would allow service members to request and receive leave for abortion care without specifying to a commander the nature of the procedure.
In cases in which abortion is not legally provided in the state where the service member is stationed, the bill would require the Department of Defense to cover travel expenses similar to other &#8220;necessary&#8221; healthcare travel.
The new act would also prohibit retaliation or adverse action from commanding officers or other service members for getting an abortion.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a co-sponsor of the legislation, argued that abortion is an issue of military preparation.
“A woman’s choice to have an abortion should remain between her and her doctor – including for our servicemembers. Ensuring our troops have access to safe and reliable abortion care is both a matter of principle and troop readiness,” Crow said.
“During my time in the Army, I served alongside talented and brave servicewomen. Their service was – and is – a huge part of what makes our military the greatest fighting force in the world,&#8221; he added.
The Democratic lawmakers argue that the projected cost of travel for military personnel going out-of-state for an abortion is $1,100 or more, almost half of the monthly pay for a junior enlisted service member. Speier argued that covering the abortion-related expenses was &#8220;the least we can do.&#8221;

Lloyd Austin

Democrats Introduce Legislation To Offer Military Leave For Service Members To Get Abortions

Abortion

Biden Administration

Democrats

Pro-Life Movement

Now we&#8217;re cooking with oil. The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/military" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United States</a> Space Force <a href="https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3163735/space-force-reveals-official-song-semper-supra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> its official song on Tuesday, and it should rev the engines of any red-blooded <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/american-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American</a> patriot.
Not only is it a great new tradition in our nation&#8217;s military history, but it also proves that critics of former President Donald Trump were embarrassingly wrong about his vision for the country — yet again.
The song, named after Space Force&#8217;s motto — &#8220;Semper Supra,&#8221; or &#8220;Always Above&#8221; — was <a href="https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3163735/space-force-reveals-official-song-semper-supra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> during the 2022 Air &amp; Space Forces Association Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, according to a press release from the U.S. Air Force. Semper Supra was co-created by James Teachenor, a former member of the U.S. Air Force band at the Air Force Academy.
&#8220;The song was a long work in progress because I wanted it to encompass all the capabilities that the Space Force offers and its vision,&#8221; Teachenor said.
Chief of Space Operations General John &#8220;Jay&#8221; Raymond assisted in the development of the new battle hymn after former President Donald Trump created Space Force.
&#8220;This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to establish a Space Force song that will be part of our culture and heritage for years to come,&#8221; Raymond said. &#8220;Our traditions are part of the fabric that weave us all together as we execute our missions side-by-side; I will be proud to sing &#8216;Semper Supra&#8217; alongside my fellow Guardians.&#8221;
For cynics, it sounds silly, but stuff like this matters for the nation&#8217;s morale and self-esteem. Advancing the idea of American Exceptionalism is a noble one. It is important that we pass on to the next generation of Americans the notion that our country has done, can do, and will do great things that better mankind.
It is even better when those ideals are represented in institutions — such as with battle hymns for each nation&#8217;s military branch.
Beyond that, critics should remember that Trump was practically laughed out the door by Democrats, media, and Never Trumpers alike when he first suggested the very idea of Space Force. Then, he signed it into law. Netflix and Steve Carrell made a mediocre parody show about it. Even as it was working its way through the official process of becoming established, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a sarcastic remark about.
In February 2021, a reporter <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/psaki-refuses-to-apologize-for-remarks-about-space-force-gives-false-impression-she-already-did-so" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> Psaki about the future Space Force, including whether President Joe Biden wanted to keep it.
“Wow. Space Force. It’s the plane of today,” Psaki responded arrogantly. “It is an interesting question. I am happy to check with our Space Force point of contact. I’m not sure who that is. I will find out and see if we have any update on that.”
In response, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the House Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, demanded that Psaki apologize for the remark.
“It’s concerning to see the Biden administration’s press secretary blatantly diminish an entire branch of our military as the punchline of a joke, which I’m sure China would find funny,” Rogers said at the time. “The Space Force was passed with near unanimous support in Congress, the same type of ‘unity’ President Biden is supposedly working towards. Jen Psaki needs to immediately apologize to the men and women of the Space Force for this disgraceful comment.”
Of course, Americans now know that that &#8220;unity&#8221; was a farce. Biden considers MAGA Republicans, or a large portion of the country, to be threats to democracy itself. In the end, though, Trump has the last laugh as Space Force not only exists today, but has its very own hymn to go with it.
The song can be heard here:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The moment you&#39;ve all been waiting for: The Space Force has unveiled its official song <a href="https://t.co/v6CG3I4sYD">pic.twitter.com/v6CG3I4sYD</a>
&mdash; Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) <a href="https://twitter.com/dave_brown24/status/1572217257199128577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The official lyrics are as follows:
<blockquote>SEMPER SUPRA 
The Official U.S. Space Force Song
 
We’re the mighty watchful eye, 
 Guardians beyond the blue, 
 The invisible front line, 
 Warfighters brave and true. 
 Boldly reaching into space, 
 There&#8217;s no limit to our sky. 
 Standing guard both night and day, 
 We&#8217;re the Space Force from on high.</blockquote>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Space Force

LISTEN: Space Force Reveals Official Song. It’s Pretty Sweet.

LISTEN: Space Force Reveals Official Song

Donald Trump

Music

U.S. Air Force

United States Space Force

Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie warned on Sunday that the U.S. has limited intelligence capacity in Afghanistan 21 years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
McKenzie, the former leader of U.S. Central Command, shared the concern during an interview on CBS&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation&#8221; with host Margaret Brennan.
“I think that we have a very, very limited ability to see into Afghanistan right now,” McKenzie said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Ret. General Frank McKenzie says the U.S. has a &quot;very, very limited ability&quot; to see into Afghanistan right now, since U.S. troops were withdrawn.
&quot;We&#39;ve got certainly less than 2 or 3% of the intelligence capability we had before we withdrew.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/xV6YLkkfzr">pic.twitter.com/xV6YLkkfzr</a>
&mdash; Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1568982273290129409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“I’ve said I think we’ve got certainly less than 2 or 3 percent of the intelligence capability that we had before we withdrew,” he added.
McKenzie, who retired in April, said he recommended that President Joe Biden keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. However, the general said he was told that such a move would send a bad signal.
The military leader was also asked if he agreed with the Biden administration&#8217;s assessment that the Islamic State and al Qaeda are not currently a threat to the U.S. He concluded that the groups could still &#8220;regenerate&#8221; and cause problems in the future.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Asked if he agrees with the Biden administration&#39;s assessment that ISIS and al Qaeda don&#39;t presently pose a threat to being able to carry out an attack on U.S. soil, Ret. General Frank McKenzie says he is of the opinion the terrorist groups will be able to &quot;regenerate.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/7NQsUUrZLU">pic.twitter.com/7NQsUUrZLU</a>
&mdash; Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1568982437622841344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2022</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It&#8217;s going to take a little time for them to do that, but I think what&#8217;s most concerning about the CIA strike that you mentioned is that he was living in very good accommodations in downtown Kabul,&#8221; referring to a drone strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri earlier this year.
McKenzie also agreed that the Biden administration&#8217;s report of the U.S. military departing Afghanistan should be shared with the American public.
&#8220;It&#8217;s probably a good thing to release as much of that review as you can,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think the American people want to know what happened.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;It&#39;s probably a good thing to release as much of that review as you can,&quot; Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie says on whether a Biden administration report on the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan should be made public.
&quot;I think the American people want to know what happened.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/V32KhHJH65">pic.twitter.com/V32KhHJH65</a>
&mdash; Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1568982858273890306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2022</a></blockquote>
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America&#8217;s withdrawal from Afghanistan followed a 20-year-long insurgency against a U.S.-led NATO force and the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed government, which fell almost immediately after the U.S. pulled its troops.
The Biden administration&#8217;s handling of the military&#8217;s departure has been widely criticized and reportedly left thousands of Americans and allies trapped behind enemy lines.
The final month in Afghanistan included the deaths of 13 U.S. military personnel and more than 100 Afghans in a bombing outside of the Kabul airport that has continued to be a source of criticism against the Biden administration.
In addition, the U.S. airlifted tens of thousands of Afghans from the nation to America. The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-report-blasts-bidens-homeland-security-for-improperly-vetting-afghan-refugees" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that between July 2021 and January 2022, the U.S. welcomed more than 79,000 Afghan evacuees as part of Operation Allies Refuge (OAR)/Operation Allies Welcome (OAW).
A <a href="https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2022-09/OIG-22-64-Sep22-Redacted.pdf">report</a> from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concluded the Biden administration’s DHS “may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities.&#8221;
&nbsp;

