Pete Hegseth Is The Leader Our Military Needs

Pete Hegseth Is The Leader Our Military Needs

Pete Hegseth looks to be headed for a successful confirmation

By Horace Cooper | American Greatness

This week, Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing to be secretary of defense. Some Senate Democrats tried to make the process as grueling as possible, following months of allegations and character assassination since his nomination. They didn’t succeed.

The dawn is breaking. The left took their best shot and missed, and now Pete Hegseth looks to be headed for a successful confirmation. His political opponents weren’t able to build enough opposition to stop him and Senators Hirono and Warren’s feigned moral outrage was no match for his poise and take-charge style. In fact, he’s likely to get some bipartisan support.

Mr. Hegseth, like many of President Trump’s nominees, represents a break from the status quo. His nomination directly challenges the internal culture, decision-making process, and politicization of the Department of Defense that the Biden Administration has propagated for the last four years. This leadership, experience, and commitment to reform make him a threat to the status quo, which is why progressives have tried to do whatever it takes to stop him.

After graduating from Princeton in 2003, Pete Hegseth was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard. After being stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Hegseth would go on to have a storied career, earning two Bronze Stars during his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, obtaining a master’s degree from Harvard, and serving as CEO of Concerned Veterans for America.

But, like many Americans who have dedicated their lives to serving in the armed forces, he was ultimately betrayed by the very system he spent his career defending and consequently left the service for good.

While serving with the D.C. National Guard in 2021, Pete Hegseth was pulled from his unit assigned to protect Joe Biden’s inauguration. A fellow service member had reported Hegseth’s Jerusalem cross tattoo as a “white supremacist” symbol, and he was subsequently flagged as an insider threat. Just the whisper of such a smear was sufficient to tar him.

But this incident revealed more about the decline in our military than it did anything about Pete Hegseth. As detailed in Hegseth’s book, “The War on Warriors,” politics has been injected at every level of our nation’s armed forces, from the Pentagon all the way down to the military academies, ultimately harming troop morale and recruitment numbers.

Under Joe Biden, DEI initiatives, racial quotas, and diversity have become the central focus and the new standard of success in our nation’s military. Merit and lethality, the rules and standard measurement of any fighting force, have been displaced by progressive ideology. So much so that one of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first actions leading the DOD was a branch-wide witch hunt for white supremacists in their ranks.

This waste of resources had repercussions across the board. For soldiers looking to make a career in the military, the traditional values of commitment and excellence have been entirely overshadowed by racial considerations. This shift is exemplified by Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was a vocal proponent of DEI and race-based hiring in the military before being promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Hegseth, like many of us, sees this changing culture as a betrayal both of the typical soldier and the American taxpayer. The prestige, importance, and opportunity that come from service have been entirely lost to a neo-Marxist crusade to remedy racial injustice, ultimately resulting in our war-fighting capacity being diminished and precious budget resources also wasted in the process.

As a result, recruitment numbers have continued to decline under the Biden Administration. In 2023, the Army failed to meet recruitment goals for the second year in a row, leaving it with the smallest active-duty force since 1940. In the Air Force, rather than addressing their failed recruitment efforts, leadership simply axed its standards on body fat composition and, worse, began accepting recruits who tested positive for illegal drugs (previously a permanent disqualification).

At a time when Russia is helping to accelerate North Korea’s nuclear program, China is expanding its sphere of influence across the globe, and tensions in the Middle East are at all-time highs, the strategic pitfalls of a US military at war with itself are deeply concerning.

Our nation’s military needs a leader who can reorient the strategic mission of our armed forces, rebuild military readiness, and restore America’s position as the world’s preeminent fighting force. Pete Hegseth brings the experience needed to lead and a first-hand understanding of the challenges plaguing our armed forces today.

He’s spent his career serving in the military, advocating for its Veterans, and being an open critic of its flaws. Hegseth also understands the realities of serving in combat and the profound impact that poor decision-making by career bureaucrats can have on the lives of everyday soldiers. But most importantly, his confirmation will lead to a recruitment bonanza and restore trust in a corroded institution.

This week’s confirmation hearing was a pivotal moment for our nation’s military. Under Pete Hegseth, who has been entrusted by Trump and the American people to lead our armed forces, we have the opportunity to face America’s challenges on the global stage and prevail. The Senate must confirm Pete Hegseth and give our military the leader it needs.

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Horace Cooper is an author and legal commentator.

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