Skip to main content

Army leaders praise ‘superstar’ soldier after Sen. Ted Cruz criticizes her recruitment video


Cpl. Emma Malonelord poses with her two mothers in this screenshot from an Army recruiting video. Army leaders praised Malonelord after a mashup of the soldier's video was criticized by Sen. Ted Cruz on Twitter.

This story has been updated with a response from Sen. Cruz's office.

U.S. Army leaders rallied around a soldier featured in a recruitment video clip that Sen. Ted Cruz mocked as representative of an “emasculated military.”

Cruz, a Texas Republican, retweeted a video Thursday that featured Cpl. Emma Malonelord, an air defense system operator stationed in South Korea.

The original video, part of a five-part series called “The Calling,” showed an animated depiction of Malonelord’s life and the reasons why she joined the military.

The Army was “a way to prove my inner strength and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way,” Malonelord said in the video, adding that by enlisting, “I answered my calling.”

Cruz retweeted a shorter version of the ad that was juxtaposed with a video of Russian service members staring menacingly into the camera.

“Holy crap,” Cruz said on Twitter to his 4.4 million followers. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea.”

Cruz’s retweet was shared over 14,500 times and the edited video received over 3 million views. Following his viral tweet, Army leaders expressed support for Malonelord and her service.

U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams called Malonelord a “superstar by any measure.”

“For what it’s worth, I met this Corporal a few months ago during a routine unit visit,” Abrams tweeted Friday. “Exceptionally sharp, professional, technical expert, highly respected by her peers, superiors and subordinates.”

The Army Enterprise Marketing Office, which manages the service’s recruitment efforts, also supported Malonelord’s service and added that “it is important that the Soldiers featured in the campaign reflect the incredible diversity of both the Army and the American public.”

“We are now seeing the various tweets of support for Cpl. Malonelord,” AEMO public affairs chief Laura DeFrancisco said in a statement to Stars and Stripes. “She volunteered to tell her story as part of this campaign with the four other soldiers in ‘The Calling.’ We’re glad to see the supportive comments from those who know and work with her.”

DeFrancisco added that Malonelord “is grateful for the support she has received from leaders across the Army.”

Cruz addressed the controversy in a separate tweet and said “lefty” commentators on Twitter were “dishonestly claiming” he was disparaging the military.

“We have the greatest military on earth, but Dem politicians & woke media are trying to turn them into pansies,” Cruz tweeted.

A spokeswoman for Cruz responded to Stars and Stripes.

“Sen. Cruz passionately supports the brave men and women of the United States military and has repeatedly expressed concerns that Democrat politicians, left wing bureaucrats, and the media are politicizing our armed forces to promote a fringe woke agenda based on identity politics,” Erin Perrine wrote in an emailed statement. “Our military should be focused on winning wars, and we endanger our national security and our servicemembers when they focus on anything else.”

choi.david@stripes.com

Twitter: @choibboy

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wray: FBI deemed Jan. 6 attack domestic terrorism

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that officials have classified the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Trump Donald TrumpProsecutors focus Trump Organization probe on company's financial officer: report WHO official says it's 'premature' to think pandemic will be over by end of year Romney released from hospital after fall over the weekend MORE's supporters as domestic terrorism. "That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism," Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Wray said the FBI has received more than 270,000 tips from Americans that have helped the bureau identify the numerous people who allegedly participated in the attack. ADVERTISEMENT "Citizens from around the country have sent us more than 270,000 digital media tips. Some have even taken the painful step of turning in their friends or their family members,” ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend to cooperate with federal authorities in sex trafficking investigation

Washington (CNN) Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman's willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators' radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Biden Wants to Hire 87,000 Additional IRS Agents to Go After Wealthy Tax Dodgers

The Biden administration is proposing hiring 87,000 new workers for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), effectively doubling the agency’s size, as part of a plan to beef up enforcement efforts and find billions of dollars in tax revenues that go uncollected each year. Enforcement efforts would primarily target individuals and corporations with higher incomes and profits, the administration has suggested. The hiring, which would be part of President Joe Biden’s overall $80 billion spending plan to increase enforcement efforts at the IRS, would not happen all at once. Instead, it would be carried out in phases, with a 15 percent growth in employment at the agency per year until that 87,000 hiring benchmark is reached. The move would help recoup (and go beyond) some of the employment losses the agency has seen over the past decade, as the IRS has lost more than 33,000 workers over the past decade. The drop in employment at the agency has resulted in fewer audits, particularly for filers w...
Post a Comment
Read more