Frank McKenzie

‘Very Limited Ability’: Retired General Warns Of U.S. Intelligence Concerns In Afghanistan As Nation Remembers 9/11

Retired General Warns Of U.S. Intelligence Concerns In Afghanistan As Nation Remembers 9/11

9/11

Afghanistan

We live in a deeply serious time with deeply unserious leaders.
Historian Niall Ferguson has written that the “extreme violence of the twentieth century” was precipitated by three preconditions: “ethnic conflict, economic volatility, and empires in decline.” It is difficult not to see such preconditions repeating themselves in this century. The West is currently tearing itself apart over concerns about birth rate, immigration, and multiculturalism. Economic volatility is raging: after a decades-long reshifting of manufacturing away from the West and a reorientation toward finance and service, the hollowing out of the Western energy sector in pursuit of utopian environmentalism – all punctuated by the Great Recession, the covid mini-depression, and now sky-high rates of inflation &#8212; the global economy sits on a razor’s edge.
And then there is the problem of empires in decline.
We tend to think of our world as empire-free, a world of nation-states. But that’s not really correct. The United States, however hesitant, is a de facto empire, even if not in the colonialist mold of the British Empire; the European Union would, in any other context, be considered a continental empire; Russia has always considered itself an imperial power, and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine represents merely the latest iteration of this claim; China has an empire of its own, not merely a nation-state – as author Ai Weiwei recently wrote, “the people who live in China or come from it are a jumble of more than 50 ethnic and linguistic groups.”
The Russian empire is far past decline; it is an economic backwater armed with antiquated military systems, in grave demographic trouble. But China is the area of highest risk today. The Chinese economy underwent tremendous economic growth over the course of the last two decades, but that growth now appears to be stalling out: state-run mercantilism is not self-sustaining, and as China scholar Michael Pettis recently wrote, “China’s excessive reliance on surging debt in recent years has made the country’s growth model unsustainable….[it is likely] that the country will face a very long, Japan-style period of low growth.” China’s demographics are entirely upside-down; its population is expected to reduce by nearly 50 percent by 2100. And Xi Jinping is about to declare himself dictator for life.
In all of this, China strongly resembles Nazi Germany on the precipice of territorial aggression against its neighbors. Nazi Germany saw tremendous GDP growth, rooted largely in debt, state-sponsored mercantilism, and military spending; Germany’s fertility rate dropped from above 4 in 1910 to well below 2 by 1935. Nazi Germany’s underpinnings were fragile; Hitler saw his window closing. Military aggression was therefore not unpredictable.
So, what would China’s next logical step be? Its eyes are fixed on Taiwan: given China’s historic lust for Taiwan and Taiwan’s domination of the all-important production of sophisticated semiconductors, a Chinese invasion of the island is not-at-all unpredictable.
Which brings us back to the deeply unserious leadership of the West.
Faced with the prospect of ethnic tensions, economic volatility, and the internal instability of China, the West is opting for weakness. Economic growth is the prerequisite for military power; moral strength is the prerequisite for internal cohesion. The West has decided, over the course of years, to abandon its commitment to economic strength, instead fighting a losing war with the climate and promising endless giveaways from the unfunded welfare state; simultaneously, the West has fallen into the self-doubt of dying civilizations, pitting its citizens against each other, labeling them “semi-fascists” and “threats to democracy.” We lie somewhere between the moral collapse of Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional” (1897) and Philip Larkin’s “Homage to a Government” (1969). This doesn’t mean that the West is on the verge of collapse; China is far more vulnerable than we are. But it does spell a future of chaos and difficulty – the kind of chaos and difficulty only strength, economic and military and moral, can successfully keep at bay.

