Most of you who have been reading my work for any time (or who have read my bio) know that I served in the first Gulf War, otherwise known as Operation Desert Storm. That was a classic operation; the overall operational plan was simple, the execution was forceful, and the conclusion was decisive. That was largely due to the Central Command CO at the time, “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf, who was not only a great mind where strategy, tactics, and most of all, logistics are concerned, but he was a combat veteran – a Silver Star recipient, twice – wounded no less than four times in direct combat.
Gen. Schwarzkopf was a soldier’s soldier, and we loved him for it. But today’s military appears to have no General Schwarzkopf – and we barely have a Secretary of Defense.
Now, in a move that is already drawing a lot of attention, President-elect Donald Trump has announced his pick for Secretary of Defense – Fox News host (which doesn’t matter) and Army Airborne soldier, officer, and combat leader (which does.) Mr. Pete Hegseth has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been awarded two Bronze Stars, and earned a Combat Infantry Badge.
It’s a good pick, despite what some critics are saying.
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I do approve of this appointment and hope it goes through. Here’s why.
First: The current Department of Defense is, as people in military circles would put it, a gigantic Charlie Foxtrot. (If you don’t know what I mean by that, ask a veteran.) We have a Secretary of Defense who disappeared into a hospital – without informing his subordinates, and worse, without informing the president. This is a cardinal sin, and unforgivable; the proper response would have been dismissal. This did not happen. He also oversaw the catastrophically bad withdrawal from Afghanistan. Lloyd Austin is, to put it bluntly, incompetent. As someone said not long ago, it’s time to turn the page.
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Second: The military is not a jobs program for the neurotic. “Transgender” troops and troops with weird fetishes do nothing to advance the military’s core mission of finding bad guys and revoking their birth certificates, quickly, efficiently, and decisively. The purpose of a military is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Anything that forwards that mission is good. Anything that impedes it is bad. This is a matter of the survival of the republic in the event of a major war. China, we should note, appears to be gearing up for a major war – and Pete Hegseth understands that.
See Related: The ‘Defense World’ Freakout Over Pete Hegseth Is Epic, and It Tells Us Everything We Need to Know
Third: Despite our current involvement in a variety of conflict zones, we seem to have a surfeit of non-combat leaders in the Department of Defense. The military should not be run by HR types, social-issue experts, DEI consultants, or accountants. The military, starting from the top, should be run by warfighters. When I went to Basic Training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, all those years ago (before I let them remove my good sense and make me an officer), we had it hammered into us that no matter what we went on to do in the Army, we were above and beyond anything else, combat soldiers – riflemen.
Fourth: Pete Hegseth has been there. He has led men in a war zone. He has smelled the smoke, and knows what it is like to be in a foreign place, to be in danger, to face possible death or maiming – and to have his men look at him and say “Sir, what do we do now?” Making a decision and acting under those conditions is like nothing else in any other field of endeavor. The wrong decision may get the officer and all his men killed, and he may have only seconds to make that decision. Pete Hegseth knows what that is like.
Fifth and finally: Major Hegseth harbors no politically correct illusions. He does not support the notion of women in combat, as it degrades combat effectiveness (my wife, also a Desert Storm veteran and also a Bronze Star recipient, happens to agree with him on this). Not only are women hampered by lesser strength, stamina, and resistance to trauma compared to men, but there are psychological implications; to put it bluntly, the men will do stupid things to protect the women. That’s how we are wired.
There are other issues, as well.
I’ve liked a lot of President-elect Trump’s intended nominations. But this may be the one I like most. Now, you know why. It’s time for a new generation, for someone who can whip our military back to what it should be – a lean, mean, fighting machine. Our military must not be used callously or capriciously; our troops should only be sent into the field when there is a compelling U.S. interest to be served. But when they do – the bad guys should be soiling their britches in abject terror from the moment the first American soldier steps off the airplane. I think Pete Hegseth gets that.
And, finally, in the interest of truth in advertising – can we drop the “Defense” nonsense and go back to calling it the War Department? These people are in the business of war. We should go ahead and say so. Enough with the soft-soaping.
