Does anyone really believe that generals in the military, a rank that is so far removed from privates in the military, are the best choice for leading the Department of Defense that oversees our armed forces? Considering what’s been done to our military in recent years I’m not convinced that generals or other senior civilian officials really have a clue what’s best for our military members. Or for that matter what is the best way to protect America.
The days of a General Chesty Puller, renowned in the United States Marine Corps for sharing the hardships and the danger of the troops serving under him are long gone. As an old Vietnam Era soldier myself, I’m beginning to think that just maybe it’s time to select someone as Secretary of Defense who hasn’t served in the ivory towers of government or at high levels in the Pentagon. Picking someone who is closer to the troops he will ultimately command might just be a better option.
Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth would seem to me to be the perfect choice. Kudos to President-elect Trump for recognizing that the Defense Department needs a fresh set of eyes. Eyes that can see the problems within our military from the bottom up, not looking from the top down.
Pete wasn’t a general, nor did he hold some other high level civilian job in government. Pete was a small unit commander, standing side by side with his soldiers in the mud and the blood. Having his soldiers ‘six’ as they engaged with the enemy. Or actually leading the attack instead of sitting back at some rear area headquarters out of the danger, and more often than not out of the picture when it comes to making critical decisions in the middle of a fire fight.
It was small unit commanders like Pete Hegseth who made the life and death decisions that affected soldiers that he knew personally, that he had a real connection to. Unlike some general who viewed WIAs and KIAs as just numbers on a tally sheet that he could wave in front of the president to prove that we were winning the war.
But now Pete Hegseth is fighting another enemy. The enemy is called innuendo, whispers, distortions and misrepresentations, and even outright lies and fabrications. Hegseth is experiencing the same despicable attempt at character assassination that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh went through in his nomination process back during President Trump’s first term in office.
At a time when our military needs a major course correction that calls for a true leader who can relate to those small units who do most of the fighting, and most of the dying on behalf of this country, there is a concerted effort underway in Washington to stop Pete Hegseth from being confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense.
Opposition to his nomination by the Democrat Party has always been a given. They will oppose anyone Trump nominates to any position. Plus they are much too invested in the status quo regarding our military. Certainly they are not concerned about the welfare of the common soldier. The military is nothing more than their laboratory for whatever flavor of the month social experimentation they want to do, or to use as a phony photo op when they want to try to prove how much they really do care.
Sadly there are spineless RINO Republicans who also are committed to the status quo. They too are less interested in bringing positive change to our military than they are in pontificating and casting stones from the glass houses they occupy.
When elected officials in both the House and the Senate release the names they have been hiding for years now, of all the politicians who used taxpayer money to pay out sexual harassment settlements to claimants then maybe they’ll have some credibility. But there’s an old saying in government, “CYA” (Cover your ‘backside’), which is mostly what politicians in Washington are concerned with.
Pete Hegseth is indeed the man for the job. Our armed forces need someone who can relate to them, and who can fix our military that has been so damaged from over 20 years of war deployments. Not to mention the eight years of Obama social experimentation and indoctrination, along with another four years of the same during the Biden administration.
It’s time for Republicans to close ranks behind SECDEF nominee Pete Hegseth and let him get to work. America needs him desperately right now, just as America needs President Trump.