By Larry Purdy, USNA ’68

To listen to some of the critics of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s September 30, 2025, speech to our military’s senior leadership, it is clear many of these critics willfully ignore or, worse, may have been contributors to the problems Hegseth was addressing.

More fundamentally, they misunderstood the breadth of Hegseth’s target audience.

As distinguished military historian Victor Davis Hanson observed, Pete Hegseth is “socially [and] culturally . . . trying to associate with the rank-and-file,” i.e., the younger officers and junior enlisted personnel who inevitably will be on the front lines defending our Nation in future conflicts.

Few in today’s military fail to recognize that the Biden administration bequeathed President Trump a U.S. military that (again, to quote Professor Hanson) was “far weaker, suffering from munitions shortages, massive recruitment shortfalls, DEI mandates, and dwindling public confidence.”

These destructive outcomes were aided and abetted by far too many senior military personnel who occupied offices in the Pentagon over the past two decades, including several past Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It goes without saying that many of these DEI-obsessed individuals were sitting in the beribboned audience in Quantico on September 30.

In fact, it is undeniable that among those present were dozens of senior military personnel who, during the previous Biden administration, had a hand in aggressively promoting DEI and other race and gender-based policies which led directly to the weakened military Trump inherited when he took office in early 2025.

In response, President Trump immediately addressed these weaknesses in various Executive Orders. The first, issued on the very first day of the Trump administration, was Executive Order No. 14151.

It reads in pertinent part as follows:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, . . . [including in our] military.

This same Executive Order went on to note that this “shameful discrimination . . . ends today.”

In that context, shortly after Secretary Hegseth was confirmed, he issued a Memorandum addressed to Senior Pentagon Leadership as well as to the Commanders of all the Combatant Commands. Included therein are these simple words:

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies . . . are incompatible with the values of DoD. The DoD will strive to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.”

Yet, notwithstanding these unambiguous directives from both the Commander-in-Chief and his new Secretary of Defense, there remain buried within the Pentagon individuals who were, and still are, ideologically opposed to Trump’s and Hegseth’s instructions.

So, gathering senior leadership in one room for a serious face-to-face meeting made perfect sense.

That some may not have liked Hegseth’s message is clear. But the dissenters were graciously offered the option to submit their resignation papers and immediately begin receiving their generous retirement benefits. The expectation is that those who cannot comply with the Secretary’s new directions will, and should, do just that, i.e., resign.

On the flip side, there undoubtedly were many (perhaps a majority) in the Quantico audience who quietly welcomed Secretary Hegseth’s words as a message that was long overdue.

Moreover, the wiser heads in the room surely understood that the target audience was much broader than just those men and women who currently occupy flag and general officer and senior enlisted positions.

Indeed, the target audience clearly included many thousands of military personnel who were not present, to wit: the newly minted 2^nd Lieutenants and Ensigns up to the O-3 Captains and Navy Lieutenants, and the newly-sworn-in recruits and junior and mid-level enlisted personnel who, by all accounts, have embraced Hegseth’s message emphasizing a return to the time-honored “warrior ethos.”  

The damage done to our military by some of its most senior officers with their perverse focus on highly divisive and often irrelevant ideological issues having nothing to do with strengthening our military, has been immense.

But equally clear is Secretary Hegseth’s commitment to reversing that damage. His September 30 speech – delivered in blunt language that is well understood throughout the military – described precisely how he intends to accomplish that.

With an eye on our Nation’s security as we enter the second quarter of the Twenty-First Century, every American, across political lines, should wish him success in that effort.

First published on Real Clear Defense