General Mark Milley says he's 'not even sure' what 'woke' means before insisting the military definitely isn't

General Mark Milley insisted he was not sure what the word "woke" means before he claimed the last thing the armed forces are is "woke."

The confusing statements from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, when the host asked, "Is the U.S. military too woke?"

"No, not at all," Milley replied. "So — you know, I'm not even sure what that word truly means," he stated right after.

"But I would tell you that the military I see is a military that is exceptionally strong. It's powerful. It's ready. In fact, our readiness rate is — the way we measure readiness is better now than they've been in years," the general continued.

After boasting about the United States military's air and sea operations, Milley made a definitive claim about the armed forces.

"But this — military is a lot of things, but woke it is not. So I take exception to that. I think that people say those things for reasons that are their own reasons. But it's not true. It's not accurate," he declared.

However, the chairman seemed to then stumble through an admission that there are some woke elements to the U.S. military branches.

"It is not to say, by the way, that there is — there is not some things out there that are — could be fit into that category. But I don't think it certainly is — it is not a broad-brush description of the U.S. military as it exists today," Milley added.

In April 2023, Milley claimed that he was "unaware" of any "Drag Queen Story Hours" happening on military installations.

"'Joint Base Langley-Eustis holds drag show at kid-friendly festival.' And the next is 'U.S. military defends drag show at largest training center as quote, 'essential to morale,'" Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told General Milley at a hearing.

The Republican was then photographed handing the general a folder of news clippings detailing other woke events that Milley said he was not privy to.

In June 2021, Milley defended the reading of critical race theory texts by the military, the Daily Wire reported, saying it was akin to reading communist or Marxist doctrine for educational purposes.

“I’ve read Mao Tse-Tung; I’ve read Karl Marx; I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist.”

Milley said that he found it “offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers, of being ‘woke’ because we’re studying some theories that are out there.”

Milley also said that he believed it was "important actually for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read" regarding "white rage."

"The United States Military Academy is a university, and it is important that we train and we understand, and I want to understand white rage and I’m white," he stated.

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