On Sept. 30, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of general and flag officers at Quantico to deliver a message so important that it definitely needed to be delivered face-to-face, versus via a secure video chat as many had suggested.
In his fiery address, Hegseth announced what will be done to restore the U.S. military’s warrior ethos. His message was about fulfilling the sacred responsibility of the President, Congress, and all military leaders to ensure that soldiers, Marines, and airmen sent into harm’s way fight alongside the most physically capable and best-trained warriors. It was about forming cohesive, lethal teams whose capabilities maximize the chances of completing the mission and returning safely.
To this end, Hegseth directed commanders to evaluate every decision—promotions, training standards, and physical standards, everything—through a critical lens: If it were my son or daughter being sent into harm’s way, what would best ensure they can successfully complete their mission while maximizing their chances to return safely?
Hegseth summarized this mindset in the new “War Department golden rule”: “Do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops or alongside people who can’t meet basic standards, or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and warfighting? The answer is not just ‘No;’ it’s ‘Hell no.’”
Diluted standards are just suggestions “that get our sons and daughters killed,” stated Hegseth. Diluting standards sends the message that we hold identity politics to be more precious than the lives of our soldiers.
While Hegseth did organize his speech around 10 key directives, all 10 directives tie back to the golden rule. Hegseth spoke at length about empowering frontline soldiers and commanders to enforce discipline, toughness, and lethality.
In discussing empowering military leaders, Hegseth lamented that over the decades the warrior culture has been eroded by a risk averse, “zero defect” culture of being afraid to make mistakes, a culture that had been created by zero tolerance to the kind of offhand comments and minor mistakes that those who are aggressive and willing to take calculated risks are bound to make.
In other words, those who make the best military commanders have been losing out to risk averse types capable of navigating military bureaucracy without offending people. In this context, Hegseth pointed out that racism has been illegal in the military since 1948, and that racism will not be tolerated.
Hegseth didn’t mince words about the urgency of completely rooting out DEI and wokeness. Ensuring that merit and capability are the criteria for advancement—not intersectional-based identity—is necessary for increasing the effectiveness and survivability of our front troops, he said.
“You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard charging, no nonsense constitutional leader that you joined the military to be,” he said, freeing soldiers and commanders to focus on combat skills and unit cohesion. The golden rule ensures a commander’s child is trained for survival, not ideology, aligning with the sacred duty to prepare lethal teams for battle.
Regarding women in combat, Hegseth emphasized that standards having to do with speed, strength, endurance, and durability will be based on a male capability, to ensure that an injured soldier can be carried to safety and that male troops won’t be slowed down by females or physically weak males who can’t keep up.