Ben Shapiro 1 (1)

SHAPIRO: Unserious Leadership In A Serious Time

Ben Shapiro

China

Economy

Nazi Germany

Readers Pass

Russia

United States

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden administration</a> will begin offering &#8220;abortion counseling&#8221; and, in some cases, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/abortion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">abortions</a> to veterans through Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals — regardless of state law — in a move aimed at the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the VA said Friday.
The rule says some state laws are &#8220;laws not founded in science or based on evidence,&#8221; and asserts that &#8220;State and local laws and regulations that would prevent VA health care professionals from providing needed abortion-related care, as permitted by this rule, are preempted.&#8221; In a statement, it <a href="https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5820" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, &#8220;VA is taking steps to guarantee Veterans and other VA beneficiaries abortion-related care anywhere in the country.&#8221;
Since 1999, the VA has been banned from providing abortion or abortion counseling. The interim rule will become effective immediately, even though it has not completed the public-comment process, it said.
&#8220;As abortion bans come into force across the country, veterans in many States are no longer assured access to abortion services in their communities, even when those services are needed,&#8221; the rule says. &#8220;Unless VA removes its existing prohibitions on abortion-related care and makes clear that needed abortion-related care is authorized, these veterans will face serious threats to their life and health.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.womenshealth.va.gov/WOMENSHEALTH/docs/AR57-IF-Reg-to-FR-Reproductive-Health-Services.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rule</a> spends much of its 40 pages making a complicated legal argument that the Department does not need Congress&#8217;s authority to begin offering abortions. It also says the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal dollars from funding abortions, only applies to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.
The rule says that abortion counseling will be provided in all cases, and that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/full-on-battle-mode-conservative-leaders-put-walmart-on-notice-for-promising-to-pay-for-abortions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">abortions</a> will be provided only in certain circumstances, like where the &#8220;health&#8221; of the mother is jeopardized or the pregnancy is the result of rape.
However, the &#8220;rape and incest&#8221; terms will be broadly defined and enforced. &#8220;We are not requiring a veteran to present particular evidence such as a police report to qualify for this care,&#8221; it said.
The same goes for what constitutes impacting a woman&#8217;s health. &#8220;Individuals at risk of pregnancy complications who do not have access to contraception or abortion may experience conditions resulting from pregnancies that can leave them at risk for loss of future fertility,&#8221; the rule says. It also cites other conditions like preeclampsia and cardiac disease. &#8220;Assessment of the conditions, injuries, illness, or diseases that will qualify for this care will be made by appropriate health care professionals on a case-by-case basis,&#8221; it says.
Part of its justification for why it has the authority to make the change is that providing an exception for when the health of a mother could be impacted is &#8220;similar&#8221; to providing an exception for when her life is in danger, which is the standard for Department of Defense (DOD) care to active-duty military. It says VA health care must be &#8220;similar&#8221; to the DOD, which is not the same is &#8220;identical.&#8221;
The Department will also use federal funds to pay for veterans to get abortions elsewhere. &#8220;VA will pay for abortions from providers in the community, where available, in cases where the life or health of the Veteran is endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term, or in the case of pregnancy resulting from an act of rape or incest,&#8221; the Department <a href="https://www.womenshealth.va.gov/WOMENSHEALTH/topics/reproductive-health.asp">said</a>.
“We came to this decision after listening to VA health care providers and Veterans across the country, who sounded the alarm that abortion restrictions are creating a medical emergency for those we serve. Offering this care will save Veterans’ health and lives, and there is nothing more important than that,” Dr. Shereef Elnahal, VA’s Under Secretary for Health, said in a statement.
According to the rule, &#8220;Abortion counseling has three purposes: (1) to aid a pregnant individual in making a decision about an unwanted pregnancy, (2) to help the pregnant individual implement the decision, and (3) to assist the pregnant individual in controlling their future fertility.&#8221;

