Tag Archives: U.S. Naval Academy

Changing The Culture Of Our Military

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Yesterday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Hung Cao, the new Secretary of the Navy.

The article reports:

When Hung Cao was 4 years old, the U.S. military rescued him to freedom, evacuating him and his immediate family—seven people, two suitcases—from Saigon just hours before the capital of South Vietnam fell to the communists.

What was a stroke of good fortune for Cao has worked out pretty well so far for America, too. Cao has spent a lifetime since then repaying the U.S. He graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and served as a Navy diver and explosive ordnance disposal officer with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, retiring from active duty in 2021 as a captain. In 2024, as a candidate for U.S. Senate from Virginia, he spoke at the Republican National Convention: “My name’s Hung Cao, and America saved my life. I grabbed on to the American dream … I love this country so much.”

Now, as acting secretary of the Navy, 51 years after leaving Vietnam, Cao is stepping into his highest profile role yet. His promotion may help shape a winning outcome for America in the clash with Iran, and strengthen the U.S. in future conflicts. It also adds him to a cohort of patriotic immigrants who have served in the Trump administration—including Melania Trump, Sebastian Gorka, Elon Musk—that serve as a marked contrast to far-left foreign born Democrats such as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

The article concludes:

At his confirmation hearing, Cao said, “Take it from this warrior. War must be the last resort, but if war comes, let it be swift and decisive. … To our enemies and those who mean to do us harm, you can run but you’ll only die tired.”

Perhaps ironically, Cao was rescued in part because of the “birthright citizenship” that some Republicans now want to roll back. His father won a Rockefeller scholarship for graduate work at Cornell University; Cao’s older sister was born in the U.S. while his parents were at Cornell. As a result, the family qualified for evacuation from Saigon. As Cao put it in a 2024 book, “her American citizenship not only saved our family, but it paved the way for each of us to live our own American dream.”

This is the kind of person we need in charge of our military branches.

The Lady Needs A New Speechwriter

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The New York Sun posted an editorial today about the speech Vice-President Kamala Harris gave to the midshipmen at Annapolis.

The editorial notes:

…Ms. Harris talked to our midshipmen trained for naval warfare of the perils of climate change and the niftiness of solar panels. Not a peep about how Russia, Iran, and Red China are maneuvering for conquest.

What a wan note on which to begin the Memorial Day weekend at which we remember our fallen. It’s similar to the blunder that President Obama made when, as we were at the height of the global war on terror, he went to West Point and tried to inspire the cadets by lecturing them on how not every problem has a military solution. The New York Post headline called it “The Long Gray Whine.”

The remarks of Ms. Harris, like those of Mr. Obama, fit the strategy of retreat and appeasement that seems to have been favored by the Democratic Party in recent decades. It started, in our view, with Vietnam and since has marked the party’s policies in one theater after another — right now in the Middle East and Afghanistan. And it’s not that our liberal traditions don’t offer a prism through which to understand our military academies.

The article concludes:

…The “threats” Ms. Harris spoke of were climate change, infectious disease, and “criminal hackers.” In her politically correct condescension she failed to mention even once the threat from, say, Communist China. What an oversight, particularly at Annapolis. It is to the Pacific that so many of our newest ensigns are headed, and it is China who will meet them there.

This is not a moment to offer platitudes about the weather and joking references to gender. It was and is a moment, even if it’s not usually done, to talk about, say, serious strategy and to pledge support — for, say, the Navy’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative that is now coming before the Senate over which Ms. Harris presides. She could have pledged to give the middies the materiel they need and sought to summon their martial spirit.

I can only pray that America will survive the Biden administration.