Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned the U.S. military's most senior leadership from their posts all around the globe to an all-hands meeting Tuesday in Virginia, and a retired general said the Pentagon chief's stated reasons were "insulting and condescending."
Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals, admirals and their senior enlisted advisers to attend the meeting at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, where both he and President Donald Trump will address them in a talk intended to boost their spirits and promote the defense secretary's "warrior ethos" — which MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said was richly ironic.
"That must be rich coming from Pete Hegseth to generals and admirals who have fought, risked their lives, served in uniform and war for decades now, some of them for decades, and they're going to get a lecture on warrior spirit," the "Morning Joe" host said.
Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, said those officers and senior enlisted personnel were already deeply familiar with the topic of Hegseth's lecture, which Scarborough referred to as a "rah-rah-speech," because it's one of the four elements on which military culture is based.
"The warrior ethos is just one part of the professional triad that the military has," Hertling said. "You have the oath to the Constitution, the service's values. I can still name the Army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, integrity, honor and personal courage. All services have that, and then the warrior ethos is just a performative method of actualizing that. Well, it started out that way and then it became well, no, there was an announcement that someone in the Pentagon said this was all about getting the horses into the stable and whipping them into shape. That's insulting and condescending."
Hertling believes the president got involved after his defense secretary faced immediate blowback for calling the highly unusual meeting.
"It appears the president is going to show up and talk to them, as well, and that's probably because this event has become such a lightning rod over its staggering costs, the security risk of bringing so many people in to one place and the disruption of ongoing operations," Hertling said.
"So the president will talk. We have seen the president talk at several military functions. First, there was the Fort Bragg function, which is embarrassing to the Army, the way those soldiers acted. I then attended personally the West Point graduation, and the cadets were told, as they were sitting on the parade field getting ready to get their diplomas, that they better keep a poker face and remember their professional activities."
"I don't know what he's going to say to this audience, but they have to be adaptable," the retired general added. "Again, put on a stoic face, have a poker face, not show any emotion. But I'm sure depending on what the president says, what the secretary of defense has said, it may cause certainly some emotional reaction from the crowd. But they've got to remain professional because that's what the military is. They are the force for the country, and there's an attempt to not only use them in these, in these actions like we were talking about earlier, but also the potential whipping them into shape in this meeting that they're having in Quantico tomorrow."
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