Department Of Veterans Affairs To Begin Offering Abortions To Vets, Even In States Where It Is Banned

Department of Defense

Department of Veterans Affairs

Dobbs

Joe Biden

A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/netherlands" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dutch</a> soldier shot outside of an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/indiana" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indianapolis</a> hotel early Saturday morning has died, according to the Dutch Ministry of Defense.
A statement regarding the soldier&#8217;s death was released following a shooting outside of a Hampton Inn that included injuries to two other Dutch commandos staying at the hotel during a day off from training drills.
“The commando, who was in critical condition in a hospital in the American city of Indianapolis, died of his injuries last night. This happened in the presence of family and colleagues,” the Ministry said.
“The three soldiers are part of the Commando Troops Corps. The commandos are on training in the state of Indiana. The shooting took place in front of the hotel where they are staying. The incident happened during the military&#8217;s free time,” it added.
The three officers traveled for training at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in southern Indiana, an Indiana National Guard spokesperson <a href="https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/altercation-led-to-shooting-of-3-dutch-soldiers-in-downtown-indy-white-house-and-state-dept-involved/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> to WXIN TV. The Department of Defense uses the facility as a training location for NATO Allies.
The shooting occurred on a day off.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the soldiers and families during this difficult time,” the Indiana National Guard spokesperson said in a statement.
No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing. Police are seeking evidence from anyone with more information and are evaluating video footage from cameras in the area.
Local reports noted that glass had been damaged on one of the hotel&#8217;s doors. The damage reportedly took place during the shooting.
The shooting location was downtown, just one block from Monument Circle, a popular destination for shoppers and visitors to the city.
The shooting was one of the multiple fatal shootings nationwide over the weekend. At least <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-shooting-safeway-oregon-police/story?id=88382502" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three people</a>, including the shooter, were killed in a shooting at a Safeway supermarket in Bend, Oregon, on Sunday evening.
Chicago also experienced ongoing <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-this-weekend-violence-police/12177221/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shooting violence</a> over the weekend. At least 35 people were shot, including eight fatally. At least 412 people have been killed by gun violence in the city in 2022, <a href="https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/#:~:text=431%20victims%20were%20killed%20in%20Chicago%20in%202022." target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to</a> the Chicago Sun-Times homicide database.
A rookie NFL running back for the Washington Commanders was also the victim of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nfl-rookie-ex-alabama-star-shot-multiple-times-in-dc-robbery-attempt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shooting</a> over the weekend during a carjacking attempt in Washington, D.C. Former Alabama star Brian Robinson Jr. remains hospitalized following the incident.
“We have been made aware that Brian Robinson Jr. was the victim of an attempted armed robbery or carjacking in Washington D.C.,” the team <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/commanders-rookie-rb-brian-robinson-in-stable-condition-following-shooting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a statement. “He sustained non-life-threatening injuries and is currently being treated at the hospital where team officials are on-site with him. We ask that you please respect Brian’s privacy at this time.”

Police Line, Crime Scene taped used to control crowd access during police activity.

Dutch Soldier Dies In Indianapolis After Being Shot Outside Hotel

Crime

Indiana

Shooting

Russian President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/vladimir-putin">Vladimir Putin</a> signed a decree on Thursday that will add 137,000 combat personnel to the Russian military, six months after the onset of the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682">Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>.
The <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-orders-increase-russian-armed-forces-ukraine-war-rcna44774">increase</a> will boost the number of Russian combat personnel from roughly 1.01 million to 1.15 million, and raise its total personnel count to 2.04 million. According to the Russian government, the decree will take effect at the beginning of next year.
The troop surge comes in the wake of an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/24/1119202240/ukraine-russia-war-by-numbers">uncertain</a> number of Russian casualties from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. 

