Shakespeare Shows the Danger of a Woke Military

Tuesday was St. Crispin’s Day, a day that would have long been forgotten if not for a famous battle and an even more famous speech.

The history: On that day in 1415, around 6,000 Englishmen defeated 25,000 Frenchmen. The symbolism is still powerful today: A small band of mostly plebeian archers defeated France’s armored knights. Also still powerful is the speech Shakespeare penned for Henry v.

• Adm. Horatio Nelson could quote it verbatim.
• Winston Churchill had the play televised during World War ii.
• The phrase “band of brothers” is used just about anytime we discuss a close-knit team of soldiers.

But as Scott Sturman points out at RealClearDefense, the speech is also a powerful rebuke to America’s military.

The speech: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Henry v’s speech rouses the soldiers to action by focusing on their unity—their brotherhood. Accentuating their differences or criticizing their individual value, Sturman wrote, “would have undermined his army’s morale and exacerbated an already desperate predicament.”

How not to stir an army: Yet this is exactly what the critical race theory (crt) being taught in America’s military does. It “divides, excludes and betrays the mutual trust of those who serve,” wrote Sturman. It teaches men not to see themselves as equals and brothers but as individuals in a hierarchy of grievances. This is not just incorrect. It undermines the military’s potency.

“As St. Crispin’s Day and the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt approaches, it is time to reassess the destructive nature of crt and its offspring dei [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] that have laid waste to morale and the ability of the armed services to fulfill its most basic mission.”
—Scott Sturman

This is no accident: In the September Trumpet, Andrew Miiller showed how America’s current administration is deliberately weakening the military. “Today, we see a Marxist presidential administration working overtime to unmake the U.S. military,” he wrote. “The American people may well be the author and finisher of their own destruction unless something dramatic happens.” Learn where this trend is leading in his article “A ‘Woke’ Military Endangers Us All.”