Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is demanding answers from the Air Force on why it is spending $66.6 million in taxpayer funds to build an aquatics training facility for special operations trainees with mixed-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
Roy, in a letter to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall sent on Wednesday, wrote:
I am disturbed by the Air Force’s recent announcement that Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland’s new Special Warfare Training Wing’s (SWTW) $66.6 million 76,000 square-foot aquatics training facility – funded by the American taxpayer and scheduled for completion in August 2023 – will feature mixed-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.
He added, “It is perhaps even more concerning that the Air Force is touting this as an important development to strengthen inclusion as part of a larger strategy to build mixed-sex SWTW facilities across the nation.”
“While I understand that those who fight together must train together, this development appears to be more about advancing a radical political agenda that seeks to eliminate all distinctions between the sexes rather than the safety and well-being of airmen,” he said.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III testifies before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, May 3, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Indeed, on September 12, the Air Force put out an article on its official website touting the project, as well as others like it.
The article said facilities at the SWTW were modified to include dormitories where male and female trainees “bunk together,” and locker rooms and bathrooms that are “mixed-sex.”
The article quotes SWTW Commander Col. Nathan Colunga:
Fostering an environment of inclusion is an imperative for the SWTW. The mixed-sex facilities built at our candidate course, where we first welcome Special Warfare Airmen, are only the beginning for the SWTW. The larger strategy is to build mixed-sex facilities throughout the entirety of the SWTW footprint, across the nation where every trainee, regardless of gender, is afforded the same level of privacy.
The SWTW provides initial training for all Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) training specialties, including combat controllers and pararescue, special reconnaissance, and tactical air control party airmen, according to the Air Force.
The article said the move is part of the Air Force’s effort since 2015 to integrate women into Air Force Special Warfare career fields. “The construction of the mixed sex facilities marks a positive step in the wing’s progress,” the article said.
According to the article, the SWTW has graduated five female AFSPECWAR Airmen and currently has two female trainees in the SWTW pipelines. “[C]ontinued efforts to fully integrate facilities for all sexes will ensure further diversity, inclusion and integration,” it said.
The 76,000 square-foot aquatics center is expected to train more than 3,000 trainees.
Roy requested a meeting with Kendall and Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones to discuss the issue, as well as an official response to the letter that includes detailed descriptions and the floorplan of the SWTW’s modified mixed-sex dormitories
and the planned aquatics training facility’s locker rooms, restrooms, and showers by October 19, 2022.
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