A week after the Pentagon ordered a stand-down to examine the problem of white supremacy and extremism in military ranks, a Navy Admiral told sailors in an open letter that "we cannot be under any illusions that extremist behaviors do not exist in our Navy."
In the note to the fleet, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday also addressed two recent racist incidents on Navy ships based on the West Coast.
In January, a noose was found in the bunk of a Black sailor on the USS Lake Champlain while it was docked in San Diego. A sailor confessed in the incident and was taken off the ship, which is now at sea.
In a second incident from last weekend, undisclosed hate speech was found scrawled on a bathroom wall on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, also based in San Diego.
In his letter to sailors, Gilday acknowledged the two incidents and said "we cannot tolerate extremist behavior of any kind."
"Just in the past few weeks, there have been two separate incidents where symbols of hate and violence were anonymously left in living areas aboard ships in our Fleet," Gilday wrote. "The chain of command took both of those incidents seriously and immediately launched investigations, which are ongoing."
"You must model correct behavior 24/7/365 in person and online," he said in the letter.
On February 3, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered military branch leaders to conduct a stand-down at some point in the following two months to allow leaders to make clear that extremism is unacceptable among recruits, NBC News reported.
"Now is the time for us to come together and be guided by a strong moral compass," Gilday wrote. "We must eliminate extremist behavior and its corrosive effects on our fighting force. And we must remember that we swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution above all else."
