CNN
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Amid some criticism from Republican lawmakers, the U.S. Admiral’s highest admiral defended a non-binary sailor on Tuesday, saying he was “particularly proud of the sailor.”
Sailor ltjg Audrey Knutson in Navy’s Instagram page last week. Knutson said in a short video that they were honored to act as non-binary, especially because their grandfather was a gay man in the Navy during World War II. In a deployment last fall, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford received nearly 17,000 likes.
Subsequently, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, Tweets Part of the clip was titled, “China prepares for war, and that’s the focus of their U.S. Navy.” On Tuesday, Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, continued to attack the video and told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he “has a lot of problems with the video.”
But Michael Gilday, the head of Naval Operations, defended the sailors, emphasizing that it was a commander’s job to build a combat squad.
“I’ll tell you why I’m particularly proud of the sailor,” Jillge told the hearing. “So her grandfather served during World War II, who was gay, and he was excluded from an institution, not only did she join and proud of being able to join, but she volunteered to deploy Ford to Ford, which she might be deployed again next month.”
Jillgi uses female pronouns to refer to Natson, but the Navy tells CNN Knutson’s choice pronoun is non-binary.
“We ask people from all walks of life, from all walks of life, from all walks of life to join us, and then the job of a commander, the job of a commander to build a stable combat team to comply with the law, which requires us to be able to perform timely and timely actions at sea. That level of trust is that the commander must be able to grow in the department with dignity and respect, so … if that officer can legally join the U.S. Navy, then be willing to serve and be willing to be sworn in, and I am willing to give their lives to life, then I am proud to serve them.”
Some Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill attacked the military too “wake up”, claiming that this is one of the reasons for the poor recruitment figures in the military, although a recent Army survey showed that only 5% of potential recruits cared about “suffocation.”
Last month, Republican Rep. Cory Mills and several others trained military personnel at a hearing on the House Armed Services Subcommittee during a training session on the Department of Defense’s diversity, equity and inclusion. “We absolutely 150% of us can surpass every opponent, and China and Russia are sure to be shocked by that,” Mills said.
In response, Gil Cisneros, the Personnel and Ready Defense Secretary, said that diversity and equal opportunity training has been part of the military for decades.
At another hearing in early March, the top military leader Sgt. Army Major Michael Grinston stressed that even with additional training on diversity and inclusion, the military’s focus is still on the fight.
“There is an hour of equal opportunity training in basic training and 92 hours of rifle shooting training,” Greenston said at the time. “If you go [One Station Unit Training]there are 165 hours of rifle shooting training, but equal chance training is still only one hour. ”
