The good news is that the reaction to the resignation of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has become more nuanced and reflective. It’s no longer the alarm and panic that the media, policymakers, and certain elements of the public witnessed when the news broke last month.

The bad news is that some are using Mattis’s resignation to scold the general for not being sufficiently “woke.”

Micah Zenko’s examination of Mattis’s tenure in Foreign Policy is a good example of this. The Chatham House fellow finds plenty to admire in Mattis, describing him as having “exhibited many of the best traits that had been demonstrated by previous secretaries of defense.” He also lodges plenty of valid criticisms, including that Mattis supported the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria that are currently bogging America down.

But then Zenko goes too far. He characterizes Mattis as not “being ready to serve in a democracy,” owing in large part to his less-than-“enlightened” attitudes on hot-button issues.

Zenko’s first misstep occurs when he says, “It is wrong for any public servant to berate journalists for asking questions…it establishes a poor command climate for the entire Department of Defense.” He was referring to a press conference in December 2017 when Mattis had the following exchange with a reporter:

Reporter: So are you okay with that level of civilian causality [sic]?

Mattis: I’m never okay with any civilian causality. Don’t screw with me on this.

It’s true that Mattis’s concern for civilian casualties never translated into much in the way of policy change, especially in Yemen where innocents are dying frequently. But Mattis’s reply can hardly be described as “berating.” The unnamed reporter asked an undeniably loaded question with only one possible answer: who in their right mind would ever publicly express contentment with civilian casualties? Zenko’s characterization only feeds the misguided notion that the press is a sacred cow undeserving of criticism, no matter how unprofessionally journalists might behave.

But Zenko saves his harshest criticism for Mattis picking the wrong side of the culture wars. The military’s apolitical mandate isn’t enough to shield the services from the bitter cultural battles roiling society: all defense secretaries are under some public pressure to hew a certain line. Though Mattis did well to sidestep many of the Trump administration’s controversies, he wasn’t afraid to share deeply held opinions on various issues either. And his views didn’t sit well with Zenko:

Mattis had already revealed his opinion of women in the military, telling a 2014 audience, “The idea of putting women in [infantry positions] is not setting them up for success… Do you really want to mix love, affection, whatever you call it, in a unit where … you’ve now introduced all the affections and the testosterone and the love and everything else that goes into young people?” Women had served with distinction in front-line combat units for years—and as Marines since 1918—before Mattis expressed this embarrassing belief, one that would be immune to data. (Emphasis added.)

The notion that women served in front-line combat units “for years” is suspect. Women were attached to front-line combat units for mission-specific purposes during the war on terror. This, however, isn’t the same as them serving full-time in a combat specialty within a front-line unit, especially since 1918. Because Zenko offers no data of his own to back up this assertion, he creates the false impression that women have served in infantry, armor, artillery, and so on, for a considerable length of time. Therefore it’s a self-evident, irrefutable fact that they ought to serve in combat positions full-time, with no need to contemplate the broader implications for the military.

This is intellectually disingenuous and made worse by Zenko’s characterization of Mattis’s beliefs as “embarrassing” and “immune to data.” The concerns laid out by Mattis are widespread and commonly cited by those who have served in combat, including Retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who believes the war on terror has given the American public a distorted view of war, contributing to the belief that the battlefield is just another workplace, much like the civilian world.

“We’ve lost our appreciation for ‘real war,’” MacGregor told me. “[The war on terror] is only a sampling of how socially devastating war can be at higher levels of intensity.” Veterans like Mattis share this belief. Many of them believe it will take a major battlefield disaster to show why enthusiasm for anyone and everyone serving in combat needs to be tempered.

Nor are Mattis’ views “immune to data.” If the insinuation is that the “data” is overwhelmingly in favor of women in combat, then it’s wrong. As scholar Anna Simons and other members of a panel discussed on C-Span in 2017, there is plenty of data that shows that the jury on whether women are equally fit for all combat roles is indeed, as Mattis once put it, still out.

The same panel also suggested that such conventions were being imposed on the military from the outside, forcing the services to take on extra burdens unrelated to the primary mission of defending the country.

One’s stance on women in combat, transgenders in the services, or any other culture war issue is less important than whether the military is allowed its own mind. While it may not be palatable to civilian activists, the military is not a democratic institution. It is by its very nature authoritarian and tasked with one mission: to defend the country. Why should it be a surprise that it has developed its own standards, culture, and social norms in order to achieve this mission, even if those might differ from the free society it protects?

Ironically, the public gets it. As Mattis himself discovered while writing a book he co-authored in 2016, even self-described “progressives” largely favored deferring to the military’s judgment on issues related to how the services run themselves. Only one group—“very liberal”—didn’t share this view. The obvious implication, of course, is that this group dominates the elite institutions of society—academia, the media, and the policymaking apparatus—so it appears that there is more opposition to the military on these matters than there really is.

And where did his co-author, well-respected national security scholar Kori Schake, stand on the issue? She too has shared the concern the military is being forced, from outside, to incorporate more progressive, civilian conventions, which are ultimately antithetical to the military’s effectiveness and functionality as an institution.

Rounding out his critique, Zenko hammers Mattis on several other matters, most of which can only be described as ax-grinding. In response to Mattis’s warning against the “exaltation of victimhood,” Zenko asks, “What news does he read to conclude this?” It’s an utterly bizarre query, given the prevalence of identity politics, of which victimhood is the core tenant. Zenko also all but accuses Mattis of undermining “the rights of female, gay, or transgender citizens” based on little more than Mattis’s insufficient enthusiasm for social programs that aren’t especially consistent with martial custom, even if they work for the broader public.

Regarding the troop deployment to the U.S.-Mexico border, Zenko implies that Mattis allowed the military to be used for social change, offering no evidence that these two things are linked. Such petty and strange grievances only deepen the civil-military divide, while failing to respect the military’s right to its own mind.

Mattis leaves behind a legacy more controversial than has been suggested by the public lionization he’s received. But his willingness to stick to the military’s necessary traditions and refusal to allow the services to become further distracted from their core competency were necessary and refreshing, and evidence indicates his troops loved him for it. Though he wasn’t always successful, Mattis did his very best to prevent the military from becoming yet another battlefield for America’s culture wars. For that, at least, he deserves gratitude.

Edward Chang is a freelance defense, military, and foreign policy writer. His writing has appeared in The National Interest, The American Conservative, Real Clear Defense, and War Is Boring.