The incoming Trump administration is still staffing up key roles, replacing the Biden appointees with people who actually know what they’re doing. That’s an unalloyed good thing, but in this process, President-elect Trump is also bringing some justice to some people who were unfairly separated from the Armed Services. People like former Space Force Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Matthew Lohmeier, who was discharged after criticizing the Space Force’s “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” (DEI) horse squeeze. LTC Lohmeier will be serving the Trump administration as Under-secretary of the Air Force.
President-elect Trump announced Friday that Matthew Lohmeier will serve as the under secretary of the Air Force.
“Matt is a former fighter pilot, and Space Force Squadron Commander, who has devoted his life to serving our Great Nation,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “He is a proud graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy.”
In 2021, Lohmeier was fired from the Space Force, where he served as a lieutenant colonel, after criticizing the U.S. military on a conservative podcast. Lohmeier joined “The Steve Gruber Show” to discuss his book “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military,” which claims that Marxist beliefs have become increasingly common in the military. In the same appearance, he also called The New York Times’s 1619 Project “anti-American.”
Bear in mind that there are certain restrictions on active military members appearing at political events in uniform, but service members do not surrender their rights under the First Amendment, and appearing on a podcast to promote a book is not a prohibited activity.
Lohmeier’s dismissal, at the time, provoked a sharp response from Republican lawmakers, The Hill reported in its story linked above:
At the time, the Defense Department said it had lost “trust and confidence” in Lohmeier as the reason for his dismissal. His removal from the role was met with outrage from Republican lawmakers, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who called the department’s move “retaliatory.”
On Friday, Trump wrote that in his new role, Lohmeier will work to “end the devastating ‘woke’ policies that have destroyed our Military, and make our Country STRONG AGAIN.”
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President Trump, in fact, is promising LTC Lohmeier an additional task beyond his duties as Under-secretary of the Air Force:
Meet Matthew Lohmeier. He was forced out of his Space Force command because he questioned DEI. Today President Trump named him Under Secretary of the Air Force.
DEI is going to DIE in the US military very soon!pic.twitter.com/J3mMEBZiZC
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 18, 2025
LTC Lohmeier was, before moving to the Space Force, an F-15 pilot. He was a Space Force Squadron commander (roughly the equivalent of a battalion commander in the Army or Marine Corps) prior to his dismissal.
The demise of DEI programs has been a key campaign point for the president-elect before the election, and he has been making moves even before reassuming office to root out DEI programs from the national government. But eliminating these idiotic policies in the Department of Defense is even more critical than in the government as a whole. These kinds of preferential treatments and promotion decisions, based on anything other than warfighting ability, should not and must not be tolerated. The purpose of our nation’s armed forces is and must remain to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Anything that promotes that mission is good. Anything that impedes it is bad.
LTC Lohmeier’s country is now once more doing right by him. Look for him to return the favor by helping to dig out and eliminate DEI stupidity in the Defense Department, root and branch.
