IV 118th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 575 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES July 3, 2023 Mr. Steube submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services RESOLUTION Urging the House of Representatives to restore the Department of Defense’s superior warfighting principles of recruiting, assigning, training, promoting, and retaining personnel solely based on merit and ensuring such personnel maintain and display a warrior ethos and crediting Florida legislature for passing the Florida Senate Memorial SM 1382.

Whereas the House of Representatives credits Florida legislature for passing the Florida Senate Memorial SM 1382; Whereas the United States became the world's greatest warfighting nation shortly after its founding, a fact clearly demonstrated in the 1900s and early 2000s through its engagement in two World Wars and several other military campaigns throughout the globe, establishing a deterrent effect that has prevented another World War for almost 80 years; Whereas the United States military dominance in warfighting came about through reliance on the concept of meritocracy, in which personnel are recruited, assigned to specialties, assigned to positions within a unit, retained, and promoted based on their demonstrated aptitude and performance in the roles they are assigned to perform, regardless of their race, gender, sexual preference, or other person-centric identifiers; Whereas the United States military dominance in warfighting also came about through the ability of personnel to have and maintain a warrior ethos, one in which they are able to transition from being a kind, compassionate individual in peacetime to one who is willing and able to engage an enemy in battle with violence and lethality, and this includes support personnel who may not typically be called upon to engage the enemy face-to-face but nonetheless may find themselves in situations that require them to do so; Whereas, over the past several years, the Department of Defense and its military services have engaged in various practices eroding these warfighting principles to the point at which United States military dominance has been called into serious question, which practices include, but are not limited to— (1) overemphasizing and relying on diversity and inclusion in all its forms, including gender, gender identity, race, and sexual preference, as a primary determinant in how military forces should be comprised without providing credible and verifiable evidence that such a prescribed composition results in higher job performance, unit effectiveness, and mission accomplishment, as opposed to a model in which a meritocracy-based force composition is used; (2) making nonsensical unconscious bias training mandatory for all military and civilian personnel; (3) instituting mandatory emergency use only COVID–19 vaccines with little regard to individual medical concerns in light of the anthrax vaccine mandate problems of the late 1990s and denying almost all requests for exemptions based on religious grounds, which is particularly troubling given the recent decision by the Department of Defense to rescind the COVID–19 vaccine mandate; and (4) requiring mandatory training at the United States Air Force Academy to incorporate person-centered and gender-neutral language when describing individuals and to request cadets to consider using the term parent or caregiver rather than mother or father as to not offend those that may come from a different parenting background; Whereas such practices are having a detrimental effect on recruitment, as the United States Army was 15,000 soldiers short of its 2022 recruiting goals, the worst on record since the Armed Forces switched to an all-volunteer force nearly 50 years ago, and the remaining branches of the Armed Forces are well behind their historic goal rates as they enter into the 2023 recruiting season; Whereas recent studies have found that most young Americans are not fit for military service, with the Department of Defense estimating that just 2 percent of 17- to 21-year-olds have the desired combination of strong academic credentials, adequate physical fitness, and an interest in serving; Whereas the combination of an incapable and uninterested recruiting age group and nonmerit-based practices calls into serious question whether the United States military currently has a sufficient number of members who hold a warrior ethos needed to effectively engage an enemy; and Whereas those with the necessary warrior ethos currently serving in the United States military are more likely to leave service, and those with the necessary warrior ethos before entering into service are more likely to refrain from enlisting as they discover the composition and practices of the armed services as outlined herein: Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives— (1) prohibits the use of such woke social engineering and experimentation practices, which are eroding military effectiveness, and to mandate a return to a merit-based system for military force development and composition; and (2) credits Florida legislature for passing the Florida Senate Memorial SM 1382.