TOTAL BS:
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has begun implementing new ideological safeguards for military personnel following concerns that America’s armed forces may be becoming dangerously conservative, according to officials familiar with the effort.
The initiative follows renewed attention on comments by Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, the military judge who last week suppressed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s 2007 FBI confession in the long-running 9/11 case.
Schrama previously argued in a 2023 essay that military institutions tend to become “more conservative and isolated from civilian society” and that young service members can become “easy prey” for extreme right-wing groups.
Defense officials reportedly convened an emergency working group shortly afterward.
The resulting initiative, formally designated Operation Normal Person, will seek to identify conservative tendencies before they develop into more serious symptoms, including excessive patriotism, firearms proficiency and voluntary ownership of more than one American flag.
Officials emphasized that none of those activities alone establishes extremism.
“It’s the pattern we’re looking for,” one senior defense official said.
Basic military training will also be revised.
Under a preliminary curriculum obtained by TOTAL BS, recruits will complete physical conditioning, weapons training and combat instruction before advancing to a new fourth phase:
Why Your Dad’s Facebook Posts Are Problematic.
Commanders have additionally been instructed to document personnel who regularly arrive early, describe the Constitution as “pretty good” or respond “Yes, sir” before asking whether an order reflects the commander’s lived experience.
Military officials acknowledged that some of the initial screening criteria could produce a significant number of cases.
One particularly troublesome indicator is previous service in the United States military.
“Nearly 100% of the military personnel we’re examining have some connection to the military,” an official said.
“That correlation requires further study.”
Pentagon analysts are now examining whether other longstanding military characteristics — including discipline, physical fitness, respect for the chain of command and willingness to defend the United States — could represent previously overlooked warning signs.
“We historically viewed those characteristics as desirable,” one Defense Department consultant said.
“The data forced us to reconsider that assumption.”
Officials said Operation Normal Person will remain in effect until the military achieves an acceptable ideological balance.
Asked how the Pentagon would determine when that threshold had been reached, an official said the department had not yet established a metric.
“We’ll know normal when we see it.”
