This Is the Way: Hegseth Blasts Woke Leaders in Epic West Point Speech

One of my favorite sayings about military matters and soldiers has been passed down since around 500 BC, and is attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who reportedly said:

Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.

I have often had occasion to think that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is familiar with Heraclitus's work, and never more so than now, after SecWar delivered the commencement address as the United States Military Academy at West Point on Saturday.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth tore into leaders who’ve tried to turn the military into “woke Princeton” and stained the American spirit, ripping DEI in a fiery speech to graduating cadets at West Point Saturday.
With President Trump considering renewing strikes against Iran, Hegseth directed his toughest talk toward military leaders who backed diversity programs he said were sapping the Armed Forces of its strength.
Opening his remarks on a rainy day at the storied military academy overlooking the Hudson River, the secretary slammed the woke agenda.

That's something of an understatement. Unlike some of the soft-middled invertebrates we've been subjected to in recent years, Secretary Hegseth seems to have a pretty decent handle on what advantages there are for the United States in having a military made up of warriors, not targets, and certainly not diversity hires. He understands that the military's purpose is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect, not to serve as a jobs program for anyone with the mental illness du jour.

The Spleen Vented Against Hegseth Over Firing the Army's Top General Validates His Decision

And SecWar let them have a pretty good piece of his mind on that score.

“We saw woke and weak leaders trying to make West Point look like woke Princeton, which happens to be my long lost and lost alma mater,” he said.
“They tried to introduce diversity and inclusion studies. They hire professors who advocated for anti-American ideologies right here in these halls, but no more.”

And:

“Let me be perfectly clear, you are not an ‘army of one’, and you are certainly not an army of woke. You are an American army, an army of warriors,” he said.

To that, all I can add is, "Hoorah!"

For the last few months, we've seen our military starting to rebuild after the disaster that was the Biden years. Perhaps the best sign of that is the Trump administration's taking one action I've spoken and written in favor of for thirty years: Scratch this "Department of Defense" corral litter and call it what it is, the War Department. These young people are in the profession of arms. They are soldiers. They are, or should be, warriors. We should take every opportunity to remind everyone of that, and I speak as an old soldier myself. And at every opportunity, let the American people know that these are the people that stand between us and the evil-doers in the world, these are the people that are the final line in the government's role of protecting the liberty and property of the people of the United States.

And when they are called upon to do so, they should be lavishly equipped, superbly trained, and admirably skilled at finding the bad guys and permanently revoking their birth certificates. We should not send them into hostile places capriciously or carelessly, but when we do send them, the enemy should be wetting their pants in terror from the moment the first private steps off the first airplane.

I think that's the message SecWar was trying to convey at West Point.

Watch the whole speech here.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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