That evil Trump and his demonic henchman Pete Hegseth! He ordered the military to rewrite history! He ordered the Air Force to erase all mention of the Tuskegee Airmen! And just like the evil Ron DeSantis, he issued a “don’t say gay” order which has resulted in this outrage:

Graphic: X Screenshot

It’s not actually an outrage any more than the bill DeSantis signed to ensure parental rights in education. That law said nothing whatever about speech relating to gays. Media and Democrat cracktivist attempts to misrepresent President Trump’s orders to return our military to its constitutional role as a fighting force rather than a flamingly woke social experiment constitute malicious compliance. That’s a form of insubordination: 

       §891. Art. 91. Insubordinate conduct toward warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer

Any warrant officer or enlisted member who-

(1) strikes or assaults a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office;

(2) willfully disobeys the lawful order of a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer; or

(3) treats with contempt or is disrespectful in language or deportment toward a warrant officer, noncommissioned officer, or petty officer, while that officer is in the execution of his office;

shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

As I recently noted in Cleaning traitors out of the military, our armed services are rife with servicemembers who think they’re in charge. High-ranking officers believe they have the power to disrespect the Commander in Chief, to disobey his orders to root out wokeness/DEI and every other social pathology that has caused the military to be far more concerned with drag queens, pronouns and the tender sensibilities of trans than to deterring and killing America’s enemies.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth, acting on Trump’s orders, has been substantially successful in removing woke lunacy, which has caused covert and overt military queers to engage in malicious compliance like this:

The Department of Defense (DoD) on Monday quietly restored a web page it had removed about Army Maj. Gen. Charles Rogers, a Black man who earned the Medal of Honor for his leadership during the Vietnam War.

The removal of the 2021 article on Rogers stoked furious backlash on social media—particularly after critics realized the then-defunct URL had been changed to include “DEI medal.”

“This is blood-boiling,” remarked writer Brandon Friedman in a viral Saturday post on Bluesky, who shared screenshots of the web page’s removal. “Charles Rogers was awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam after being wounded three times leading the defense of a position.”

And this

Graphic: X Screenshot

And this:

Graphic: X Screenshot

Military commanders have the full text of orders requiring them to eliminate every vestige of wokeness. They know very well that Trump is not ordering the rewriting of history, nor the removal of any mention of the legitimate accomplishments of military members. What military traitors are doing is giving the Democrat media ammunition to use against Trump, like this NPR article:  

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

Any honest servicemember would know what they’re doing is insubordination. Neither Trump nor Hegseth ordered anyone to remove photographs or mentions of blacks, women, Navajo code talkers, or any other bit of military history. They certainly had no intention of removing mention of a Medal of Honor recipient. The Enola Gay, Col. Tibbetts’ B-29, was named for his mother. The name has nothing whatever to do with contemporary homosexuals and one would have to be a fool, or a woke disciple—I know; one in the same--to say otherwise.

Malicious compliance isn’t limited to the Military. Insubordinate employees throughout the federal government are engaging in that juvenile behavior to resist Trump’s lawful, constitutional orders. That kind of obstruction is damaging to all Americans, but when done in the military it’s potentially deadly.

While it’s possible lower-ranking service members engaged in malicious compliance were unaware what they were doing was wrong--they were only following what they thought to be lawful orders--those giving those orders likely knew exactly what they were doing.

As with commanders engaged in overt insubordination, every service member who knowingly violated the UCMJ must be appropriately punished if our military is to again serve America rather than the woke agenda.

On a different subject, if you are not already a subscriber, you may not know that we’ve implemented something new: A weekly newsletter with unique content from our editors for subscribers only. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. 

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.