During his Monday campaign stop in Herndon, Va., Donald Trump promised to roll back the “politically correct” social experiments hindering the United States military’s “warrior ethos.”

WATCH:

“The U.S. military has been long successful because of the warrior ethos that’s part of its DNA,” Col. Don Bartholomew posed to Trump during a Q&A session following his speech. “Under this administration, that ethos has been under attack and in some cases undermined by the forces of political correctness.”

“The military has become an institution for social experiments, and as a result the military has undergone a number of changes to regulations with regard to women in combat, transgender rights and other issues. None of these PC actions were combat effective or readiness driven… What will you do about the social engineering and political correctness that has been imposed upon our military?”

“Well, we’re going to get away from political correctness,” Trump responded. “We have to do that.”

“You’re right. We have a politically correct military, and it’s getting more politically correct everyday, and a lot of the great people I see in this room don’t even understand how you can do that, and that’s through intelligence, not ignorance.”

Trump told the crowd at the Retired American Warriors PAC event that he will leave “many of the decisions of the things you mentioned to the generals, the admirals, the people on top, and we get some of — the congressman just mentioned to me — you get some of the top enlisted people in that.”

“We’d get our military people to come back and make recommendations to me, and I would follow those recommendations.”

Follow Datoc on Twitter and Facebook