Ahead of Fleet Week, Retired Two-Star General Urges Americans to Push Back
Two years ago, Maj. Gen. Peter Gravett (ret.), a two-star general, published Battling While Black, chronicling the experiences of four segregated African American Army units serving under Gen. George Patton. In it, Gravett highlighted these units’ contributions while confronting white supremacy at every turn.
This book is one of the reasons I invited him to be a part of Random Lengths News‘ Ink UnChained Book Author’s event coming up in June. But it didn’t occur to me until last week that, with Fleet Week just around the corner, Gravett presented an opportunity to reflect on the executive orders transforming the military and the federal government’s attempts to erase American history.
I asked the general about his thoughts on the massive military parade the administration is planning for the president’s birthday next month.
“You know, one thing about the U.S. military — we’ve never been like communist countries,” Gravett said. “They have to float all their armor down the street; missiles and troops marching in formation and practicing for weeks and weeks and weeks to maybe get it right. And maybe make one wrong move, you’d get killed — you’d get shot, which is happening in communist countries. We don’t need to show our might. We have the might. We don’t need troops marching down Washington, D.C., with missiles, rifles, guns and tanks. We don’t need that in this country. That’s not us.”
I pointed out that we do have Fleet Week.
Gravett called Fleet Week an opportunity for the U.S. military to demonstrate transparency and connect with the public. He noted that the ships and equipment belong to the American people, who are welcome to visit and tour them — even though they are restricted from some areas, like command systems.
Gravett said it’s not just about the ports; Sailors are sent into local communities across Southern California, including places like Santa Clarita and San Bernardino, with events like Navy Band performances to reinforce the message: “This is your Navy.”
In the last 115 days, the president has replaced key Pentagon leadership, including the Secretary of Defense, with individuals ideologically aligned with his agenda; cut traditional overseas commitments such as those to NATO and the United Nations while expanding spending on border security, hypersonic weapons and space defense; and rolled back Pentagon diversity, equity and inclusion programs, calling them “woke politics.”
When I invited Gravett to the offices of Random Lengths last week to tape clips as part of our marketing push for Ink UnChained, I also thought it was a good opportunity to capture the thoughts and perspectives of the upper echelon of the U.S. military about the current administration’s actions.
Gravett arrived wearing a vertically striped shirt beneath a blue blazer with an inconspicuous two-star pin on the left lapel.
San Pedro-born, raised and educated, Gravett found service to be his calling — to his community and his country — first enlisting in the U.S. Army and the California National Guard, the Los Angeles Police Department, then back to the Army after graduating from Officer Candidate School.
When I asked Gravett about the kinds of conversations his peers in the military are having, he noted that he had recently attended a meeting of retired generals called the Fall Gathering in Washington, D.C., where they keep in touch and share information.
“What’s happening right now is just unthinkable for this country,” Gravett said. His statement reflected his overall impression of the current administration’s actions.
The general admitted that he didn’t anticipate what is now unfolding when he wrote Battling While Black.
“I didn’t see someone trying to erase Black history; erase the things that the Buffalo Soldiers have done for this country,” Gravett said.
He said he didn’t foresee attempts to undermine the contributions of senior African American military personnel who spent 20 to 30 years climbing the ranks.
“It’s not just men. Women also walk with others who have served. Look at the commanding officer in Greenland — Col. Susannah Meyers, commander of Pituffik Space Base. She had done a great job. But he didn’t want a woman in command up there. He retired her — just because of her sex — making comments that anybody who’s of color or a woman, it’s a ‘woke’ situation.”
Like this publication, Gravett avoids mentioning the current administration by name, choosing pronouns instead of proper names when referring to the commander in chief.
For Gravett, “concerned” is the operative word to describe his peers’ reaction to the administration’s rapid-fire executive orders.
“Not just senior military officials of color and women, but all across the military … they’re all concerned,” Gravett said. “When a senior military official retires — a general or admiral — they don’t engage in politics. They’ve had their term of service, but they don’t get involved in making comments about what’s happening, especially in politics and commerce. And seeing it in the White House for the first time, I think in many generations, retired flag officers are starting to speak up. They are concerned — really concerned.”
“Alarmed” might be the better word.
With the dismissals of Gen. Charles R. Hamilton, former head of Army Materiel Command; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, former chief of naval operations and the first woman to hold the position; Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a U.S. military service as commandant of the Coast Guard; and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, these cuts are not just about streamlining the command structure. This is an attempt to politicize a traditionally apolitical military.
“Colin Powell was an icon in this country before he passed away. He was an icon in the military,” Gravett said. “He was one of the very senior people who had respect throughout the world. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to have his memory removed from the halls of military museums; to have everything that he accomplished removed because of his color; to have the Buffalo Soldiers’ image tarnished for all that they did for this country; to have women taken out of command because of the perception that women cannot lead — it’s all deeply disturbing.”
Gravett noted that what’s most frightening about the current administration is that it believes it owns Congress, the Supreme Court and the American public because they “voted for us to do what we’re doing.”
“But they didn’t,” Gravett said. “Yet the result is that they are receiving what they voted for. America was never supposed to be like this.
“Black Americans fought for so many years to gain what they got, and there is still a lot more to go. But what they’ve gained is being eroded — being tarnished — and it’s setting the clock back to the Jim Crow era, and people are standing around watching it happen. People who have the ability to change it are just silent.”
The general said the first opportunity to push back — and push back hard—is the next general election in November 2026.
The cynic in me wondered if there would be a United States left by 2026. But the general’s faith is that of a mustard seed.
Gravett believes the next national election could reverse Republican gains.
“I can see changes happening now in local elections in some of the states. People are being elected to offices. It’s starting to change,” Gravett said. “They’re seeing what’s going on and they don’t like it. But there are too many silent people. Just too many silent people of all colors.”
