Once again, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth finds himself in the crosshairs of the Beltway media machine — this time courtesy of a hit piece in the Washington Times that leans on anonymous whispers instead of hard facts. The article claims, without an ounce of substantiation, that Hegseth has somehow “lost the trust and respect” of senior military leaders. The so-called proof? A handful of unnamed “current and former officials” whining that his outspoken defense of the rank-and-file and his shake-up of Pentagon bureaucracy amount to “grandstanding.”
Strip away the anonymous quotes and the editorial spin, and the story tells a very different tale — one of a Secretary willing to rattle cages, demand accountability, and return the Pentagon’s focus to winning wars instead of winning woke points.
At the heart of the smear is a familiar insult from the Pentagon’s cocktail-circuit crowd: that Pete Hegseth ‘thinks like an infantry major.’ Translation — he’s too grounded in reality and too focused on the mission for their taste. These are the same bureaucrats who prefer endless strategy papers to battlefield results. They claim he’s not ‘thinking big picture,’ but when pressed on what that ‘real stuff’ actually is, it’s radio silence.
Here’s what the Times reporte regarding the Sept. 30 ‘All Hands’ meeting he held near Washington that required all flag officers (generals and admirals) and their senior enlisted aides (usually sergeants-major or master chiefs) to attend:
- “It was a massive waste of time. … If he ever had us, he lost us,” one current Army general told The Washington Times.
- It was “embarrassing” and theatrical to a degree that “is below our institution.”
- “The theater of it all is below our institution,” the officer said. “Several of these changes are being made already by the services. And they could be made by any secretary. … They don’t have to be announced on stage in public in this grandstanding kind of way.”
Hegseth is ‘focused on all the wrong things’:
- “Not about f——— haircuts,” the current Army general told The Times, referring to Mr. Hegseth’s deep focus on grooming standards, a view expressed by numerous sources.
- Another source described it as “the mentality of a midgrade officer” who is deeply focused on fitness, grooming standards, and other issues that typically don’t reach the desk of the defense secretary.
- “Hegseth’s focus on fitness, weight and appearance reflects his experiences as a junior officer. These are perennial challenges at the small unit level; anyone who has commanded a small unit in the military understands where he’s coming from,” [Retired Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies] wrote. “However, if his military experience had been at higher levels, he would have discussed strategy, threats and warfighting at the operational level. As it was, these topics were nearly absent from his remarks.”
Oh, he’s harming the Pentagon (irreparably, of course):
- “Mainly what I see from him are not serious things,” a current senior officer said. “It’s, ’Why did this service member tweet this?’ Or internal politics and drama. That’s mostly what I see.”
- High-level sources said that they believe Mr. Hegseth is simultaneously doing deep damage to the military, both from a public relations standpoint and structurally behind the scenes, that may not be fully apparent until months or even years from now. They say Mr. Hegseth’s insistence that the Pentagon will embrace a color- and gender-blind meritocracy is at odds with reality inside the Defense Department, which President Trump has given the secondary title “War Department.”
- “Across the services, we are bleeding talent, talented generals and flag officers, for what appears to be the opposite of a meritocracy,” another current senior officer said. “There are people being held back from promotions, or being fired, or removed for sometimes unknown reasons, often for favoritism, or just simple relationships.”
Still, that said…
- Some analysts are quick to point out that military recruiting has surged since Mr. Hegseth took his post earlier this year. Supporters cite that as clear evidence that Mr. Hegseth’s approach is resonating with at least a subsection of young Americans and, in the process, is strengthening the armed forces. Separately, some defense industry sources stress that the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth’s leadership is driving the development and fielding of small tactical drones in huge numbers, among other successes.
- The officer stressed that there is strong support for some of the policy changes Mr. Hegseth laid out at Quantico, including tougher fitness standards, reforms to the Pentagon inspector general’s office and changes to how complaints against officers are filed and investigated, with an understanding in the ranks that sometimes false or trumped-up accusations of racism, for example, have been used to unfairly damage careers.
Alright. When you peel away the noise, the “criticism” of Hegseth amounts to little more than personality complaints from people who don’t like his tone or his refusal to play their political games. The supposed “damage” they cite — an exodus of flag officers and senior bureaucrats — is actually the point. These are the same entrenched insiders who’ve spent years turning the Pentagon into a bloated, self-congratulatory bureaucracy. Hegseth told them to shape up or ship out, and now they’re crying to the press because he meant it.
Let’s be honest: calling the removal of careerist deadweight a “loss of talent” is laughable. Those roles will be filled by men and women who actually want to defend the country, not manage its decline. What really infuriates the establishment is Hegseth’s insistence on returning to a color- and gender-blind meritocracy — a concept that used to define the U.S. military before it got infected by the ideological rot of Marxist identity politics.
Critics love to sneer at Hegseth’s focus on appearance and fitness, but that just exposes how far too many of today’s senior officers have drifted from what actually makes a fighting force work: discipline, esprit de corps, and technical competence. These are not “cosmetic” issues — they’re indicators of whether a unit’s culture is healthy or rotting from within. You can tell everything about a command by the small things. If the regulation says the laces go left-over-right and half the formation can’t get that right, you don’t have a boot problem — you have a leadership problem.
When height, weight, and grooming standards slide, so does everything else. Maintenance, logistics, personnel readiness — all of it breaks down. A military that stops caring about details stops caring about winning. As General George S. Patton Jr. famously said, “There is only one sort of discipline — perfect discipline. Men cannot have good battle discipline and poor administrative discipline.” He also reminded us, “You cannot be disciplined in great things and undisciplined in small things.” That truth hasn’t changed one bit.
And here’s the reality the media won’t admit: under Hegseth, recruiting is up, commanders have more authority, and serious defense analysts say he’s moving fast in the right direction. Standards are back. Accountability is back. The only people complaining are those whose feelings got bruised because they mistook comfort for competence.
The U.S. military isn’t supposed to be a social experiment or a corporate retreat. It runs on loyalty and mission focus — not popularity contests. You don’t have to like your commanding officer, but you damn well have to be loyal to the mission, the flag, and the men beside you.
What we’re watching unfold is nothing short of mutiny from a clique of pampered generals and admirals who can’t handle the fact that the game has changed from the way in which their careers progressed.
It’s a shameful, disloyal response from people who once swore to uphold the chain of command and serve the nation — not their own egos.
