On Tuesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke at length to the assembled U.S. military general- and flag-officer corps who hold command billets, along with their senior enlisted advisors and selected others. President Trump also spoke to the assembled “General or Flag Officers” (GOFOs) but it was the Secretary of War who lit the fire.
His comments on restoring basic training to what it once was, to what it ought to be, were especially good. By RedState colleague, friend, and fellow veteran, streiff had that news.
He’s going to receive a lot of trash-talk for addressing an audience of GOFOs about the minutiae of command, but I think there was a genius in doing so.
First off, it will be the only time most one- and two-star generals have had contact with the Secretary of War. This gives him a chance to push his message directly to them without it being “interpreted” by higher echelons. This will make it much harder for resistance types to ignore the directives.
Second, by televising the speech, his directives are making their way unimpeded down to installations, units, and service members. His specific directions about basic training, “To that point, basic training is being restored to what it should be. Scary, tough, and disciplined. We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack. They can toss bunks. They can swear. And yes, they can put their hands on recruits. This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and true methods to motivate new recruits to make them the warriors they need to be.” See Pete Hegseth to Lift Ban on Powerful Basic Training Tactic – RedState for the genesis of this policy.
Yes, this is how things ought to be.
When I went to Army Basic Training, in the waning years of the Cold War, this is how things were. It was tough, it was stressful, we got yelled at, swore at, had drill sergeants in our faces. We got shoved around. We got humiliated. One of my squadmates fell out for formation without the chin-strap for his helmet, and the drills made him climb up in a tree in the company area, flap his arms, and yell “I’m a shit bird, I’m a shit bird” for about ten minutes.
But we came out of it stronger.
We got left in the front-leaning rest position for long, long minutes at a time. Worse, we got left in the “dying cockroach” position – on your back, arms and legs straight up in the air. It hurt. We felt it for hours afterwards.
But we came out of it stronger.
This is how military initial-entry training should be. Call it what you want, but it’s training to fight. To go to war. To seek out bad guys and revoked their birth certificates. To turn them into a pink mist. To close with and destroy the enemy with fire, maneuver and shock effect. It’s good to see basic training going back to this. It’s good to see the namby-pamby “Department of Defense” once more dubbed the War Department. And it’s good to see a Secretary of War who has seen 
the elephant to lead the effort.
Our troops are in the business of fighting. We need to teach them to do that, before they learn anything else. Nothing is more important.
Streiff concludes:
I think the Hegseth critics look pretty silly today. He gave a strong speech and set clear guidelines, though he will get grief over his overt hostility to forcing unqualified women into combat arms units and hating on fat people. I’m sure he can live with that.
Of that, there can be no doubt.
Well, this is a trifle concerning. Secretary of War (I still love that) Pete Hegseth has ordered every War Department general and flag officer, along with their senior enlisted advisors, to a no-agenda-announced conference at Quantico Marine base.
That’s… unprecedented, to say the least.
Multiple War Department officials confirmed to Fox News that top military commanders had been asked to fly to Virginia for a meeting next week, though the topic of the discussion is unclear.
The Pentagon confirmed the meeting but did not offer details.
“The Secretary of War will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” chief 
spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement.
A meeting of this size and scope is highly unusual and would usually take place on a secure video teleconference — around 800 generals and admirals are spread across the U.S. and world.
The lack of details surrounding the gathering has some fearing a looming purge. War Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously said he wants to cut 20% of senior generals and admirals.
The order, first reported by The Washington Post, applies to senior officers with the rank 
of brigadier general or above or their Navy equivalent and their top enlisted advisers.
Over at RedState, my friend, colleague and fellow veteran strieff wrote:
Hegseth has made no secret of his desire to trim the GOFO ranks by 20%. What better way to do that than at a major conference, set up like a Red Cross blood bank, where names are called off a roster and those selected are escorted from the room, under guard, to sign their retirement package?
As I’ve pointed out, the Charlie Kirk assassination shows the military does have an extremism problem. Only it’s not good ol’ boys with their F-150 truck with a rifle rack and Confederate States of America battle flag in the back window. It is the trans/furry/green-haired/DEI-engorged part of the military that is profoundly dangerous.
This is weird. It’s unprecedented, yes, but there’s a lot that still needs fixing in the War Department. There are still DEI adherents. There are still “transgender” troops taking the place of people who are, you know, deployable. There are are still instances of noncompliance and malicious compliance, as streiff also points out.
Could the general officer ranks be about to undergo a purge?
It so, how deep will the knife cut?
Thanks, as always, to all the usual suspects for the Rule Five Links!
