A lot of generals went 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 up, and he isn’t holding back.
The Washington Post writes that on September 30, hundreds of generals and admirals from U.S. military facilities all around the world were called to an emergency meeting with no clear purpose.
A bizarre order forced high-ranking officials from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to go to a meeting that many felt may imply substantial cuts or perhaps layoffs.
People were not calmed down by the fact that Donald Trump will also speak.
His comments regarding “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 what he wanted the military to be like in the future.
He garnered a lot of attention for his calls to stop what he called “woke” things in the military, such having women in the military and having beards.
Hegseth said, “I don’t want my son to serve with troops who aren’t in good 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 plans to make the military more diverse and spoke about “overweight generals and admirals” at the Pentagon.
As expected, there was a lot of bad coverage about both the speech and the meeting.
A defense official told Politico, asking to remain anonymous for fear of getting in trouble, “It was more like a press conference than briefing the generals.”
“It could have been an email.”
Huge threat 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 plan to make the military look more aggressive by making grooming standards stricter and getting rid of diversity programs.
“It’s a waste of time for a lot of people who should be doing something else,” a former high-ranking defense official told Politico.
“It’s also a dumb strategic risk to put so many leaders in the operational chain of command in the same place and time to send a message that doesn’t matter.”
As usual, Donald Trump talked about a lot of subjects in his remarks at the gathering, including his now-famous comment about “two N words.” The second one is nuclear, just so you know.
A former lieutenant in the U.S. Army speaks up.
Many of the people who criticized didn’t disclose their names, but one voice stood out.
Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, didn’t hold back.
He added that certain leaders might have violated the directives given and that Hegseth’s remark was a violation of an unwritten code of military discipline.
Hertling is not your typical soldier. 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 “rattled.” He also said that Hegseth told the leaders to break the oath of duty they had sworn.
“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 make things better.” We can look at the things that will assist certain soldiers get back in shape, but not all of them, and perhaps not even most of them. See how our ranks are set up.
“But there were also soldiers and people from all branches of the military in that crowd who said, ‘Hold on 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.
He continued, “And I promise you that the people in that audience will not follow illegal orders.”
Hertling, who had a long and successful career in the military, then moved on to talk about the greater issue.
“But at the same time, they were all embarrassed, not just for themselves, but also for their services that had to sit in that audience and listen to this kind of stuff.
“That’s the worst thing about all of this.”
“There’s a saying in the military 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 see it.” And it was a way to keep the soldiers away from the people they were supposed to protect.
