CV NEWS FEED // The Department of Defense (DoD) issued a “clarification” for Change 5, their controversial new pronoun policy that features a word that is not considered part of standard English.
Writing for The Daily Signal, Cully Stimson and Dakota Wood reported:
On Sept. 1, we exposed the little-noticed update to the Defense Department’s “Manual of Military Decorations and Awards: DOD Joint Decorations and Awards.” The change, effective Aug. 7, required the six top joint awards to use the nonsensical and grammatically incorrect word “themself” instead of the pronouns “himself” or “herself” for each award.
Stimson and Wood wrote that, following weeks of backlash, the Pentagon said Change 5 will remain as it is, “but with language that ‘clarifies’ that the change does not ban the use of the pronouns ‘himself’ or ‘herself.’”
“So, the default pronoun is ‘themself,’ and proper pronouns aren’t banned,” the Daily Signal authors added.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-WI, called the policy “insane” in a statement on the day of the Signal’s initial report. Gallagher is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq.
“The Secretary of the Air Force stated that our military is ‘not as ready as we need to be’ to face the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “Yet, amid this challenge and compounding military recruiting and budget crises, the Pentagon has once again chosen to waste time and resources on wokeness instead of warfighting.”
“The Department recently stripped gendered pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ from awards honoring the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to this country,” Gallagher added. “Instead they require all awardees, regardless of preference, to be reduced to a gender-less, collective ‘themselves’ – substituting grammatical error for honor.”
A week later, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, wrote a letter addressed to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“Our military apparently will now use ‘themself’—which is not even a word, I hasten to add—instead of ‘himself’ or ‘herself’ to describe heroic or distinguished actions,” wrote Cotton, a retired Army Captain who saw action in both Iraq and Afghanistan:
The previous guidance simply referred to servicemembers as “himself or herself.” And, I want to stress, this language isn’t referring to unspecified personnel in the abstract or large numbers of troops—it refers to a specific, named person whose “preferred gender” is presumably known.
On a related matter, by the way, the Secretary of the Army apparently disagrees with this gender-neutral approach because she—or should I say “xe” to be safe?—continues to man the ramparts against gender-neutral physical-fitness standards required by last year’s defense bill.
Cotton called Change 5 an “embrace of far-left gender ideology” that “exemplifies a Pentagon leadership consumed by the fads of the faculty lounge at a time when the Army can’t hit its recruiting goals, the Navy can’t keep ships out of dry dock, and the Air Force can’t find spare parts for planes.”
Stimson and Wood agreed with the lawmakers:
Change 5 is an abomination. It should be rescinded immediately. The clarification is unacceptable, and only reinforces the fact that this administration and this Pentagon are focused on silly and dangerous social policies at a time when China and others are sharpening their swords.
No doubt, they’re laughing at Austin for allowing this silliness to happen on his watch.
Austin is a self-professed Catholic. He has also overseen the DoD’s implementation of the controversial pro-abortion policy that prompted a months-long protest by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL.
