He got a funeral.
The generals sat in perfect silence, faces locked in the kind of grim stillness that comes from years of watching idiots talk and choosing not to react. Trump, of course, couldn’t handle it. “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” he confessed, his voice trembling somewhere between wounded pride and panic.
Then came the kicker, “If you want to applaud, you applaud.”
This wasn’t leadership. This was a washed-up Vegas act begging the crowd to clap. The Commander-in-Chief turned into the Clapper-in-Chief, reduced to prodding the nation’s top brass like a sad carnival barker who forgot his punchline.
A campaign rally in uniform.
Instead of strategy, Trump delivered his usual medley of grievances: Barack Obama ruined everything, Joe Biden ruined it twice as hard, and only Donald J. Trump, self-proclaimed “two-term, maybe three-term president” could save America. It was less a military briefing than an episode of The Apprentice: Pentagon Edition.
The generals, trained to withstand battlefield chaos, sat stone-faced through the barrage of nonsense. They have endured artillery fire with more enthusiasm.
Enter Pete Hegseth, America’s Pastor-in-Arms. Trump’s “Secretary of War” took the podium with the intensity of a man who thinks Tom Clancy novels are actual military doctrine. He promised “fire and brimstone,” called for purges of “fat generals,” and announced he wants the next war to look exactly like the Gulf War, because apparently it’s still 1991 and CNN is running that same grainy footage of tanks in the desert.
But Hegseth wasn’t done. He led them in prayer. Yes, prayer. The nation’s top generals, summoned by presidential ego, now folded into a forced altar call like extras at a megachurch revival. The separation of church and state? Obliterated. Constitution? Shredded. Jesus, apparently, is now Commander-in-Chief. Trump can play Vice.
Weakness on parade.
Trump likes to brag about firing generals who “aren’t warriors.” But on Tuesday, the real firing squad was silence. Not one clap. Not one cheer. Just the steady hum of contempt vibrating off the brass like feedback from a dead microphone.
These men and women have seen actual combat. They’ve buried soldiers. They’ve lived with the weight of real command. And now they’re expected to cheer for a man who brags about moving “a submarine or two” like it’s a toy in a bathtub, or who lectures about “two N-words” as though nuclear strategy were a stand-up routine.
No wonder they didn’t clap.
The pin-drop presidency.
What happened at Quantico wasn’t just awkward. It was diagnostic. Trump’s presidency is a hollow shell propped up by applause, and when the applause disappears, so does he.
And Hegseth? He’s the zealot-in-chief, delivering sermons about war and Christ in equal measure, a man confusing the Book of Revelation with the Pentagon’s operations manual. Together, they make quite the duo: one desperate for claps, the other desperate for amens.
The generals gave them neither. Instead, they gave silence, the most cutting judgment of all."
One of my Facebook friencs posted this.
Lots of talk about "a new civil war coming" in recent years. I don't think it'll be these Cosplay Militia legend-in-their-own-minds dimbulb types (e.g., below).
Much more likely to be US Military vs Hegseth "MAGA Military," I would bet.
UPDATE: QUESTIONS AFTER QUANTICO
THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.
I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions…
COMMANDERS WILL STEADY THEIR TROOPS. They will walk the Kasernes, tour the hangars, eat in the mess halls, and show presence. They will listen, reassure, and set a tone of professionalism. They will tell their forces, We still train hard; we still deploy; we still defend the Constitution.
But commanders cannot hold the line indefinitely against political chaos. Ultimately, soldiers deserve clear, consistent, and lawful guidance from the top. They also deserve leaders in Washington who see them not as props in a political rally but as guardians of the nation’s security.
Our men and women in uniform have given America their youth, their health, their families’ stability, and in too many cases, their lives. They deserve a military that is a shield, not a political tool. They deserve leaders who understand that words spoken in Washington ripple across the globe—to barracks in Bavaria, bases in Okinawa, ships in the Red Sea, and forward operating posts in the desert.
When Washington speaks, commanders must answer. But let’s not forget: Those commanders need a foundation of lawful, principled leadership to stand on, so they can answer the questions of individuals wearing their country’s uniform. Without all of that, we risk turning the world’s most trusted military into just another instrument of political theater. And that is a risk we cannot afford. [Lt. Gen Mark Hertling, Ret.]
THERE'S MORE
...Robert McTague, a retired military officer who did two tours in Iraq, and also served in Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Croatia, Romania, and Turkey, said that Hegseth "comes across as a bit of a car salesman" in his pitch before top generals from around the world..."I have no freaking idea where he thinks he’s going to get all the money to build these extra platforms he mentioned—more troops (super expensive), more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers— we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in new expenditures, at least," he wrote...The retired official added, "I think the whole 'we need to be able to kill things' message and tone were misleading, childish, and misguided, with subtle notes of fashy (will to power, y’all) and here’s why: We live in a frighteningly complex world, with layers and layers of things that, no matter how much will and savagery you want to muster, matter.Ignore at your own peril. Ask Bibi."
CODA
Seen on "X" posted by "@reeseonable"
I have a lot of friends who are Infantry officers, both active duty & Guard/Reserve. I asked them what they thought about Pete Hegseth’s speech, & honestly, I was a little surprised at the reaction, since the guys on X were so enamored by it. Most of them kind of smirked, snickered, & flat-out called him a “try hard.”
When we dug into it, a lot of it came down to his actions &, more importantly, his qualifications. The big deal breaker was that he never passed Ranger School. Apparently, for Infantry officers, Ranger School is the standard.
I did some research of my own, & they’re right: if an Infantry officer comes out of IBOLC & doesn’t pass Ranger School, it’s a very bad look. It’s one of the most important things you can do for your credibility & your career as an Infantry officer.
It’s the Army’s premier small-unit leadership course & a rite of passage. Passing proves you can endure, lead, & fight under extreme stress. That little black & gold tab opens doors to credibility as a platoon leader, respect from the enlisted ranks, competitive assignments, & promotions.
Don’t get me wrong, if you don’t pass, you can still serve, but it’s a career limiter. In the infantry especially, “tabbed vs. non-tabbed” separates who gets the toughest jobs & who stalls out. Officers without a tab usually end up in less competitive units, carrying the stigma of having failed what’s considered the baseline test for their branch.
Which brings us to Pete Hegseth. He never earned a Ranger tab. (He also never earned Airborne wings or completed Air Assault School or Pathfinder school—& for an Infantry officer, having none of these schools is extremely rare. Most infantry officers push hard to get at least one, if not all of them, b/c those schools are career multipliers & symbols of credibility.
That absence mattered. It meant Hegseth had a ceiling as an infantry officer. Without the tab or badges that define the profession, his promotion prospects in combat arms were always going to be weaker. Soldiers notice. Other officers notice. The Army notices.
So when he talks about the “warrior ethos” or lectures combat-arms Soldiers about standards, remember: he never earned the qualifications that set those standards. And in the infantry world, that isn’t a small detail—it’s everything.
Just sayin…
'eh?
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