Did Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth call the big meeting at Quantico, Virginia, for Sept. 30, so that he can strut like a peacock in front of an auditorium full of generals and admirals? More leaks reported by the Washington Post yesterday seem aimed to leave the reader with that impression. Multiple sources told the Post that Hegseth is going to deliver a short speech on “the warrior ethos,” whatever that means. “It’s meant to be an eyeball-to-eyeball kind of conversation,” one person familiar with ongoing discussions said. “He wants to see the generals.”
Some Pentagon officials questioned the wisdom of launching a relatively large gathering on short notice to hear Hegseth speak for a matter of minutes, and bristled at the idea that long-serving military leaders—a segment of whom had spent years in combat earlier in their careers—needed instruction on how to fight. “They don’t need a talk from Secretary Hegseth on the warrior ethos,” a defense official said.
