Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley has used his previous position as the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to land teaching positions at two of the country’s most prestigious universities.
Axios reported this week that Milley will soon begin teaching students at both Georgetown University and Princeton University, the latter of which he graduated from in 1980. He will teach subjects that are related to national security.
Milley will be a guest lecturer at Princeton, according to a school-issued statement. He’ll also engage with faculty and alumni and “provide input on the School’s Security Studies Ph.D. program.” His appointment there will run through June 2025.
In praising the decision to bring Milley on board at Princeton, Dean Amaney Jamal referenced the general’s “experience in the nation’s capital as well as abroad in conflict zones.”
As a student at Princeton, Milley received his commission through the school’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program.
While serving as chair of the Joint Chiefs, Milley often clashed with Congress as well as former President Donald Trump. He was still in his position when President Joe Biden led the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021.
He also gave contentious testimony to Congress that same year about initiatives the military was undertaking regarding DEI — or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“I’ve read Mao Tse-Tung. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist,” Milley said during the hearings. “I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers, of being ‘woke’ or something else because we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
Following that testimony, JD Vance — the best-selling author who hadn’t yet won his election to the U.S. Senate representing Ohio — slammed Milley for his comments.
Vance posted a message on Twitter — now renamed X under owner Elon Musk — that said, in part, that he’d like to see “American generals read less about ‘white rage’ (whatever that is) and more about ‘not losing wars.'”
What I find so enraging about the Joint Chiefs’s pandering on progressive wokeness is that they know damn well the geography and politics of who dies in American wars. The conservative Americans you trash are disproportionately bleeding for this country.
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) June 25, 2021
Milley is also known for his admission before Congress that he held secret talks with the communist Chinese government while Trump was president, where the Joint Chiefs chairman told China that he would give them forewarning if the U.S. planned to launch an attack.
FLASHBACK: Never forget that General Mark Milley said he would give China a heads up if the U.S. ever launched an attack pic.twitter.com/yUGomay7Yy
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 6, 2023