Naveed Shah, a veteran and activist who served as an enlisted public affairs specialist – an army journalist – uncharacteristically found himself searching for words to describe the address of the newly styled secretary of war to flag officers on Tuesday.
“A lot of the words that are coming to me aren’t fit to print,” said Shah, policy director for Common Defense, a veterans advocacy organization. “The people in that room who have served for 20, 30-plus years in uniform do not need Pete Hegseth to tell them about warrior ethos.”
Hegseth’s hour-long Ted talk-style address touching on physical fitness, the doctrine of lethality and the perils of DEI certainly drew more attention than a policy memo might have, and perhaps more than Donald Trump’s rambling, politically charged hour-long speech that followed.
But the attention came at the cost of respect, said Dana Pittard, a retired army general who commanded soldiers in Iraq and co-author of Hunting the Caliphate.
“I thought it was insulting,” Pittard said of the address, rejecting Hegseth’s assertion that senior officers of color – like himself – had benefitted from a non-existent quota system for promotions.
Online chatter in military groups ahead of the unprecedented, secrecy-shrouded meeting of 800 generals and admirals called to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia had revolved around a demand for some loyalty oath to the administration, or public firings or a declaration of war. Some described it as karmic revenge for decades of mandatory hour-long safety briefings held by unit commanders before dismissing troops for the weekend. Many also wondered if the expensive challenge to security could have been an email.
“Certainly, addressing the troops could be useful or beneficial, but to call 800-plus generals and senior enlisted advisers from around the world into this room just before a government shutdown? It’s not just bad optics or strategy,” Shah said. “A bad cold could have threatened our entire chain of command.”
Pittard said it was well within the authority of a defense secretary to call a meeting of generals, but that the display was “egotistical” and a waste of resources. And Trump’s subsequent comments created “a dangerous, slippery slope … to make it so partisan”, he said.
“He talked about the previous commander in chief, president Biden, and then talked about the ‘enemy within’. That is a dangerous slippery slope to be referring to that to the leaders of the US military. Very dangerous.”
Hegseth’s discussion of physical fitness standards for women in combat roles met a more nuanced response, particularly from women who have served. Hegseth said that women in combat roles would have to meet the same fitness standards as men, including tasks like carrying a body and marching with heavy gear. “If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is,” Hegseth said.
“I’m a fairness advocate and the avenue of approach that I’m able to see is that they’re creating a pathway of fairness,” said Sally Roberts, an Afghanistan war veteran and Team USA world medalist in women’s wrestling who founded Wrestle Like A Girl, which advocates for women’s wrestling opportunities in school and elsewhere.
Roberts said she had not been allowed to serve in some selective units, despite her physical abilities. “I was held back because I didn’t fit the right idea of who they wanted for those particular units or groups, and I feel like this has the opportunity to actually level the playing field for those high performing, high achieving individuals that want to succeed, but have barriers to entry.”
Amy McGrath, a retired navy fighter pilot and former Senate candidate, described Hegseth’s comments about women as disparaging.
“He claimed the military needs to ‘return to the male standard’ in combat jobs (of 1990!), but here’s the truth: there has never been a separate male and female standard” she wrote on Instagram. “When women entered combat roles, one standard was set, and we’ve been meeting it ever since. You can either do the job or you can’t. Period.”
Tamara Stevens, a former navy cryptological technician, said she found Hegseth’s discussion of “lethality” more alarming than anything else, given the context that Trump provided later with comments about using deployments to American cities as a training ground.
“Basically, he’s saying that we’re no better than Hamas because people are joining because they want to break things and they want to kill people,” she said. “I mean, for anyone that’s been in the military, he’s not qualified to be secretary of defense. He’s barely qualified to be a host on Fox News.
“But to say these things in front of the preeminent generals and admirals leading our military? Has he no honor, to say that we don’t belong in polite society? Maybe he doesn’t.”