Activists have uncovered disturbing teaching materials for the Pentagon’s 160 military schools that many military personnel may find unpatriotic and even frightening.
Training manuals for its 8,000 teachers warn that Thanksgiving has no historical basis and that the United States was founded on land “stolen” from Native Americans.
While some find it uncontroversial, Adam Andrzejewski, who discovered the documents through public records requests, calls it a “perverse” way of raising military children.
His revelations come as Republicans and Democrats clash in the Senate over LGBTQ+ troops and other controversies in the $886 billion defense bill.
Andrzejewski, director of the conservative watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com, described a “secret escalation within the Pentagon’s K-12 public schools to institute radical ideologies” in classrooms.
Military teachers are warned that Thanksgiving celebrations, such as this one at a regular school, have no historical basis.
OpenTheBooks.com researchers claim military schools are involved in a “secret initiative” to indoctrinate young people
“Encouraging children to put complex identities ahead of their shared American ideals is particularly shocking when it happens to military families,” she told DailyMail.com.
“It’s a perverse way to approach the children of military personnel who are deployed around the world defending American ideals and principles.”
Aguilar’s book says that “the brutality of colonialism has been erased.”
The military’s education wing, DODEA, which runs schools in seven states, 11 foreign countries, Guam and Puerto Rico, declined to comment on the report.
Its $2.26 billion annual budget educates about 64,000 students and pays the salaries of 14,000 employees.
OpenTheBooks.com requested copies of educational and training materials from the Pentagon related to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program.
Department of Defense educators responded with a variety of their own writings, including Coaching for Equity by California-based consultant Elena Aguilar.
Aguilar’s 416-page book tells teachers that the United States was founded on “stolen land” through the “genocide” of Native peoples.
Regarding the annual celebration of Thanksgiving, he writes that there is “little evidence that this historic holiday actually occurred” in the Plymouth area in the early 17th century.
But there is “a lot of evidence of massacres that white settlers perpetrated against native peoples,” he added.
“History has been sanitized and the brutality of colonialism has been erased,” says the teaching guide.
“This perpetuates the power of white supremacy.”
Some military school teachers have spoken out against the “Marxist direction” of the Pentagon’s education chiefs
Kelisa Wing made anti-white social media posts when she ran a Pentagon DEI unit
This widely shared educational diagram presents the world as divided between the “marginalized” and the “powerful,” with thin, educated, English-speaking, heterosexual white people at the top.
DailyMail.com asked DODEA whether the text was used by all teachers and whether it reflected official Pentagon thinking, but received no response.
Spokesman Will Griffin, however, praised the military schools’ “caring and supportive environment,” their “culture of high achievement” and their “dedicated educators and resilient, hard-working students.”
Andrzejewski’s 16-page report details other controversial teaching guides that form the basis of lessons in classrooms at military bases.
These include Ibram Kendi’s How to Be Anti-Racist, Comprehensive Health Skills for High School, and lesson plans from the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Adam Andrzejewski says military children are being ‘indoctrinated’
The health book promotes the notion that biological sex and gender are separate, a point that is popular among transgender activists but is disputed by conservatives and experts in the field.
The SPLC’s lessons encourage students to become community activists and to lobby businesses and politicians to achieve “social justice” for minorities, the report says.
Classroom materials also include the famous “Wheel of Power/Privilege.”
The widely shared diagram presents the world as divided between the “marginalized” and the “powerful,” with white, thin, educated, English-speaking, heterosexual people at the top.
Students also learn about “racial bias,” “systemic racism,” “privilege,” and other ideas aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Taken individually, these materials may not present problems.
But Andrzejewski says they have overwhelmed military schools and amount to “indoctrination” of the children of those who serve in uniform.
This is not the first time that Pentagon educators have come under fire.
Its DEI unit was disbanded last year under pressure from Republican lawmakers amid allegations that its then-director, Kelisa Wing, made anti-white posts on social media.
The Pentagon’s education wing operates 160 schools in seven states, two territories and 11 foreign countries.
Andrzejewski says educators still teach the same controversial topics, but keep them under the radar.
Many parents support efforts to address deep-rooted racism.
Others say that America has worked hard to achieve equality and that bigots just want to make white people feel guilty as a type of “reverse racism.”
Teachers at military schools have spoken out against the “Marxist direction” promoted by education chiefs, according to a Fox News article that did not name the teachers.
They complained about “wokeism” in teaching materials, which, for one of them, amounted to “Chinese indoctrination.”
Senators are currently debating culture war issues as part of the annual passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The latest version of the bill would ban the U.S. military from covering surgeries for transgender troops and prohibit its health care system from providing cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers and other sex-change procedures to children of service members.
