In late September, hundreds of top U.S. generals and admirals were urgently summoned from around the world to a meeting at a Marine Corps base in Virginia. The unusual gathering caused concern that major cuts or firings were imminent, anxieties that were not eased by the announcement that former President Donald Trump would be speaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The meeting was led by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who outlined his vision for the military. He called for an end to \u201cwoke\u201d practices, criticized diversity efforts, and took aim at female service members and what he termed \u201coverweight generals and admirals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event drew heavy criticism from attendees and observers. One anonymous defense official dismissed it as something that \u201ccould have been an email,\u201d while others warned of the massive security risk of concentrating so many senior leaders in one place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling publicly condemned the speech. He suggested that military leaders would refuse any illegal orders and would be analyzing which of Hegseth\u2019s directives they could lawfully implement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hertling emphasized that the public nature of the criticism was particularly damaging. He noted that a key military leadership principle is to \u201cpraise in public and discipline in private,\u201d but this event did the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stated that the attendees were not only personally embarrassed but also embarrassed for their services. The public disciplinary approach was seen as an attempt to separate the military institution from the American people it serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hertling guaranteed that the professionals in the audience would not execute illegal orders, reinforcing the military\u2019s commitment to its oath and professional standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In late September, hundreds of top U.S. generals and admirals were urgently summoned from around the world to a meeting at a Marine Corps base in Virginia. The unusual gathering caused concern that major cuts or firings were imminent, anxieties that were not eased by the announcement that former President Donald Trump would be speaking….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4742,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions\/4742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}