Adm. Michael Gilday Wiki Biography

Early life and education

Gilday was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and is a 1985 graduate of the United States Naval Academy as a Surface Warfare Officer. He has also graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School and the National War College.

Career

Gilday’s previous tours include duty with USS Chandler, USS Princeton, as well as commanding the USS Higgins and USS Benfold and Destroyer Squadron 7. He also had staff assignments on the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Chief of Naval Operation (Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate), and staff to the vice chief of naval operations. His joint assignments include Naval Aide to the President and executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As a flag officer, Gilday served as Director of Operations for NATO’s Joint Force Command in Lisbon and Director of Operations for United States Cyber Command. He assumed the duties of Commander, Fleet Cyber Command, and United States Tenth Fleet on July 14, 2016, was appointed Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in May 2018 and became Director of the Joint Staff from March 1, 2019.

On July 11, 2019, Gilday was nominated for appointment as the next chief of naval operations (CNO). On August 1, the United States Senate voted unanimously to award Gilday the fourth star following the Senate Armed Services Committee’s recommendation that he succeed Admiral John M. Richardson as CNO in September 2019.

On April 15, 2020 Gilday announced the Navy was considering reinstating Brett Crozier, earlier fired in relation to Crozier’s controversial response to coronavirus disease on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Gilday, and the acting United States secretary of the Navy, James E. McPherson recommended that Crozier be reinstated as Captain of the Roosevelt on April 25, 2020.

On 10 August 2020, Gilday was running on the Washington Navy Yard base, where he lives, when he “fell ill”. Gilday was assisted by a passing Marine, and was taken to his physician. He underwent heart surgery for a pre-existing condition about two weeks later. He returned to work full-time on 28 September 2020.

Jim Banks confronts top Navy officer on ‘woke’ critical race theory book recommendation, Adm. Michael Gilday

The navy’s top admiral on Tuesday loudly defended efforts to root out racism and promote diversity in service over criticism of the GOP’s decision to recommend that sailors read a book that was mocked as anti-American by conservatives.

Naval Operations Commander Admiral Michael Gilday draws the reaction of conservatives when İbrahim X. Kendi’s book “How to Become Anti-Racist” was included in the list of recommended books.

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, GOP Representatives Doug Lamborn (Colombia) and Jim Banks (Ind.) asked Gilday to respond to certain Self-quotes.

“I’m not going to sit here defending selected excerpts from someone’s book,” Gilday said during Banks’ interrogation. “I will not do that.”

“This is a bigger issue than His own book,” Gilday continued. “What this is really about is trying to portray the United States military, in this case the United States Navy, as weak, vigilant. And our seafarers spent 341 days at sea with minimal port visits last year, the longest deployments ever. We are not weak. We are strong.”

Tuesday’s exchange marks the latest example of conservatives pulling the armed forces more and more into culture wars as the military seeks to recruit and retain more women and people of color, in addition to addressing issues of extremism and white supremacy.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) were similarly confused about the Pentagon’s efforts to promote diversity, equality and inclusion, and Cotton asked Austin for his book.

Austin has also previously responded to criticism that the military has become “too soft”.

Austin has made tackling extremism and promoting diversity a priority after several people arrested in connection with the January 6 Capitol attack were found to have military backgrounds.

But diversity and inclusion efforts in the military are not new or unique to the Biden administration, as the military struggles to recruit from a shrinking pool of eligible youth. Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who served during the Trump administration, launched diversity and inclusion initiatives last year following nationwide protests against racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Still, conservatives have been blasting these efforts more and more since President Biden took office. Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked pregnant flight suits earlier this year. Last month, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared an ad featuring a soldier describing his childhood march for LGBT rights with Russian propaganda portraying the machismo of his military, and complained that the US ad showed an “awakened, castrated army.”

“We are in a battle for talent,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth when asked about this Army ad by Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) at a separate Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“We’re trying to reach young people from all sorts of different backgrounds, all over America, all over the country. “We are trying to recruit Gen Z and those younger than them,” Wormuth said. “So part of what we’re doing is trying to figure out which innovative recruiting technique is most successful and resonates with all kinds of people across the country.”

At the House Armed Services Committee session, Gilday stressed that “our strength is in our diversity, and our seafarers understand that.”

Conservatives, in one line in particular from Self’s book, “The only remedy for discrimination in the past is discrimination now. The only remedy for current discrimination is future discrimination.”

“I’m surprised you put this book on a reading list,” Banks told Gilday.

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“Why are you surprised,” Gilday replied as he spoke to Banks.

