Hegseth is Right Man for the Job and the Times
Hegseth was not nominated to be a Church Pastor, he was nominated to be SecDef.
Editor’s Note: this is summary of the original complete version of my article pubished by the Epoch Times click HERE.
A younger Pete Hegseth on Deployment
Pete Hegseth was not nominated by President-elect Trump to be the pastor of a church. Pete Hegseth was nominated to be the Secretary of Defense (SecDef). And to this position he brings a set of qualifications and a mindset that match up well with the challenges facing our military at this time in its storied history.
The overarching challenge is to reverse the decline of our military. And in the opinion of many, including myself, the two main factors driving this decline are the decades-long, ongoing successful attacks on our military’s meritocracy-based warrior culture, and a defense procurement system that is no longer capable of meeting our military’s needs no matter how much money we spend. Through his speaking and books, most particularly his most recent book, the “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Hegseth highlights wokeism and gives examples of how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology is destroying our military’s warfighting capability.
What’s more, though Hegseth’s writings don’t focus on the incestuous/corrupting nature of the relationship between the Department of Defense, the defense industry, and Congress, he does identify what many call the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (MICC) as a major problem.
Putting aside for the moment the questions of DEI and the MICC, Hegseth should meet the bare minimum qualification for being the president-elect’s SecDef nominee.
Firstly, the candidate for SecDef must love America and believe it has a proud heritage worth defending both through force of intellect and force of arms.
Secondly, the candidate must be committed to defending and supporting the Constitution as seen through the context of original intent.
Finally, because the Defense Secretary is being nominated to help Trump realize his constitutionally informed vision for our national defenses, the SecDef, while not being shy in pushing back when he feels the President has it wrong, must be willing to implement the president’ vision, even when he personally disagrees.
The above are the bare minimum criteria for being the SecDef, and Hegseth easily meets them. But Hegseth goes far behond meeting the minimum.
Since the Secretary of Defense position was created by the National Security Act of 1947, a wide variety of nominees have been confirmed to serve in the position, only a few have had much or more combat experience than Hegseth.
During his time in the Army, Hegseth earned two Bronze Stars, two Army Commendation Medals, the National Defense Service Medal, and the expert infantryman and combat infantryman badges.
Another advantage is that Hegseth still has many friends seving in point-of-the-spear positions, i.e., they are part of the 15 percent or less who serve in the military or are assigned to combat positions. Consequently, he is getting first-hand reports on how current policies and initiatives are impacting the people who will actually be doing the fighting.
Futher, Hegseth brings common sense and a reality-based view to what it takes to succeed on the battlefied to the postion. Consequntly, he righly believes that putting women into combat is a terrible idea and uderstand that much of the military’s recruiting woes and inability to get enough men to enlist is directly related to DEI and other woke policies that have caused a big decline in the military as a trusted institution.
Bottom line, compared to past SecDefs, Hegseth, who has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard, brings some unique experiences and a mindset to the position that seem particularly well-suited to making America’s military great again. Hence, as he is the duly elected president’s nominee, the U.S. Senate should give their advice and then confirm him