The Fall of the Secret Service. How Prioritizing “Diversity” Undermines Professionalism

Lapses in Donald Trump’s Protection

Piotr Włoczyk: In 2005, you served in the Navy SEALs unit protecting then-Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi – a task that is hard to imagine being more demanding for a security service. What surprised you the most when you watched the footage of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump?

Thomas “Drago” Dzieran*: Surprised? What I saw outraged me to the core. The Secret Service did something that day that is simply unbelievable, beyond comprehension. If we had behaved like that in Iraq, protecting the Prime Minister, who was the most hunted man by terrorists in the world at the time, and if we had committed such gross negligence, many of us in the Navy SEALs would have ended up in prison. I have no doubt about that. While serving to protect Prime Minister Allawi, we were aware that we were performing deadly serious tasks every day and could not afford to relax procedures for even a moment, to take our eyes off any corner from which shots might be fired. That’s why what I saw in the footage from the Trump assassination attempt shocked me so much.

What was the worst part?

It’s hard to say because there were so many terrible moments. Too many. Firstly, it’s very disturbing to see videos showing many people in the audience pointing to a nearby roof, shouting that someone is there. And nothing happens – zero reaction. The security does nothing with that information!

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A Threat Underestimated

How would it have looked in Iraq if, during a meeting with Allawi, people in the crowd started shouting that they saw someone suspicious on the roof of a nearby building?

If such a signal reached our ears, we would immediately shield and evacuate the Prime Minister to a safe, pre-prepared location until the situation was clarified. Such things cannot be ignored. This is the ABC of this profession. Where there’s a signal – there’s an immediate reaction. But there, in Pennsylvania at Trump’s rally, people tried to raise the alarm for five minutes – I repeat: five minutes! – and the security services completely ignored it. I don’t know the exact procedures of the Secret Service, but I can’t imagine that in this aspect they would be different from the rules we worked under in Iraq.

We now know that at the critical moment, when the tragedy could still have been prevented, a police officer climbed onto the roof on the back of his colleague or via a ladder (there are various reports), but the assailant threatened him with a weapon, and the officer simply backed off… Recent reports also indicate that the assailant was even photographed on the roof by one of the policemen 30 minutes before the attack.

The behavior of the snipers is also bizarre because they were positioned in such a way that they had the assailant in their sights and were aware that he was on the roof of a nearby building. And finally, the behavior of the officers standing next to the podium. They reacted with scandalously long delays. The assailant managed to fire five shots, and only then did the first guards cover President Trump with their bodies. Notice that President Trump had to hide behind the podium himself… Then we see another disaster – the evacuation of the president from the stage.

Inclusivity in the US Military and Secret Service Efficiency

Frequently, one observes agents carrying briefcases containing kevlar plates near protected VIPs. These can be quickly deployed to shield the protected individual. However, at Trump’s rally, no such equipment was visible. Instead, Secret Service agents were shielding Trump’s bloodied head with their bare hands.

The evacuation of President Trump from the stage was so chaotic and disorganized that had there been a second shooter – not uncommon in assassination attempts – they would have had a fair chance of completing the “job”. It is simply inconceivable that after the initial shots, a protected individual would be evacuated in a manner that still allows for a potentially fatal shot. The president’s head remained exposed. The lack of professionalism and incompetence of those surrounding President Trump were utterly shocking.

Did you notice how a short, notably overweight woman from the Secret Service couldn’t even return her pistol to its holster? She was unable to find it! Moreover, such a small, portly woman was incapable of shielding the president, who was at least two heads taller than her. Every phase of the president’s protection, from surveying the area, identifying dangerous points, and providing cover, to evacuation, was executed appallingly poorly. So poorly that even amateurs would be ashamed of such a performance.

Women in the Secret Service: Inclusivity Prioritised in US Military

In the aftermath of the attack, commentators began recalling the words of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who recently announced a firm goal – ensuring that women comprise 30% of the Secret Service workforce by 2030.

This is where ideology comes to the fore. For several years, we have observed how in American services, old criteria that have always proven effective are being phased out and replaced with new ones, often based on building “inclusivity” and “diversity” in special services, as well as in the armed forces. This cannot end well. Either the sole criteria are skills and certain rigid physical parameters, such as strength, speed, or height, or we begin juggling criteria to meet some ideologically imposed goals, like a fixed minimum percentage of representatives of one gender or another. In the military or special services, the matter is straightforward: either you’re fit for the job, or you’re not.

In the case of the attack on Trump, we had on stage a short, plump lady from the Secret Service who was unable to shield the 6’3” president. This woman barely reached his shoulders… There’s no “forgiveness” here; one must meet physical requirements. Unfortunately, ideological criteria have taken precedence over common sense in this instance.

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“The Secret Service is Not an Ordinary Company”

The notion that you don’t value women might cross someone’s mind…

That’s not the issue at all. I have no problem with women if they fit their job well. Protecting the most important people in the state is a very demanding service. If President Trump is so tall, how can a short Secret Service agent be placed next to him? Perhaps someone wanted it to look good in photographs, to boast that there’s “diversity” in this service – there are tall men, but also women of small stature. However, the Secret Service is not an ordinary company where employees’ physical conditions don’t matter. It’s a service where strength and height can mean the difference between life and death for the protected person.

