Secretary of Defense James Mattis has ordered a full review of any military training not directly relevant to warfighting.
Mattis told the services to conduct a review of the “requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks,” according to a Friday memo obtained by Military Times.
In other words, Mattis wants a full examination of all the hours of burdensome, irrelevant training service members have to undergo before deployment.
“I want to verify that our military policies also support and enhance warfighting readiness and force lethality,” Mattis said.
Mattis also asked for a review into what should be done about permanently non-deployable service members.
The memo states that the review will be headed by a working group under the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness, a position currently occupied by Anthony M. Kurta. While President Donald Trump recently tapped Robert Wilkie for the job, Wilkie has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.
Mattis has recently involved himself in various personnel issues, particularly by encouraging Congress to block an amendment by GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler to the annual defense budget bill that would have prevented Department of Defense funds from being used to pay for transgender medical treatments. Hartzler’s amendment failed after 24 Republicans voted against it.
Recommendations from the new review Mattis has set in motion are due by Dec. 1, 2018.
During his presidential campaign, Trump spoke to a veterans’ group in Oct. 2016 and said “we’re gonna get away from political correctness” in response to a question about social engineering in the military.
“But you’re right, we have a politically correct military and it’s getting more and more politically correct every day. And a lot of the great people in this room don’t even understand how it’s possible to do that.” he said.
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