Media Drags Bottom to Find Drag Recruiting Defender

A retired Navy Commander is apparently the media’s current go-to source for defending the Navy’s drag-based recruiting strategy:

Retired U.S. Navy Commander Julianna Vida slammed one Republican Party lawmaker’s criticism of the Navy officially using a drag queen to boost recruitment for the military branch. 

In a statement provided to Fox News Digital this week, Vida said that Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s assessment that the Navy has become “preoccupied with identity politics” is “destructive” and “undermines” the Navy’s methods of recruiting new members.

Vida, who was in the Navy for over 30 years and currently servers on the Naval Academy Alumni Association Board of Trustees, defended the Navy’s use of drag queen recruiting ads as a “critical” method of welcoming “traditionally excluded segments of our population.”

I’d just like to remind everyone that a Commander in the Navy is only an O-5, equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and Air Force. A decent and admirable rank, no doubt, but nothing special. My father retired as an O-5, two of my brothers-in-law retired at O-6, and my father-in-law retired at O-8. None of them would have considered themselves a quotable authority on military policies.

So I’m not sure why the hell such an unauthoritative source was selected by the media, particularly one who was obviously passed over for promotion on multiple occasions (though in my day, if you missed the first shot at being promoted to O-5, the odds for promotion decreased dramatically).

Probably because she was the only one they could find to support it, I suppose.

Advertisement