These women are undoubtedly true patriots, risking their lives for the president, and America can be proud to have such daughters. However, the requirements and safety of the protected person must take priority over social experiments. In this case, these women found themselves in a situation that exceeded their physical conditions and training. It was only by chance that Donald Trump survived this assassination attempt.

Inclusivity in the US Army: Joining the Military for Gender Reassignment

Although you’re retired, you still maintain contact with many soldiers – both active duty and reserve. How do you comment on the ideological changes that have affected the US armed forces in recent years?

The soldiers I talk to receive all this with great bitterness and anger. Every professional member of the US armed forces knows that our military should specialize in fighting America’s enemies, not conducting social experiments. I’ll go further – the army should be the last institution in the state where ideologues should meddle. Most of our readers probably have no idea that many people are now joining our army wanting to undergo so-called gender reassignment. Only because the federal government finances such operations for soldiers…

According to data presented this year by the Pentagon, the federal government has spent $26 million on all medical procedures related to “gender reassignment” since 2020, and during this time, the number of armed forces members suffering from gender dysphoria has doubled: from 1,800 to 3,700. It’s very possible that since the army pays for such “therapies”, many recruits are joining the military only for this reason…

Some of them leave the army right after such operations and then have free healthcare for life. Can this have a good effect on the morale of people who join the US army out of patriotic motives? Once, mental illnesses like gender dysphoria were treated; today, it seems that such a mental illness is glorified in our armed forces and beyond. Our military is slowly starting to resemble more and more a sketch from a comedy film.

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Indoctrination, Inclusivity and Other Issues in the US Military

Recently, I spoke with Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, author of Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military. Lohmeier, a fighter pilot, was disciplinarily discharged from the US Air Force after he began alerting that young soldiers were being indoctrinated by left-wing activists. “The turning point was what happened in 2020 after George Floyd’s death,” Lohmeier explained. “The same activist zeal we saw during the riots unfortunately also manifested within the US armed forces ranks. Military personnel with radically left-wing views stopped hiding their opinions. They felt a pivotal time had come. In my case, it was the base commander. This man turned out to be a radical left-wing activist and openly supported Black Lives Matter – an explicitly Marxist organization. This colonel began instilling anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-capitalist content into his subordinates’ minds. We heard about alleged ‘systemic racism’ in the USA, and in ‘educational films’ that soldiers were supposed to familiarize themselves with, one could hear that white people are inherently evil.”

I’m hearing similar voices. The armed forces are being subjected to increasingly aggressive indoctrination, which may resemble communist methods. That’s why we have such a big problem with military recruitment. I often talk to young people who would otherwise be ideal candidates for soldiers. But I hear from them that they won’t join the army because they don’t want to participate in these social experiments and tolerate acts they consider perverted. For them, only the American flag matters – they won’t serve under a rainbow flag or any other. Unfortunately, LGBT activists of all kinds are fully active in the US armed forces. I don’t care about other people’s orientation as long as this topic isn’t brought to the forefront by commanders at the expense of training. Partly because of such actions, because of such neo-Marxist experiments, our army is rotting from the inside, just like the rest of the country. Instead of focusing solely on defeating America’s enemies, soldiers are herded into ideological classes. In the times when I enlisted, such stories were unthinkable. No one cared then about someone’s skin color or orientation. We all served under the American flag, which united us. But now it’s more important to divide soldiers into different categories. Nothing good will come of this, and the result of such actions is precisely the huge recruitment crisis.

Routine Kills. Difficult Times for the Secret Service?

Let’s return to protecting VIPs. What’s the most difficult part of this job?

Boredom and routine, especially routine, which is very dangerous. It’s easy to fall into routine if you repeat the same steps and procedures day after day and nothing happens, meaning there are no attacks. After some time, one can get used to the idea that nothing has the right to happen because everything is so well thought out. And this is where a red flag should go up. Falling into routine is deadly dangerous in the world of professional VIP protection. Routine allows a potential attacker to exploit the mistakes we start making.

How do you train the reflex to do something that goes against our self-preservation instinct – to throw yourself towards an incoming bullet rather than run away from it?

The most important thing is selecting the right candidate. Psychological tests are crucial here. Very few people are able to overcome such a self-preservation instinct. When we were protecting Prime Minister Allawi, we had a year of intensive training in this direction, and during our mission, we repeated exercises every day until it became a habit. Looking at the footage from the assassination attempt on President Trump, we can see many glaring deficiencies in training. It’s clearly visible how one of the Secret Service agents lacks proper preparation and developed reflexes – she evidently doesn’t handle her weapon well. One can notice in her (and not only in her) a lack of basic skills – she hides behind others, cowers in fear. This is disqualifying.

*Thomas “Drago” Dzieran was a Navy SEAL commando who, during his service in Iraq, protected, among others, the country’s Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Translation: Klaudia Tarasiewicz

Polish version: Upadek Secret Service. Jak stawianie na „różnorodność” zabija profesjonalizm służb