Ted Cruz mocks ‘woke, emasculated military’ ad, compared to strong Russians
Sen. Ted Cruz ripped the US Army on social media for a new ad portraying a “woke, emasculated” United States military.
The Texas Republican retweeted a video comparing a Russian military ad featuring muscle-bound men shooting rifles to a US Army ad centering on a female American solider with “two moms.”
“Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea….” he wrote Thursday, adding the video makes soldiers look like “pansies.”
The animated US Army ad tells the story of Corporal Emma Malonelord, who was raised by a lesbian couple in San Francisco, and was inspired to serve a country that defends gay rights.
By contrast, the hyper-masculine Russian ad shows a group of all-male soldiers doing pushups, shaving their heads and jumping from airplanes.
Lawmakers and former service members were outraged by Cruz’s comments, which they saw as bashing US Military itself.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth — a Purple Heart recipient who lost both legs while serving in the Iraq war — blasted Cruz with a tweet mimicking his language.
“Holy crap. Perhaps a U.S. Senator shouldn’t suggest that the *Russian* military is better than the American military that protected him from an insurrection he helped foment?,” she wrote, referencing the US Capitol riots on Jan. 6.
And the progressive veterans’ group VoteVets slammed Cruz for criticizing Malonelord, a real-life soldier serving the US.
“Ted Cruz attacks a US Army soldier for telling her story, says he prefers Russians,” the group wrote on Twitter. “Because Ted Cruz is a sedition-loving traitor.”
Cruz later walked back his comment, explaining he blamed “woke media” — not the US military — for the Army’s soft new image.
“I’m enjoying lefty blue checkmarks losing their minds over this tweet, dishonestly claiming that I’m ‘attacking the military.’ Uh, no. We have the greatest military on earth, but Dem politicians & woke media are trying to turn them into pansies. The new Dem videos are terrible,” Cruz tweeted.
The Army ad is part of a series dubbed “The Calling,” which tells the “emotional” true stories of soldiers in order to “shatter” military stereotypes, Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army Enterprise Marketing, told Newsweek earlier this month.
“Research tells us that young people today see the Army as a ‘distant star’—a place requiring a nearly superhuman level of discipline with little relevance to their daily lives,” said Fink.
“Similarly, youth don’t necessarily connect with those who serve or see common ground in terms of interests, abilities, and goals. ‘The Calling’ shatters these misperceptions by showing that Soldiers are all of us: real people with hopes, dreams, fears, aspirations, families, friends, and obstacles to overcome,” he said.
