Former Navy SEAL Rep. Zinke rips the Pentagon for promoting 'woke' drag queen shows
Former Navy SEAL commander Rep. Ryan Zinke told DailyMail.com that under President 's leadership, the military looks foolish on the world stage because it is Zinke told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend holiday that the 's fixation on promoting equity and inclusivity initiatives The congressman blasted the Navy for promoting a now-discarded recruitment program featuring a drag queen. Zinke said that having a drag queen influencer try and bridge the gap on the military's recruiting challenges is not the right path forward and there have been retainment 'consequences' as a result. He called the focus on inclusivity a 'national security issue' because 'our primary mission is to fight.' Zinke - along with Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana - recently sent a letter to Pentagon leadership demanding answers on a 'Drag Story Time' that was conducted at a military base in the state. 'The U.S. militarys active engagement in and support for divisive political and ideologically-driven issues weakens cohesion and morale and further degrades the recruitment and retention of men and women serving our country in uniform,' the lawmakers wrote in the their letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. The Montana congressman also blasted the Secretary of the Navy for being so focused on combatting climate change, he regularly confuses 'sea level rise with tides.' He says the global warming fixation is an example of how the military is dropping the ball on military readiness and lethality. 'They have eliminated the physical standards in the United States Navy. They used to do a physical readiness test (PRT) twice a year. Now it's once a year,' he cited as an example. 'And we clearly we have kept the eye off the ball in the Indo-Pacific,' Zinke said regarding the heightened aggression of China against neighboring island Taiwan. He went on to say in the aftermath of the Biden administration's deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan - which Zinke called a 'colossal blunder' led to a simple truth, that 'our allies don't trust us.' The main is issue is 'no one can tell me what the plan is,' for the U.S. to re-establish itself on the world stage. William Bee, a former Marine who deployed to Afghanistan four times, told DailyMail.com that the only changes made to the military should be to 'increase lethality.' 'Everything else is dross,' Bee said in response to the rise of the military's woke push. Zinke also called the Pentagon's former COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy 'near to fascism.' The Montana congressman criticized the Pentagon's blanket policy, saying that during the pandemic, if active-duty troops dared to raise concerns about the vaccine's side effects or point to their own natural immunity against the virus, they were shot down by leadership. Zinke told DailyMail.com that the Department of Defense essentially made honorable service members 'stand in line like a little communist' and get vaccinated without objection. 'What happened if you raise your hand? You were immediately ostracized,' said Zinke. It has been almost six months since Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which stripped out the Pentagon's mandate after it came to light the military was in 'noncompliance' with a federal law for mass denying legitimate vaccine religious accommodation requests. Now Congress is looking into ways to reinstate fired troops who refused to be vaccinated over religious liberty or personal health concerns. 'If you're a nurse practitioner, you lose your job. If you're a Navy SEAL, they were trying to not only have you discharged from service, they were trying to bankrupt you to repay millions of dollars that government has spent on training,' Zinke added. DailyMail.com has learned that in some cases, service members fired for refusing the vaccine on religious grounds have been forced by the military to repay their initial signing bonus. One service member said he owes $4,000 of an initial $7,000 signing bonus. SEALs and other special operations warfare troops have also been told that in some cases they would have to pay back the cost of their training by the federal government - which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 'They're extraordinarily talented people, but they were kicked to the curb and ostracized [by the Pentagon], which in many cases, caused renewed hardship for someone who served the country,' continued the congressman. Zinke said the terminated service members should be offered by the Pentagon to be reinstated - an issue that Republicans in Congress are looking into. Former Marine Bee told DailyMail.com that although it is 'understandable' to make a 'force-wide' decision on medical vaccines, individuals with religious concerns should have been taken more seriously by the Pentagon. 'You stick around long enough in the military you lose track of how many vaccines you get. HOWEVER, when marines and sailors submit a religious exemption, then that enters the realm of free exercise of religion, and that is something that is sacrosanct,' Bee said. The former marine pointed to the case of Lance Corporal Catherine Arnett, who was forced to spend 113 days in the brig for refusing to get vaccinated. He called it a 'great example of how the higher echelons of leadership in the Marine Corps operate.' Zinke is currently leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and the to push forward a new bill that would address the mental health crisis among U.S. veterans by 'streamlining' access to care. The 'Protecting Veteran Community Care Act' led by Zinke, R-Mont., and Air Force veteran Donald Davis, D-N.C., is designed to address continuing pitfalls of the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) - including extremely long wait times and rescheduled appointments. Including Zinke, the legislation has the backing of all five former Navy SEAL lawmakers in including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis.