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Claims that the military has gone \u2018woke\u2019 are now an issue in the upcoming presidential election.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n BY JEFF SCHOGOL<\/p>\n For more than two years, cable news pundits and Republican lawmakers have accused the military of going \u2018woke,\u2019 a loosely defined term that refers to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that Republican critics have claimed portray white people and the United States in a negative light. The term has been used to attack LGBTQ service members and to claim the military is becoming too feminine, unlike Russia.<\/p>\n Now \u2018Wokeness\u2019 in the U.S. military has already become an issue in next year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who served in the Navy\u2019s Judge Advocate General Corps, has made his criticisms of the \u2018woke military\u2019 a pillar of his campaign to win the Republican party\u2019s presidential nomination. He recently vowed to change the name of Fort Liberty, North Carolina back to Fort Bragg if he is elected president.<\/p>\n Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said on Tuesday that she is concerned about the drumbeat of criticism that the military has gone \u2018woke\u2019 becoming part of the 2024 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI think one of the things that we see that\u2019s contributing to a decline in trust in the military is a concern on both sides of the aisle about politicization of our military leaders,\u201d Wormuth told reporters during a media roundtable. \u201cI think the more our military leaders are sort of dragged into spaces that have been politicized like that, I think the more it contributes to this perception that they\u2019re political when they really aren\u2019t. So, I hope that we don\u2019t see more of the kind of talk that\u2019s been out in the past few days.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n