Russian officials have not published casualty numbers since the opening weeks of the war in March, where they reportedly lost 1,351 of their soldiers — independent estimates within Russia report at least 5,000 deaths, but the true figure is likely higher.
<div id="attachment_429156" style="width: 684px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-429156" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-429156" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="674" height="449" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/Mariupol-Demolished-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px" />(Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Hard data on casualties is hard to come by, as both sides are reluctant to share their own losses and eager to inflate enemy losses. Kyiv claims that its forces have killed or wounded more than 45,000 Russian combatants.
In March, Russian officials estimated that their forces had killed 14,000 Ukrainian troops and incapacitated 16,000 more. As recently as Monday, Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-signs-decree-increase-size-russian-armed-forces-2022-08-25/">claimed</a> that they had lost 9,000 soldiers over the course of the invasion.
The Russian advance has largely stalled in the last few months, although Russian forces retain control over Crimea, the Donbas region, and much of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. Russia has currently occupied roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s pre-war territory, although Ukrainian saboteurs in the annexed Crimean peninsula have successfully attacked Russian military bases and depots deep behind enemy lines, suggesting that Russian control is far from absolute.
Russian officials have begun to acknowledge the lack of recent progress, although they claim it is the result of a deliberate strategy to limit collateral damage in the ongoing war of attrition.
&#8220;Everything is being done to avoid casualties among civilians. Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but we are doing this deliberately,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-08-24/russian-defence-minister-shoigu-military-campaign-in-ukraine-deliberately-slowed-to-reduce-civilian-casualties">told</a> international colleagues at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization during a recent meeting in Uzbekistan.
The UN has documented nearly 5,600 civilian deaths over the course of the war and believes that the true death toll is much higher. Russia has come under fire as international observers allege that it has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2022/08/12/putin-targeting-civilians-ukraine-what-evidence-shows-1729463.html">deliberately attacked</a> civilian targets.

