- Senior officials within the Trump administration instructed top military officials to refrain from speaking about the George Floyd protests, according to a Washington Post report.
- The Trump officials reportedly relayed the message the service chiefs, the top officers leading the military's respective branches, at least two times in the past week.
- But despite the absence of a unified message across the military, several senior officials, including a service chief, have already begun acknowledging that Floyd's death was a "national tragedy."
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Senior officials within the Trump administration instructed top military officials to refrain from speaking about the George Floyd protests that have erupted across the country, according to a Washington Post report published Tuesday.
The Trump officials relayed the message the service chiefs, the top officers leading the military's respective branches, at least two times in the past week, despite them wanting to respond to the nation-wide unrest, three unnamed military officials reportedly told The Post.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who on a Monday conference call with state governors described the rioting as a "battlespace" that required to be dominated, reportedly wanted to broach the subject first, The Post reported.
But despite the absence of a unified message across the military, several senior officials, including a service chief, have already begun acknowledging that Floyd's death was a "national tragedy."
"I think there is a question about how and when, and at what level, the department should weigh into what has become a highly charged emotional and political issue," one military official said to The Post.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright, the top enlisted Airman for the service branch, openly discussed in a video the racial injustices throughout the country. The candid discussion was prompted after Wright, who is black, wrote a Facebook post titled, "I am George Floyd," in which he explained that his greatest fear was waking "up to a report that one of our Black Airmen has died at the hands of a white police officer."
"Just like most of the Black Airmen and so many others in our ranks, I am outraged at watching another Black man die on television before our very eyes," Wright wrote. "What happens all too often in this country to Black men who are subjected to police brutality that ends in death ... could happen to me."
In a separate Facebook post, Air Force Special Operations Command commander Lt. Gen. James Slife wrote that he was disturbed by the events surrounding Floyd's death.
"Our Air Force is a reflection of our society, so, by extension, this is an Air Force issue," Slife wrote. "We'd be naive to think issues of institutional racism and unconscious bias don't affect us. We can't ignore it. We have to face it."
Retired US Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also wrote about the issue in an opinion column published in The Atlantic titled, "I Cannot Remain Silent."
"As a white man, I cannot claim perfect understanding of the fear and anger that African Americans feel today," Mullen said. "But as someone who has been around for a while, I know enough — and I've seen enough — to understand that those feelings are real and that they are all too painfully founded."
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