Has Pete Hegseth Really Purged the DEI Mafia From

After seven months as Secretary of Defense, strike that, I imply Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth appears to be struggling to gain control of the Pentagon. Despite a handful of high-profile firings, there are indications that the system is still trying to promote officers who have been most lively in pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion applications.

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General Kenneth Wilsbach is rumored to be a top contender to fill the slot as Air Force Chief of Staff after the shock retirement of General David Allvin. Wilsbach turned over command of Air Combat Command in August. Ordinarily, he would have retired, but DOD confirms he has not yet retired, though his retirement ought to have been efficient on September 1, and his official bio web page is still open. Yet, in his latest command assignments, he has pushed DEI as a precedence.

🚨 URGENT: General Kenneth Wilsbach is reportedly a top contender for a promotion to Chief of Staff for the Air Force. He seems to be obsessed with DEI and Pride.

Wilsbach is the current Commander, Air Combat Command, for Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia.

He has ADMITTED… pic.twitter.com/TmydNijvMy

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 5, 2025

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President Trump has nominated Lieutenant General John Braga to take command of Joint Special Operations Command. Yet he was a big proponent of DEI. By the means, I don’t endorse the memo included in the tweet below. Those issues are boilerplate, and I’ve signed some of them myself.

Meet John Braga, US Army Special Operations Command. He loves posting footage of progress pleasure flags from authorities accounts and signed a memo demanding DEI be adopted within the Army.

He doesn’t belong wherever close to the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/1zLkmi52FL

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 11, 2025

Perhaps most troubling was Braga’s function in trying to force-feed girls into particular operations items. Like the determination to guarantee girls graduated from Ranger School, he seems to have began with his conclusion and labored backward, ignoring the evidence and suggestions, to obtain what he needed.

Over a dozen lively responsibility servicemembers have reached out in utter dismay over this nomination.

Braga printed the “Women in ARSOF” report where he surveyed SOF operators only to forged them as bigots and sexists. @USASOCNews has since eliminated the report from their web site. pic.twitter.com/a2Kv8SVuyy

— William Thibeau (@WilliamThibeau) September 6, 2025

This is the report. The tone is one of impatience with any trace that girls shouldn’t serve in Special Operations Forces fight assignments.

Admittedly, both generals could have been bending with the prevailing political winds. This variety of spaghetti backbone will not be needed today. The nation and the U.S. army need leaders of precept who have stood up for what was proper.

Perhaps most troubling, and perhaps linked, is the particular person in charge of normal officer promotions. That could be the civilian Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Military Personnel Policy Stephanie Miller. Here, retired intelligence Chief Warrant Officer Sam Shoemate brings the receipts.

🚨Policy Obstruction in the Department of War🚨

Why do woke General Officers continue to get promoted while reinstatement of unlawfully discharged personnel continues to stagnate and go nowhere (despite President Trump’s EO to expedite their reinstatement)?

Meet Stephanie… pic.twitter.com/Kt3iRH4UkN

— Shoe (@samosaur) September 7, 2025

Why do woke General Officers continue to get promoted while reinstatement of unlawfully discharged personnel continues to stagnate and go nowhere (despite President Trump’s EO to expedite their reinstatement)? 

Meet Stephanie Miller, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Military Personnel Policy for the Department of War and architect of the army’s earlier Diversity and Inclusion program. 

Stephanie is an SES who oversees the “full spectrum of human resource policies for over two million military personnel serving in the Department of War.”  

Stephanie is in charge of accession coverage, personnel management, General and Flag Officer promotions and retention, and more. 

According to Stephanie’s bio, she served in “a variety of executive positions throughout the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel Policy,” to embrace management positions as the DoD Director of Diversity and Inclusion Management. 

In addition to serving as a particular assistant to SECDEF Ashton Carter, under whose tenure, in January of 2016, announced that “the Department of Defense opened all military roles to women, overriding a request by the Marine Corps to continue to exempt women from certain positions. In June 2016, Carter announced that transgender individuals would be allowed to join and openly serve in the military,” also served as Deputy Director for Navy Diversity and in a management place as the DOD Director of Diversity and Inclusion Management. 

Stephanie served as a particular assistant to SECDEF Chuck Hagel, who oversaw sequestration and in 2013 during a go to to Asian international locations, said his “main doubt was American staying power in the region. Hagel called the decline of American military power a “good factor”, because it forced American allies to share responsibilities. On July 31, 2013, Hagel announced the results of his Strategic Choices and Management Review, undertaken in response to the budget sequestration in 2013. One of the options he highlighted was to scale back the navy’s plane provider teams down from 11 to as little as eight. 

Under Stephanie’s management, army recruiting dropped to an all time low in the whole historical past of the all volunteer pressure from 2022-2024. Multiple branches failed to obtain recruiting numbers for the first time since the draft ended in 1973.  

Stephanie has been an advisor to, and architect of, every determination in the army over the last decade and a half that has harmed army readiness and total army strength.  

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, all accession and General Officer promotions run instantly through her. You need not ask your self why woke Flag Officers continue to accelarate through promotions, and personnel in search of reinstatement for illegal discharges continue to run into purple tape and street blocks. The reply is clear. (Of observe: I’ve embrace her earlier bio and current bio. Her current bio is scrubbed of any point out of DEI.)

Personnel is coverage. Although Secretary Hegseth has made a valiant effort to eradicate DEI, the people who introduced that contagion into the War Department and intentionally ruined the Armed Forces painfully rebuilt after the Vietnam War so it might serve as a laboratory for actually unhealthy concepts are still in the Pentagon and are now in senior positions. They used the time between the 2004 election and the inauguration of President Trump to sanitize their historical past and go darkish on their activism. I do not know if Miller was behind what appear to be two questionable nominations, but it has all the indicators of the previous DEI crowd quietly advancing their acolytes into positions of energy that will outlast President Trump’s presidency.

Few issues are tougher than turning around a failing, but complacent and self-satisfied group. That is the problem going through Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The army providers have been hollowed out through DEI and dysfunctional management. The industrial base is lifeless in the water. Follow RedState for some of the most informed coverage on his efforts to recreate a pressure in disaster. Join RedState VIP and help continue that coverage. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.