Some really big news in the American military community broke this week, as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is convening an unprecedented meeting of his senior generals and admirals in Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday, September 30th.
As the proprietor of a somewhat prolific X account that largely focuses on military matters, many people have been asking me what I think this meeting is all about, as the meeting is currently shrouded in mystery.
So what do I think?
First of all, I have absolutely zero inside knowledge of this meeting, so I can only guess what it is about. However, I do have extensive knowledge on the internal resistance that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have faced in enacting their transformational military agenda, so I think I am capable of making a pretty good guess as to what is going to happen next Tuesday.
My guess is below, and if it ends up being wrong, please just consider it as enjoyable Pete Hegseth fan fiction.
I am guessing that Hegseth will gather all of those senior flag officers in a large conference hall at the Marine Corps base on Quantico with stale coffee and day-old Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the back of the room. (Maybe he’ll have a bowl full of oranges available too, Godfather style.) The generals and admirals will be arrayed in rows of uncomfortable chairs, whispering with each other, trying to figure out why they are there. A senior NCO will walk in, call the room to attention, and then the Secretary of War will enter and stand behind a podium with the new Department of War crest, and he will say the following:
“Take your seats, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to personally convey to you a message of the utmost importance for the national defense of the United States of America.
On November 5, 2024, the American people elected Donald Trump as their president. This election was won via the time-honored electoral traditions of the Constitution of the United States of America. The American people elected their president to accomplish a very specific and well-understood agenda of reform across our federal government. That agenda—one that the American electorate chose via their constitutional powers as voting citizens—included radical reform to what was then known as the Department of Defense.
President Trump was elected with the mandate to reform our warfighting capabilities. He appointed me to fulfill that mandate. The constitutional mandate of the American people is to restore the Department of War to the world’s premier military force. Our mandate is to strip out all social experimentation from the department, including racist, bigoted policies such as DEI. (Does DEI prepare you to face China?) Our mandate is to eliminate fiefdoms that do not contribute to warfighting. Our mandate is to reform the acquisition process radically so as to ensure our troops are equipped with state-of-the-art, lethal weaponry that is effective, maintainable, and available for combat. Our mandate is to make our troops once again stand tall like proud warfighters. Our mandate is to re-establish pride in rusty ships and inoperative vehicles and aircraft. Our mandate is to focus solely on closing with and destroying our nation’s enemies. Our mandate is to ignore politics and focus on lethality.
It’s that last bit of the mandate I am here to talk to you about.
Your oath is to the Constitution. I just explained to you how our collective mandates are constitutional and essential to satisfy the will of the American people.
Some of you have decided to violate that oath. You see yourselves as “politicians,” somehow on an equal footing—or even a superior footing—to the elected leaders of this nation.
If that is you, you are wrong. Deeply wrong. If you “resist” the mandate of the American people, you violate your oath. If you work back-channel deals with the press or Congress or foreign nations to do anything other than what I have tasked you to do, you violate your oaths.
Privates understand the chain of command. Some of you do not. If that is you—if you see yourself as somehow wiser or superior to your constitutionally elected leaders and their lawful orders—you need to start thinking like privates.
I know most of you intuitively understand and agree with what I am saying. I also know some of you do not.
I therefore give all of you the following lawful order: when you receive a lawful order from your higher headquarters, and if you disagree with that order, you WILL voice your disagreement. That is expected. However, if your disagreement is noted and disregarded, you WILL adopt that order as your own and execute it as vigorously as you would an order you originally issued yourself.
Further, you will ensure that all of your subordinates adopt the exact same philosophy.
Finally, you will not discuss such orders with the media unless directed to do so.
If you cannot do all of this, I will be in Room 101 down the hall. Form an orderly line outside in the hallway, and I will invite you in one by one to tender your resignation.
And if none of that works for you, I call your attention to Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, “Failure to obey order or regulation.”
AM I CLEAR???
[RESPONSE: “YES SIR,” but with a handful who respond with only a mutter.]
That is all.”
The senior NCO will again call the room to attention as the Secretary of War departs the room. After he leaves, the Battle Hymn of the Republic will be played on a loudspeaker in the room at the “11” volume level as the generals and admirals file out to their new futures.
Perhaps the details of my guess are a bit embellished. Perhaps Hegseth will have much more to say on many other subjects. Perhaps it will be less. But I would bet my bottom dollar that a big part of this meeting will serve to read the riot act to a cadre of egomaniacal senior military leaders who have lost sight of why they exist and have never been held to account for their numerous failures of recent years—a true “Come to Pete” meeting (or as we sometimes said in the Army, “wall-to-wall counseling”).
Go get ‘em, Pete. We veterans are counting on you.
Cynical Publius is the nom de plume of a retired U.S. Army colonel and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who became a practicing corporate law attorney after military retirement. You can follow Cynical Publius on X at @CynicalPublius.