While disagreeing with everything in Own’s book, Gilday said He recommends it because he thinks “it’s really important to consider a variety of opinions” and that Own “criticizes his own journey in this country as an African-American.” their experiences.”

“There is racism in the Navy, just like there is racism in our country,” Gilday said. “And the way we’re going to go after that is to be honest about it, not sweep it under the rug and talk about it and that’s what we do.”

A senior Navy officer got into a heated argument with Republican Jim Banks

A senior Navy officer got into a heated argument with Republican Jim Banks on Tuesday after being confronted by his advice that sailors should read a book by a top author that embraces critical race theory.

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, had previously published a “professional reading program” reading list that included Abraham X. Own’s How to Be Anti-Racist.

Banks, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Republican Working Committee, sent a letter to Gilday in February expressing concern that the admiral had recommended His own book. In response, Gilday said in March that he included the book because it “awakens the author’s personal journey in understanding the barriers to genuine participation” and that Navy sailors should achieve similar “self-reflection.”

This response, it seems, was unsatisfactory for Banks, a US Navy Reserve veteran who confronted Gilday at a House Armed Services Committee meeting on Tuesday.

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Banks noted that the Navy had recently completed an investigation to root out extremism and began the line of inquiry, noting some of His extremist remarks.

Before Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was upheld in 2020, Kendi suggested she was a “white colonialist” for adopting children from Haiti. He regularly argues that capitalism and racism are “linked”. And in college, she wrote that whites used the AIDS virus to fend off racial extinction.

Asked if he had read Own’s book, Gilday replied that he had. The book was included on the reading list, he said, “because I think it’s really important to consider a variety of opinions.”

“This is a bigger issue than Your Own book. The main thing is to try to picture the United States military, and in this case the United States Navy is weak – as if ‘awakened,'” Gilday replied to Banks.

“Admiral, I met you, I respect you,” said Banks. “I’m surprised you put this book on your reading list and recommend that every sailor in the United States Navy read it. I’m also surprised you read it.”

Banks continued: “If Marines accept Own’s argument, as you promote, that the United States and the United States Navy are fundamentally racist, do you expect it to increase or decrease morale and cohesion, even recruiting in the United States Navy? ”

“Our strength is in our diversity, and our sailors understand that,” Gilday said. “Racism in the United States is a very complex issue. What we benefit from is an open discussion about these issues, we don’t try to ignore it or rewrite it, but we actually have a discussion about it.”

Gilday said he trusts the sailors “in which case, I hope by separating fact from fiction, they will come to a self-aware or disagreeable understanding and hopefully very useful conclusions about how we should treat each other in the United States.” ”

Some House Republicans are watching changes to be added to the National Defense Authorization Act, which seeks to curb “evoked” political bias within the Department of Defense.

According to the service’s senior official, the US Navy did not reject the reinstatement of Captain Brett Crozier, the former commander of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which was decommissioned for battling a coronavirus outbreak.

Admiral Michael Gilday Associated Press Statement

Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, told The Associated Press that he did not decide against Crozier’s reassignment. “I’m not removing any options from the table,” Gilday said.

Gilday said he has not yet spoken to Crozier, who was quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus, but was particularly interested in the captain’s motivations for emailing a bombshell letter that was eventually leaked to the media.

Crozier was relieved of command on April 2, days after he sent a four-page letter to at least 20 people on his ship warning of a coronavirus outbreak.

The letter was eventually leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published its contents on March 31. It was not immediately clear how the letter was leaked, but Navy leaders said they had recently completed an investigation into the matter.

Thomas Modly, acting Navy secretary at the time, scrutinized Crozier’s decision to email the letter to the group and accused him of circumventing the service’s chain of command.

“I have no doubt that Captain Crozier is doing what he thinks is best for the interests and well-being of his team,” Modly said last week. “Unfortunately, the opposite happened.”

Modly then sailed to Guam, where the USS Theodore Roosevelt was in port, to address the ship’s approximately 4800 crew members. Modly’s 15-minute abusive speech about Crozier’s actions was later leaked and was widely criticized by former Navy leaders, ship crews and lawmakers.

Modly apologized for his remarks and resigned on Tuesday.

Reinstating the Crozier would likely be an unprecedented move by the Navy. Dismissals of previous Navy commanders have been cleared from service records, but reinstatement to command a ship has rarely occurred. An online petition aimed at “rewarding” the captain for “asking for help with the safety of his crew” garnered more than 315,000 signatures on Thursday.

More than 2,300 crew members of the carrier have been evacuated and many are under quarantine in hotels in Guam. As of Thursday, around 416 crew members have tested positive for coronavirus.