It’s been said a few times on here in recent months that we in the UK are heading for a Woke Air Force. I hear similar from other Air Forces and other arms of the military too. This article was recently published on an ex-copper’s blog that was written by another copper who has just left the Police Force. They felt that they were already in a wrong place and that they were now leaving because of it after 20 years. Are we all heading the same way?
https://mattjohnsonauthor.com/2021/0...jqUHk6q1tGa5Pw
Of particular note was this bit.
I’m done with grandstanding cops, dancing for YouTube, wearing rainbows as self promotion, kneeling for a twitter photo, lecturing the public about things that shouldn’t concern us, forgetting we are the law police, not the public morals police, Im done with them doing anything other rather than actual policing. I’m done with the false narrative that suggests this is the norm and that all cops are more interested in being woke social workers than doing their job. A false narrative we have facilitated by allowing this self indulgent, shameless self promotion of a few individuals, to proliferate.
It struck a cord with me and also I wonder if initiatives like ‘Astra’ or the British Army’s ‘Castle’, and the constant insincere drive for extreme-levels of D&I by some of the butt-snorkelers chasing promotion, is missing the mark for recruitment of Generation Z and Generation A - who are not the social justice warriors and ‘wokes’ that the millennial Gen Y can be. Are these ‘next generation’ initiatives missing the future military generation by a country mile because they are aimed at the wrong next generation? If you were trying to aim for something fit for 2040, would you ask 30-40 year old Gen Y millennials or 20-30 year old Gen Z (or even the newest Gen A)? It seems that these initiatives are being driven and shaped by Gen Y?
Now I don’t condone for one minute the shocking events that have occurred across HMForces over the past few years (the latest revelation being the RAF Regt this past week) - behaviour that belongs nowhere in any military. But are we going too far, are the butt-snorkeling promotion chasers ‘firing for effect’ and does it actually reflect what we need and who the military should be? Does the constant drive to try be all-inclusive of the importance of each Branch, Trade and Specialisation blunt our combat edge significantly and provide a false narrative that will eventually need to be reversed? For instance the new Any Branch Station Commanders seem to generate a need to bolster each and every one with a peer ‘aircrew operator’ on a flying station, thus doubling the number of OF-5s required! Or is there really this utopian world out there that our current woke-ish vectors seem to be leading us towards and the Gen X dinosaurs need to just do one!
Asking for a friend...
