As previously reported, Pete Hegseth's big Tuesday speech at Quantico, for which some 800 Generals and Admirals from their bases around the world were summoned, focused on the 'warrior ethos' and tightening up discipline among all branches of the military. He also laid out his vision for the armed forces at a moment that two major conflicts rage across the seas: Ukraine and Gaza.

He took the opportunity to declare a reversal of the woke culture which had for too long reigned at the Pentagon during the Biden administration. "No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I've said before, and will say again - we are done with this shit," the Pentagon chief emphasized.

"From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this, war fighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit," he said.

He at one point used the old slogan that goes well back into the Reagan administration and beyond of presenting a national posture of "peace through strength" by the military.

Apart from issuing what has long been the articulated stance of the administration on battling woke trends in the military, one substantive moment came when Hegseth vowed no more nation-building:

"They said 'never again' to mission creep or nebulous end states," Hegseth said. "The same holds true today. Our civilian and military leadership is chock-full of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who say 'never again' to nation building and nebulous end states."

He said "this clear-eyed view — all the way to the White House" and Mr. Trump's "military buildup" would posture the U.S. for future victories.

While this is a positive development and vision, it remains that the American arms and cash pipeline to Ukraine is ongoing. To some degree, there is nation-building, happening in Ukraine, and provoking Russia right on its doorstep. 

Hegseth talked more on military standards, at another point saying that "If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is... It will also mean that weak men won't qualify — because we're not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death."

Likely, there were a lot of unhappy generals and admirals sitting there for a speech which would have been captured in a standard weekly chain-of-command email. After all, some flew from far-flung bases across the seas for a pep talk on PT standards, which is actually typical boilerplate stuff for pretty much every enlisted Friday briefing and muster at most military bases and units across the DoD:

As for President Trump, he sounded similar themes as he spoke from the podium for about 70-minutes. It dealt with military culture, but also political issues facing the nation. He disclosed for one that his administration is mulling making the military "larger".

"We’re thinking about making it larger because we have so many people, and it’s nice to be able to cut people because of merit that aren’t really qualified for any reason, a physical reason, a mental reason, you don’t have to take them anymore, because you have, you have the pick of the litter, and they all want to be with you," Trump said.

"They all want your job. They want to be with you. They want to work with you. They’ll even take your job."

Trump's speech started off a bit awkwardly...

Suggesting more top level firings and reshuffling, he also said: "And, we got many of them out of here too. I’ll be honest with you, didn’t like doing it, but we got many of you out of here because we weren’t satisfied we have we know everything about everybody," Trump.

Apparently there was a lengthy, awkward wait for the speeches to begin...

"I can say that, as opposed to a couple of years ago, when I was talking to rooms where they were desperate to get people and they couldn’t get them, what a difference a presidential election can make," he added while noting a strong reversal of low recruiting numbers due to his administration.

Another interesting moment was when he said Department of Defense should use "dangerous cities as training grounds for the military and National Guard. Common enlisted ranks might not feel to thrilled about that one.

"I told Pete [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city with an incompetent governor," Trump continued from Quantico.

And on the issue of unruly crowds or demonstrators disrespecting law enforcement and the military, he quipped "they spit, we hit."

"People are standing, their mouth is this far away from their mouth, and they’re spitting at them and they’re screaming at them. And that soldier standing there, he wants to knock the hell out of the person, but he’s not allowed to do anything," Trump said. "I say they spit, we hit. Is that okay? I think so, they spit it’s a new thing. They spit, we hit."

And when rioting crowds throw bricks or rocks at officers, he said: "You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do, because those people are, you now can die from that."

Hegseth had 800 Generals from around the world fly to Quantico for Trump's message: Bro you too fat.

Again, the generals didn't seem too impressed by all this, after having been pulled from their command bases and deployment theatres - all at a huge US taxpayer expense no doubt. "I’ve never walked into a room so silent," Trump had said at the start of his speech, eliciting some restrained laughs.

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