Elaine Donnelly is president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent, nonpartisan public policy organization that reports on and analyzes military/social issues. Since its founding in 1993, CMR has advocated for high, uncompromised standards in all forms of military training and sound priorities in the making of military/social policies. Elaine has published articles on military personnel issues in numerous newspapers and magazines nationwide. Under consideration in Congress is the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025 (NDAA). A number of positive initiatives are part of the House version. However, the Senate version comes with a very controversial mandate. It would require that for the first time in U.S. history, young women would be required to register with selective service for a possible future draft. Elaine began by commenting on the state of readiness within our military, how women play into the solution and the mindset behind it. She indicated that although retention has been holding steady, we've had a recruiting crisis taking place for several years. With so many trouble-spots in the world, she's not confident that the current administration understands how serious these threats are. Plus, they are misdirecting millions of dollars of resources to "woke" priorities and actually alienating people. One example she gave was that of Critical Race Theory (CRT). She believes that the more we teach CRT, both in civilian schools and the military, it only makes the recruiting crisis much worse, therefore she sees our all-volunteer force as being very much at risk. Another factor is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies.