Remember the U.S. Army’s old advertising slogan, “Freedom Isn’t Free”? Now we know that sexual freedom isn’t free either.

According to a USA Today report (Feb. 27), since July 1, 2016, when President Obama lifted the transgender ban in the armed forces, the Pentagon has spent nearly $8 million treating 1,500 transgender troops, including paying for over 160 surgical procedures.

As of February 1, 2019, over 1,000 active-duty service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Public Health Service have been diagnosed with “gender dysphoria.” Most are senior enlisted personnel, but 20 are senior officers — majors and lieutenant commanders and higher.

In those 30 months alone, the Pentagon has paid for 22,992 psychotherapy visits, 9,321 hormone prescriptions, and 161 surgical procedures — including 103 breast reductions or mastectomies, 37 hysterectomies, 17 “male reproductive” procedures, and four breast augmentations. The psychotherapy sessions cost nearly $5.8 million, and the surgeries cost more than $2 million.

Ask yourself: Does any of this make America safer? As delirium replaces discipline in our armed forces, is the protection of our nation enhanced or inhibited?

On its face, the above data suggest that permissiveness has led to psychological problems. And the psychological problems have led to surgical solutions. And the Pentagon is out $8 million — so far.

But might the actual cost of extending this great transgender social experiment to our armed forces be higher?

Perhaps we are indeed witnessing the end of the American empire. But rather than crumbling from within, as we’ve come to expect, we’ll be subjected to humiliation and defeat on the battlefield. It’s difficult to imagine an alternative outcome from our confused corps of sexual frankensteins. Will they be too distracted fighting the “enemy within” to engage and overcome a foreign force?