Hundreds of generals flocked to Virginia to hear President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speak, but not everyone was thrilled about it.
Mark Hertling, a retired lieutenant general, is now speaking out, and he’s not holding back.
The Washington Post writes that on September 30, hundreds of U.S. military generals and admirals from bases all over the world were called to an emergency meeting with no clear purpose.
The bizarre order forced high-ranking officials from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to go to a meeting that many felt may lead to major cuts or perhaps layoffs.
People were not calmed down by the fact that Donald Trump will also speak.
His remarks on “generals and admirals who are too fat” got a lot of attention.
When the meeting finally began at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke about his vision for the future of the military.
He garnered a lot of attention for his calls to stop what he called “woke” things in the military, which encompassed everything from women in the military to beards.
Hegseth said, “I don’t want my son to serve with troops who are out of shape or in combat units with women who can’t meet the same physical standards as men.”
The secretary also made fun of Biden’s efforts to make the military more diverse and spoke about “overweight generals and admirals” at the Pentagon.
As expected, the meeting and the speech both generated a lot of unfavorable press.
A defense official told Politico, “It was more like a press conference than briefing the generals,” but they didn’t want to provide their name because they were afraid of getting in trouble.
“Could have been an email.”
Big risk to safety
Critics also warned that putting almost all of America’s top officers in the same room was a big security risk. A lot of people also didn’t appreciate Hegseth’s idea to make the military look more aggressive by making grooming rules stricter and getting rid of diversity programs.
A former high-ranking defense official told Politico, “It’s a waste of time for a lot of people who should be doing something else.”
“It’s also a stupid strategic risk to put so many leaders in the same public place and time to send a message that doesn’t matter.”
Donald Trump, as usual, talked about a lot of subjects in his remarks at the conference. One of them was the now-famous line about “two N words.” (Just so you know, the second one is nuclear.)
A former lieutenant in the U.S. Army speaks out.
A majority of the criticism came from those who didn’t provide their identities, but one voice stood out.
Mark Hertling, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, didn’t hold back.
He added that some leaders might not have followed the directions given in Hegseth’s speech, which he called a violation of an unwritten code of military discipline.
Hertling is not like other people in the military. From March 2011 to November 2012, he was the Commanding General of the Seventh Army and the United States Army Europe.
Hertling told MSNBC that what happened in the room made Trump look “rattled.” He further said that Hegseth told the leaders to break their oath of service.
“But really, the people who left the room yesterday will start talking about and thinking about how they can carry out some of the legal orders they got,” Hertling said.
“Okay, great, we can raise the bar.” We can look at the kinds of things that will help certain soldiers, but not all of them, and probably not even most of them, get back in shape. Check out how our ranks look.
“But there were also soldiers and people from all branches of the military in that crowd who said, ‘Wait a minute.'”
“While they were writing down the same kind of checklist I was, they were saying things like, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t do that,’ or ‘We shouldn’t do that,’ or ‘This is a real violation of what we are as professionals,’ or ‘Hey, I have women in my ranks who are doing a great job.'”
“That’s the worst part of all this.”
“Why should I put them all together like the secretary did?” If someone asks me to go out on the street and do something illegal, I will absolutely argue with myself over what to say.
“And I promise you that the people in that audience will not follow illegal orders,” he stated.
Hertling, who had a long and successful career in the military, then talked about the greater issue.
“But at the same time, they were all embarrassed, not just for themselves, but also for the people who had to sit in the audience and listen to this kind of thing.
“That’s the worst part of all this.”
“You know, in the military, there’s a proverb that goes, “You praise in public and punish in private.” This is a great rule for leaders.
“This was a public punishment with cameras, so everyone in the country could witness it. And it was an attempt to keep the soldiers away from the civilians they are supposed to protect.