Pete Hegseth just ended the era of woke brass in the military



In a highly anticipated in-person speech to nearly every general and admiral in the U.S. military, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid down his marker: the warrior ethos must once again define America’s armed forces. A great nation needs a great military. That is his aim.

The audience mattered. Senior officers have lived for decades under politicized leadership that drained readiness and morale. Many of them became complicit in the decay. Hegseth addressed that reality head-on.

Restoring standards

No issue exposes the compromise of standards more clearly than the push to force women into combat roles. In 2015, President Barack Obama ended the combat-exclusion policy that had kept certain military professions male-exclusive. Alongside that change came the promise of a “neutral” fitness test that would evaluate service members without sex-based bias.

Hegseth did not dismiss the service of women or minorities. He rejected the falsehood that readiness and lethality can coexist with preferential treatment.

Reality quickly destroyed the illusion. The Army never implemented a sex-neutral test. Women could apply for the same jobs as men but received higher fitness scores for weaker performances. In 2021, under political pressure, Army generals dropped the “leg tuck” exercise — the only event that measured upper-body pulling strength — because women performed comparatively worse. Senior officers defended these changes as if they were sacred doctrine.

Even special operations forces were not spared. Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, then commander of Army Special Operations Command, produced the “Women in ARSOF” report. He had solicited candid feedback from Green Berets, Rangers, and operators. The report dismissed their concerns as bigotry, portraying combat veterans as sexists in need of re-education.

The 83-page document dwelled on alleged discrimination in schools like Jumpmaster and agonized over access to contraception. It devoted not a single paragraph to whether integrating women made America’s most lethal units more lethal. It didn’t — so the report pretended not to notice.

Research ignored, ideology embraced

Serious studies on women in combat confirm what soldiers already know: Sex-integrated units fight with less effectiveness than male-only ones.

Commanders in 2015 knew this, yet they embraced an ideology that put politics above victory. They proved willing to compromise the standards that safeguard success on the battlefield.

Hegseth’s speech on Tuesday declared that era over and done. The administration will close the door on identity politics in uniform and restore a culture rooted in the warrior ethos, not fashionable slogans.

RELATED: Hegseth declares war on woke military policies: 'We are done with that s**t'

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Consequences of compromise

The consequences are not abstract. Every diluted standard, every political accommodation, every double standard based on sex or race weakens the institution charged with defending the nation. A military that bends to ideology loses sight of its sole purpose: to fight and win wars.

Hegseth did not dismiss the service of women or minorities. He rejected the falsehood that readiness and lethality can coexist with preferential treatment. He rejected the belief that temporary political fashions should rewrite timeless military traditions. And he reminded the brass that generals and admirals who pushed progressive experiments cannot be trusted to restore strength.

The way forward requires courage. Leaders must speak truth over ambition, defend standards without apology, and recommit to preparing soldiers for combat. The pride and strength of the American military depend on it.

Vance unloads on safety-hating protesters in DC, punches through liberal media rhetoric



Vice President JD Vance spoke on Wednesday with National Guard soldiers stationed at D.C.'s Union Station, underscoring his gratitude and continued support for their efforts to tackle crime in the national capital.

While the troops and members of the federalized Metropolitan Police Department appeared happy to see Vance — who was accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — liberal protesters threw fits at the sight of the vice president, whining about his presence as well as about the efforts by the Trump administration to make D.C. safer.

Vance smiled as he passed a bespectacled radical in the station screaming, "F**king Nazi," an unhinged woman yelling, "Health care, housing, and climate justice! ... Military out of our streets," and a man in a cap shouting, "Get the f**k out of my city!"

Supporters reportedly countered with, "USA! USA! USA!"

— (@)

When met with booing outside the Shake Shack at Union Station, Vance directed Hegseth's attention to the radical responsible and said, "This is the guy who thinks people don't deserve law and order in their own community."

'This should be a monument to American greatness.'

The defense secretary laughed, pointed, and then resumed his tour of the relatively safer station.

— (@)

Vance noted in his remarks to the National Guard soldiers that Union Station, like much of the district, has long endured an unacceptable level of crime.

RELATED: Trump to DC: Crime is a choice

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

"You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families, and they've done it for far too long," the vice president said.

It's not just addicts, hobos, and the insane who have made Union Station a dangerous place in recent months.

In February, six girls, ages 11 to 14, were reportedly arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman who was trying to leave the station. Police indicated that one of the girls filmed the savage attack. That same month, a man was gunned down inside the station's parking garage.

"This should be a monument to American greatness," Vance continued. "This should not be a place where parents of small children are afraid to bring them ... because we have empowered criminals over the people who actually need public safety in this city. So I think Union Station is a great example of what's possible when you have the political willpower to bring law and order and common decency back to the public spaces of the United States."

— (@)

After Vance stressed the importance of following through "until we make America and D.C. in particular a safe place again," a reporter asked him, "What evidence do you have or does the DOJ have — are you going to be releasing it?"

'Let's free DC from lawlessness.'

"Are you going to be releasing evidence of this?" the reporter continued.

RELATED: Exclusive video: Black DC residents tell Blaze News the reasons they support Trump's DC crime strategy

Photo by Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images

"Of what?" Vance responded. "That D.C. has a terrible crime problem? You just gotta look around. Obviously D.C. has a terrible crime problem, and the Department of Justice statistics back it up, the FBI statistics back it up. Just talk to a resident of this city — this beautiful, great American city."

Adopting the "free D.C." slogan yelled by the leftist protesters outside, Vance said, "Let's free D.C. from lawlessness. Let's free Washington, D.C., from one of the highest murder rates in the entire world. Let's free Washington, D.C., so that young families can walk around and feel safe and secure."

Vance, once again referencing the noisy rabble outside, noted that it was "kind of bizarre that we have a bunch of old, primarily white, people who are out there protesting the policies that keep people safe when they've never felt danger in their entire lives."

Blaze News has reached out to Vance's office for further comment.

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Pete Hegseth EXPOSES mainstream media to their faces



Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has had enough of the mainstream media’s lies, and he made that clear in a recent press conference when he called them out for focusing on superficial social justice narratives regarding Operation Midnight Hammer.

“Let’s acknowledge the female pilots that also participated in this mission. The early messages that you sent out only congratulated the boys,” a reporter said to Hegseth at the press conference.

“So when I say something like, ‘Our boys and bombers,’ see, this is the kind of thing the press does, right? Of course, the chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. That’s fantastic. She’s fantastic. She’s a hero,” Hegseth responded.

“I hope the men and women of our country sign up to do such brave and audacious things,” he continued, noting that “our boys and bombers” is a common phrase.


“I’ll keep saying things like that, whether they’re men or women. Very proud of that female pilot, just like I’m very proud of those male pilots. And I don’t care if it’s a male or a female in that cockpit. And the American people don’t care. But it’s the obsession with race and gender in this department that’s changed priorities. We don’t do that anymore. We don’t play your little games,” he added.

“It’s just so refreshing,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments. “You can have your own opinion on whether or not we should have gone in there and bombed these nuclear sites. You can have that conversation.”

“I appreciate all types of views, but what I’m not willing to entertain is, ‘But why didn’t you give the female pilot credit? Because you said "boys and bombers," and that could be offensive to the female pilot,’” she continues.

“Could you let the female pilot speak for herself? If she has a problem, she’s more than welcome to bring it up, but odds are she already knows that it’s a figure of speech, and she’s not at all offended because she’s not a little b***h,” she adds.

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