Commentary
On Sept. 30, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of general and flag officers at Quantico to deliver a message so important that it definitely needed to be delivered face-to-face, versus via a secure video chat as many had suggested.
In his fiery address, Hegseth announced what will be done to restore the U.S. military’s warrior ethos. His message was about fulfilling the sacred responsibility of the president, Congress, and all military leaders to ensure that soldiers, Marines, and airmen sent into harm’s way fight alongside the most physically capable and best-trained warriors. It was about forming cohesive, lethal teams whose capabilities maximize the chances of completing the mission and returning safely.
To this end, he directed commanders to evaluate every decision—promotions, training standards, and physical standards, everything—through a critical lens: If it were my son or daughter being sent into harm’s way, what would best ensure that they can successfully complete their mission while maximizing their chances to return safely?
Hegseth summarized this mindset in the new “War Department golden rule”: “Do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops or alongside people who can’t meet basic standards or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance, and warfighting? The answer is not just ‘No’; it’s ‘Hell no.’”
Diluted standards are just suggestions “that get our sons and daughters killed,” he said. Diluting standards sends the message that we hold identity politics to be more precious than the lives of our soldiers.
While Hegseth did organize his speech around 10 key directives, all 10 directives tie back to the golden rule. Hegseth spoke at length about empowering frontline soldiers and commanders to enforce discipline, toughness, and lethality.
In discussing empowering military leaders, he lamented that, over the decades, the warrior culture has been eroded by a risk-averse, “zero defect” culture of being afraid to make mistakes, a culture that had been created by zero tolerance of the kind of offhand comments and minor mistakes that those who are aggressive and willing to take calculated risks are bound to make.
In other words, those who make the best military commanders have been losing out to risk-averse types capable of navigating military bureaucracy without offending people. In this context, Hegseth pointed out that racism has been illegal in the military since 1948 and that racism will not be tolerated.
He didn’t mince words about the urgency of completely rooting out diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and wokeness. Ensuring that merit and capability are the criteria for advancement—not intersectional-based identity—is necessary for increasing the effectiveness and survivability of our front troops, he said.
“You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard-charging, no-nonsense constitutional leader that you joined the military to be,” Hegseth said, freeing soldiers and commanders to focus on combat skills and unit cohesion.
The golden rule ensures that a commander’s child is trained for survival, not ideology, aligning with the sacred duty to prepare lethal teams for battle.
Regarding women in combat, Hegseth emphasized that standards having to do with speed, strength, endurance, and durability will be based on male capability, to ensure that an injured soldier can be carried to safety and that male troops won’t be slowed down by females or physically weak males who can’t keep up.
“War does not care if you’re a man or a woman,” he said. “Neither does the enemy, nor does the weight of your rucksack, the size of an artillery round, or the body weight of a casualty on the battlefield who must be carried.
“When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender-neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.”
Regarding the directive on grooming, there will be no more beards, long hair, or superficial individual expression. Elaborating on this is a memo contemporaneously released during Hegseth’s speech. The memo specifies that when it comes to religious accommodations, the War Department will revert back to pre-2010 standards that facial hair waivers are generally not granted. As a rationale for upping the ante on grooming, he analogized good grooming to the broken windows theory of policing.
“It’s like you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff,” he said.
Further, grooming promotes professionalism and unity.
Hegseth said: “An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that ‘our diversity is our strength.’ Of course, we know our unity is our strength.”
He also spoke at length about moving away from the kinder, gentler, more touchy-feely basic training that we have seen adopted over the past 20-plus years to basic training that will be “scary, tough, and disciplined.” After all, if you are going to crumble because a drill sergeant yells or even swears at you, you probably aren’t suited for combat. As part of this tougher training, the War Department will revert back to the much more rigorous 1990 standards.
Hegseth also made it clear that those senior military leaders who advanced in rank by embracing wokeness and DEI—going above and beyond merely obeying lawful orders by pandering to politicians who push woke policies that were clearly disastrous to the military—are not wanted. They are encouraged to resign.
Other directives dealt with changing definitions of what constitutes bullying and hazing to be in conformity with new training ring standards to toughen new recruits both physically and mentally. Standards of what constitutes “adverse information” are being revised to diminish the power of anonymous or unsubstantiated accusations to damage or destroy the careers of tough, capable military leaders who aren’t sensitive enough. As part of this, the culture of grievance and victimhood that eroded the warrior culture of the U.S. military will be rooted out.
All in all, the speech was very powerful, and the sweeping nature of the directives being put in place demanded that they be delivered in person. Having generals, admirals, and senior NCO leaders fly in from all over the world was entirely appropriate for a speech of this nature. Having them there was not only warranted but essential: Not requiring in-person attendance would have greatly undercut the speech’s effectiveness.
Those who believe in the true role of the military and Hegseth’s golden rule can only be encouraged by his speech. Those who see the military as just another institution to be corrupted by leftist ideology, deconstruction of the West, and social engineering will find his speech to be anathema.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Friends Read Free
Copy
Facebook
Tweet
