Locator: 49322HEGSETH.
They must be reading the blog.
Seek first to understand. Link here. That was my take, October 4, 2025.
Now this, in The New York Times, today. Link here.
The lede:When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of senior military officers worldwide to Quantico, Va., last week, fears quite naturally arose. Was a major military adventure afoot? If not, then why such a wasteful displacement?
The speech that Mr. Hegseth gave showed those fears to have been baseless. Despite a raw vocabulary and some rude provocations, he outlined a nuanced vision of the military’s purpose and its relationship to civilian society. Since that vision is starkly at odds with a great deal of what the military has been about for the past three decades, the secretary had every reason to call the top brass together and explain what was changing, as well as why and how.
Mr. Hegseth was there to announce that the Trump administration would no longer use the military’s structures to drive social change. (President Trump would later muddy that message in a rambling address to the same officers.) The trend Mr. Hegseth disparaged can be dated back to at least January 1993, when President Bill Clinton pushed for gays in the military. That effort turned into the Clinton administration’s first crisis, but over time, what is now called diversity, equity and inclusion won out.
President Barack Obama ended Mr. Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2010, allowing lesbian, gay and bisexual people to serve openly in the armed forces. He approved women in combat in 2013 and in 2016 opened all combat positions to women, revising some physical training requirements in the process. In 2016 he also opened the ranks to transgender soldiers.
Seek first to understand. Peggy Noonan was shooting from this hip.