RUSSIA-DEFENCE-NAVY-POLITICS-HOLIDAY

Putin Boosts Russian Troop Numbers As Invasion Of Ukraine Stalls

Ukraine

Vladimir Putin

A plan from President <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> to cancel $10,000 in <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/student-loans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">student loans</a> per borrower threatens to worsen already lackluster <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/military" target="_blank" rel="noopener">military</a> recruitment.
White House officials had been weighing the move for months before officially landing on the $10,000 figure, though some Democratic lawmakers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-cpac-footage-is-nuts-progressives-blast-pelosi-for-saying-student-debt-forgiveness-is-a-bad-idea">have supported eliminating debt</a> of up to $50,000 per borrower. The debt cancellation, however, comes as every branch of the military <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078">struggles to recruit</a> new enlistees, with the Army in particular only meeting 40% of its recruitment goal for the fiscal year as of two months ago.
Cole Lyle, the executive director of veteran advocacy group Mission Roll Call, told The Daily Wire that declines in recruitment have been driven by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americans-continue-to-opt-out-of-the-workforce">low unemployment</a> in the broader economy, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/al-qaeda-surging-again-nearly-a-year-after-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal">botched withdrawal</a> from the Afghanistan conflict, and perceived <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/highest-ranking-u-s-military-official-defends-teaching-crt">partisanship</a> among military leaders, among other issues. Yet recruitment into an all-volunteer military hinges upon strong benefits that match those available from attending college.
“The experience the military gives you — a lot of people use it. Certainly most people who join the military have a sense of service, but a lot of people look at these incentives,” Lyle explained. “The GI Bill, the VA Home Loan Program, the education and training that they get in specific jobs … if you come from more disadvantaged backgrounds, having those things can rocket you into the middle class or the upper middle class.”
Ret. Lt. General Thomas Spoehr, who leads the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told The Daily Wire that the Biden administration’s loan cancellation plan takes away “another tool” from military recruiters.
“A significant portion of people come to the military after having tried college and it didn&#8217;t work out,” Spoehr commented. “That used to be a big way that people would come to the military, but with this debt forgiveness that&#8217;s likely to be dramatically reduced as a motivator to get people in the door.”
Indeed, a nonpartisan <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-student-loan-cancellation-would-cost-330-billion-and-largely-help-the-wealthy">analysis</a> from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School noted that the loan cancellation announcement could prompt students to “reorganize their financing toward additional borrowing” out of an expectation for more debt elimination in the future. Lyle, who joined the Marine Corps after graduating from high school and deployed once to Afghanistan, noted that such expectations could likewise dampen recruitment efforts as more students pursue college degrees.
“If this is a one-time thing and it never happens again — I don&#8217;t know if that will have a very negative effect on military recruitment,” Lyle remarked. “But the problem is, we don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s not going to happen again, because the precedent has now been set.”
Spoehr, who successfully oversaw troop and equipment withdrawal from Iraq during Operation New Dawn, added that military education benefits are now competing with incentives from corporate America.
“It used to be pretty rare that any kind of company would offer any employee education benefits. And that has dramatically changed to the point where Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and McDonald&#8217;s — most entry-level jobs are now offering some sort of college program,” he said. “The military has gotten mildly better while everybody else has gotten vastly better. The military was the only place that offered college benefits and now that&#8217;s no longer the case.”
Yet Spoehr suspects that the White House failed to consider the possibility of further crowding out military education benefits when discussing potential moves to cancel student debt. “These were all matters of raw politics. ‘How much can we give before we completely alienate those people that paid off their loans or didn&#8217;t go to college? What can we get away with?’ I think that was the discussion versus any kind of impact on military recruiting.”

President Biden Meets With Defense Secretaries

Biden’s Student Loan Cancellation Plan Could Worsen Military Recruitment Crisis

Biden’s Student Loan Cancellation Plan Could Threaten To Worsen Military Recruitment Crisis

