Author Pete Hegseth has released his fourth book, titled The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. 

Hegseth pulls no punches in his examination of the cultural rot infesting the military. Our uniformed men and women are part of an institution that we thought was immune from compromising meritocracy, but no longer seems to be. Hegseth isn’t an “all is lost” lamenter, but he fears we are near the point of no return. 

He isn’t wrong. 

In Chapter 2, the book discusses the “Extremists That Never Were.” Within weeks of taking office, Joe Biden's Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, issued a “Stand Down” order to the entire Department of Defense. A stand-down order is generally reserved for something objectively in need of repair or address. For example, a rash of warplanes crashing would cause a stand-down.  

What was the urgency? Austin stood down the DOD to address “extremism” in the ranks. He, like other leftists, were convinced white supremacists were prevalent in the military. 

Austin put a man named Bishop Garrison in charge of his “Countering Extremism Working Group." Garrett is a Critical Race theorist and an ideologue. What was the result of the department-wide search for "extremists"? The Biden Administration found 100 cases in a population of 2,100,000 active and reserve forces. “A case rate of .005 percent”, with the actual number being .000047. 

We all recall Mark Milley wanting to know what was causing the “white rage”. He sat in front of congress members and told them and the nation that he wanted to “understand” white rage”. 

“I want to understand white rage and I'm white, and I want to understand it.”: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley shared his views on critical race theory in the military during a hearing Wednesday with House lawmakers. pic.twitter.com/0ApbjYjcMl

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 24, 2021

Milley spent over four decades in the Army and he didn’t get to Chair the Joint Chiefs by bucking the system – unless that system is Donald Trump’s presidency. Milley is now infamous, not just for his “white rage” rant but he told his counterpart in China that he would give China an advanced warning if America was about to attack.  

Hegseth observes that general officers are never held to account for abject failure. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a debacle. Marines and Sailors were not allowed to be proactive to prevent the eventual suicide bomber from entering Abbey Gate and then that general-officer decision killed 13 service members and scores more were scarred for life. What was the response to the failure? General officers game-planned a strike in “retaliation”. That strike killed a U.N. worker and seven children. Although generals who made those decisions knew almost immediately that they blew up a bunch of children, they lied about it. 

Were any general officers fired? No 

In the final chapter, Hegseth discusses the state of our military academies. West Point no longer employs mostly uniformed officers to teach at West Point, and it shows. Ideologues dominate their teaching curriculum. It isn’t just in the classrooms, it flows downhill from the superintendent’s office. LTG Darryl Williams released a five-year plan (2020-2025) that placed as much importance on “inclusivity” as marksmanship under fire. Lethality was no longer the goal of  our Army. 

If you assumed that our military academies would be immune to “gender studies” majors, you would be wrong. At West Point, the 2024 Redbook of course studies include:

 “Diversity and Inclusion Studies”

“This five-course minor includes classes like PL377: Social Inequality, N325: Power Differences, SS392: The Politics of Race Gender and Sexuality.”

The result of officer indoctrination like the above class work will manifest in the enlisted ranks like the below: 

The world is laughing at us. pic.twitter.com/U06xtd1iLi

— Joshua Walker (@RedsRepair95) May 21, 2024

The graduating speaker for my son’s BUDs (SEAL) class was a hard-nosed battle-tested SEAL. His son was in my son’s class. That class was graduating in the middle of the GWT. The speaker didn’t mince words. He told the 23 graduates: “Some of you will die in combat”. He was right. Some did. 

The ethos of America’s warriors, to serve the country and to fight to win is being replaced with a “how do you feel?” philosophy and political pandering like Naval Special Warfare Command celebrating “Pride Month”. 

 

Americans like Hegseth - like my son and like so many American sons - answered the call. Would they answer that call now? Many warriors who served and fought our wars are no longer willing to answer the call, in part because political leadership sees them as the enemy. 

Hegseth reminds the reader that all is not lost, but the battle is now. He closes his book with an open letter to his sons. Hegseth tells his sons, that whatever fight they decide is theirs, do it with conviction.