The U.S. military was once known for breaking things and killing the enemy. Now, it’s known for breaking barriers and killing traditions. While some still believe the military exists for national defense, history tells a different story—it’s actually America’s premier social science laboratory. Long before ideas like racial integration, gender equality, and identity politics took hold in the civilian world, they were field-tested in the armed forces. Forget national security; the military’s real mission is to see just how much social engineering you can fit inside a combat boot.
Take 1948, for example. President Harry Truman, in an unprecedented act of leadership, decided that the military would be the first American institution to integrate Black and white service members. Mind you, this was 16 years before the Civil Rights Act. While the rest of the country was still debating whether people of different races could share a lunch counter, the Army was already making them bunkmates. Now, was this ultimately a good thing? Of course. But let’s not pretend the military wasn’t being used as the nation’s first guinea pig for social progress.
Fast forward to 1976—women enter West Point. The Army, always up for a challenge, decided that if the Ivy League could admit women, so could the U.S. military academies. By 1980, the first female cadets graduated, proving that women could endure the same grueling training as men (except for a few minor modifications to the standards, but who’s counting?). The same military that once made G.I.s do push-ups until their souls left their bodies now had gender integration policies to manage. You can almost hear the drill sergeants sighing.
Then came 1993, when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was introduced, allowing gay service members to serve as long as they kept quiet about it. That lasted until 2010, when Congress repealed it, making the military once again the vanguard of cultural change—a full five years before the Supreme Court even legalized same-sex marriage. But the experiments didn’t stop there. By 2016, transgender service members were officially allowed to serve openly, then banned again in 2019, and reinstated in 2021. The Pentagon has had more policy flip-flops on gender identity than the entire state of California.
And now, we arrive at the latest experiment: Critical Race Theory and DEI training. While no official Pentagon directive explicitly mandates CRT, elements of it have wormed their way into service academy curricula and sensitivity training. Because nothing prepares soldiers for high-stakes combat like mandatory discussions on “privilege.” Meanwhile, as the military’s recruiting numbers plummet, perhaps the next grand experiment will be whether a fully diverse, equitable, and inclusive force can still win wars. If history is any guide, the answer will come—right after the Pentagon conducts another decade of social science trials in uniform.
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