Student Loan Cancellation

Following the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/taliban">Taliban’s</a> takeover of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> and the spectacular collapse of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/u-s-military">U.S. military</a> engagement there one year ago this month, tens of thousands of Afghans — frequently billed as being interpreters and other U.S.-aligned military heroes — were brought as refugees to military compounds in the U.S., where government officials called them “guests.”
Since then, that narrative has collapsed and raised questions about whether the readiness of the U.S. military is now being harmed in places like Fort Pickett, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-to-dump-up-to-1000-afghan-refugees-next-to-loudoun-high-school">Virginia</a> base that houses the Army National Guard Maneuver Training Center and frequently hosts the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for training.
By October 2021, there were “approximately 5,900 Afghan guests on Fort Pickett. Fort Pickett has the capacity to temporarily house up to 10,000 guests,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told The Daily Wire at the time.
A civilian who works on the base, speaking with The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity to protect his job, said the activity displaced army training and that the defense compound had turned into a feces-covered disaster site. &#8220;It&#8217;s normally a Reserves training compound, and as far as we understand, it&#8217;s impacting the schedule so it&#8217;s impacting their ability to train,&#8221; he said in a previously unreported October interview. &#8220;Last year at this time there were a lot of reserve units on the base, this year there aren&#8217;t any. There’s no room.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s putting a load on the soldiers who are supposed to be there doing training, they’re exasperated by the behavior of these people doing things like defecating everywhere, dropping trash whenever they’re done with it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The camp where I’m working, there are several barracks-type buildings and a compound fenced in with barbed wire where we store different supplies like weapons and ammunition for the guys who train. All that got moved out,&#8221; he said, adding that Afghans were wandering out onto a firing range.
Afghan men crowd the military base’s commissary, a convenience store where they &#8220;hang out all day,” he said. “They’re going in there and they use the bathroom and where you sit on the toilet, they crouch on the toilet and defecate and urinate in the toilet. They shut down the toilets because they piled the toilets with feces until it was brimming out over the rim without flushing,&#8221; he continued. He said the company hired to pump out portable bathrooms was unable to do so because Afghans would throw trash into them, clogging the lines.
&#8220;They just go into the woods so in this military base the woods are now just full of Afghans who are running around the woods defecating. &#8230; They have soldiers with radios sitting at the corners just kind of watching,&#8221; he said.
At the time, the DHS spokesperson dismissed the allegations, saying the U.S. was &#8220;dedicated to treating our Afghan guests with dignity and respect while we care for their needs. &#8230; The Task Force has implemented a U.S. military Mayor and Governor system to the village, who also communicate with the evacuees and interagency partners daily. Further, we continue to stress the importance of good hygiene by providing cleaning and disinfecting supplies, hand washing stations, and culturally sensitive signage.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/afghan-migrants-dicks-sporting-goods-measles-northern-virginia">Refugees</a> are free to leave military bases, though &#8220;all parolees will be required to maintain regular contact with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,&#8221; the spokesperson said.
A Department of Defense (DoD) spokesperson said, &#8220;Fort Pickett met DHS, DOS and DoD’s criteria for a secure location with capacity to house and provide essential support to Afghan personnel with minimal impact to training and military readiness. &#8230; Task Force Pickett is proud to host at this location while continuing to make our Afghan guests feel welcome.&#8221;
Since then, evidence has mounted supporting the employee’s account. In November, <a href="https://twitter.com/RepBobGood/status/1460633230734995460/photo/1">Rep. Bob Good</a> (R-VA) wrote to Fort Pickett officials that he had reason to believe the bases were accommodating Afghans at the expense of American military members. &#8220;I recently received concerning reports, photos, and videos from constituents that indicate that our soldiers at Fort Pickett are required to sleep outside in tents because the barracks are occupied by Afghan refugees. These reports indicate that our soldiers are sleeping in temperatures below 40 degrees, have been denied hot meals, and have limited opportunities to shower as they prepare for deployment,&#8221; he wrote.
In January, a DoD <a href="https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/oig-reports/DoD/DODIG-2022-055.pdf">inspector general report</a> noted that &#8220;a significant number of Afghan evacuees did not have any identification,&#8221; while medical officials often encountered different spellings of names and birthdates that &#8220;did not directly translate to the Gregorian calendar&#8221; among the refugees.
There were few consequences for misdemeanors like “physical abuse of Afghan women and children, and other crimes by Afghan evacuees,” because “Pickett military police had limited law enforcement authority over Afghan Evacuees,” it said. “TF Pickett personnel did not carry weapons and were only allowed to respond to de-escalate a situation,” the report said. Not only were refugees not criminally prosecuted for misdemeanors, but the base also did not even attach a record of the infractions to their Department of State profiles, which meant that “families who chose to sponsor Afghan evacuees and their families would not have a full profile detailing incidents allegedly committed during an evacuee’s time at Fort Pickett.”
There were few consequences for felonies, either, because a local magistrate downgraded felony charges including alleged physical abuse and vehicle theft to misdemeanors, sending them back to the base.
In February, the last migrant <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/02/02/operation-allies-welcome-announces-departure-last-afghan-nationals-fort-pickett-virginia">departed</a> Fort Pickett, with others still housed at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. A Department of State spokesperson told The Daily Wire that as of this week, 90,000 Afghans have been brought to the U.S. in the last year.
This is Part 2 of a series examining the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal one year later. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-allowing-former-taliban-employees-to-migrate-to-u-s-under-refugee-program-billed-as-for-interpreters">Part 1</a> reported that the Biden administration intentionally permitted Taliban employees to migrate to the U.S., and that one of the most prominent refugees, billed by The New York Times as the embodiment of a U.S. ally, was among those later charged with sexual assault.

Military Base Housing Afghan Refugees Became Covered In Feces And Displaced U.S. Soldiers, Employee Says

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