Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke to hundreds of our nation’s military leaders assembled at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Tuesday morning to lay out a new vision for the U.S. Department of War.
The ‘Woke’ Department of Defense
Hegseth contrasted two competing visions for our military, comparing the former “woke” Department of Defense with the new War Department.
“This speech is about fixing decades of decay,” the secretary asserted. “Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading, and we lost our way.”
By way of example, under the Biden administration, the U.S. Navy trained its sailors to create a “safe space” by using “proper gender pronouns” in an instructional video where Naval Undersea Warfare Center engineer Jony Rozon taught Navy sailors to use someone’s “right pronouns” as a “signal of acceptance and respect.”
The video emphasized “the importance of using correct pronouns as well as polite etiquette when you may not be sure of someone’s pronouns.”
You can watch the video below:
The U.S. Army embraced woke ideology as well, creating and promoting a recruiting advertisement titled, “The Calling,” featuring a soldier who was raised by a lesbian couple. You can watch the ad below:
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, when he wasn’t missing-in-action due to a hospital stay, had an obsession with masks:
In 2015, the Obama administration opened up combat roles to women, leading to lower physical standards for women.
The Obama administration also allowed homosexual-identified individuals to begin serving openly in the military. Subsequently, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened the military to transgender-identified individuals too (which the Trump administration has since reversed.).
Secretary Hegseth said on Tuesday, “We are done with that ****.”
He continued,
This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. To rip out the politics.
No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris.
The secretary faulted years of ideologically and politically driven initiatives at the (now renamed) Defense Department for taking the department off mission.
“As foolish and reckless as the ‘woke department’ was, those officers were following elected, political leadership,” Hegseth said, adding,
They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing. Or that males who think they’re females [is] totally normal.
They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refused an emergency vaccine.
They followed civilian policy set by foolish and reckless political leaders.
“We became the ‘woke’ department,” the secretary lamented. “But not anymore.”
The Department of War
Secretary Hegseth proposed steps to restore the military’s “warrior ethos” by ending the Pentagon’s Left-wing initiatives, raising the military’s fitness standards and enforcing grooming regulations for males.
Hegseth proposed a litmus test for needed changes at the Pentagon: “Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding?”
He announced several new directives the Pentagon will begin implementing:
- Active component service members from all branches now must execute two annual fitness tests.
- Active-duty service members must perform physical fitness training daily.
- Service members in combat-related occupations must execute their fitness test at a gender-neutral male standard with a score of 70% or higher.
- Men can no longer sport beards.
- Promotions across the joint force will be based solely on merit.
- Service members won’t be required to receive as much high-level mandatory training.
Addressing the directive requiring service members in combat-related occupations to meet a male-based standard, the secretary said, “We’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.”
The secretary also took some of the military’s senior leadership to task: “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon … it’s a bad look.”
“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” the secretary said. “If the secretary of war can do regular, hard [physical training], so can every member of our joint force.”
Also of note, the secretary shared a prayer he prays regularly:
After years of social engineering by the Obama and Biden administrations, the Pentagon was in sore need of a course correction, a clear and defined mission, and an ideological purge.
On Tuesday, Secretary Hegseth delivered that in spades.
Related articles and resources:
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Fires Director of ‘Transgender Healthcare’
Three Cheers for Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon Christian Prayer Service
Supreme Court Lets Trump’s ‘Transgender Military Ban’ Take Effect
SecDef Hegseth: Military Reinstating 8,700 Wrongly Discharged Servicemembers
Pentagon Ends Paid Travel Expenses and Time Off for Abortions
Trump Ends ‘Transgenderism’ and DEI in the Military, Reinstates Wrongly Discharged Troops
Photo from Getty Images.