If you haven’t noticed, the United States Air Force and Navy, on President Trump’s orders, finished the disassembly of Iran’s nuclear program with high explosives. Some key pieces:
The Genius Deception Trump Pulled on Iran Just Before the Attack on the Iranian Nuclear Sites
New: Iranian Parliament Orders Closure of Strait of Hormuz, Threatening Global Oil Supply
This is, as someone once said, a big fucking deal.
Now, this operation was as damn near flawless as military operations ever get. Iran will try to respond, but we just gave them an amazing illustration as to how we are a global power while they are a regional one. The mullahs, though, aren’t known for rational responses.
Stay tuned, True Believers, because this may get a whole lot more interesting before it’s done.
Before I get into this, check out the latest installment of The Crider Chronicles – Forest over at Glibertarians.
Now, then; it seems those lying liars who lie in Hamas are up to their usual shit.
Hamas tried to pull a bait-and-switch on the latest cease-fire deal by altering the terms of the proposal that were sent to the terror group, according to President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Hamas claimed on Monday that it had been presented with a new US-backed deal that would see a 60-day ceasefire and the release of five live hostages on the first and final days of the truce.
But a “disappointed” Witkoff blasted Hamas, saying the terms of the deal sent to the group were very different.
In other words, Hamas lied. What a surprise.
“What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable,” Witkoff, a New York real estate billionaire, told Axios.
He said Israel agreed to the terms of the deal he proposed, and that it would offer a path to a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Honestly, I’m not sure what Mr. Witkoff expected. Hamas are liars, terrorists, and murderers. They will lie at every opportunity. They will lie when the truth would be to their advantage. They will lie when nothing but the truth will save them. And they will stab you in the back at any opportunity. It’s what they do.
I’ve been saying this, and I’ll keep on saying it: There will be no peace in Gaza until Hamas is no longer a factor. You infer from that that the way this is achieved is for every Hamas member to be killed. That’s probably what it will take.
Before I get into this, check out the epilogue of my pal UnCivilServant’s Prince of the North Tower as well as the next installment of my own The Crider Chronicles – Forest over at Glibertarians.
Now then: The judge who is blocking President Trump’s military transgender ban is an unapologetic leftist. What a surprise.
The Biden-appointed judge overseeing a lawsuit against the Pentagon’s policy on trans-identifying individuals serving in the military is a prominent donor to Democrat political candidates and causes, The Federalist has learned.
On Tuesday, D.C. District Court Judge Ana Reyes granted a request from several trans-identifying service members to place a preliminary injunction on Executive Order 14183 and additional guidance related to the order. Signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 27, the directive declared that the “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria” is “inconsistent” with the “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”
This is counter to military reality, of course, but that’s no concern for a leftist.
The edict instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to update the military’s medical standards within 60 days of the order’s issuance to reflect the president’s guidance. Hegseth effectively did so in a Feb. 7 memo, ordering pauses on “all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria” and “[a]ll scheduled, unscheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for service members.”
There’s no mention of a reply from SecDef Hegseth (say that three times fast) but it’s a safe bet the reply would start with “Go” and end with “Yourself.”
This is way past the bounds of judicial activism. This is openly interfering with the proper constitutional role of the commander-in-chief, and it is endangering the readiness of our nation’s armed forces. The Trump administration will likely seek to appeal this ASAP – and if there is any sanity remaining in the world, this activist judge’s ruling will be duly slam-dunked.
Thanks as always to all the usual suspects for the Rule Five Links!
Now then, I’m not sure what to make of this.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly warned Mexican officials last month that the US military was ready to take “unilateral action” against Mexico’s drug cartels if more isn’t done to stem the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the US.
The Pentagon chief made the remark during a Jan. 31 call with top Mexican military officials, while urging them to address collusion between their country’s government and violent criminal organizations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Mexican officials on the call were “shocked and angered” by Hegseth’s comments, and were left with the impression that he was suggesting US military strikes could take place south of the border, according to the outlet.
Well, there are a couple of things here.
First, yes, it’s a novel idea, isn’t it, that our military would be used to defend our borders, and not the borders of Eastern Europe or some other far-flung place.
But second, much as I approve of the SecDef’s performance to date, I’m not sure what he’s getting at. Is he implying that American forces might pull a 21st-century version of Blackjack Pershing’s punitive expedition into Mexico in search of Pancho Villa? And we must note the SecDef has no authority to deploy troops; only the President can do that.
I think Pete Hegseth may be leaning a little too far forward in the foxhole here.
Sometimes I think the various nitwits we have in the Imperial government are more dangerous than Russia, China, North Korea and Iran combined. In the latest example, this moron in the Biden/Harris Department of Energy thinks that we should be “queering nuclear weapons.”
You just can’t make this stuff up.
A recent hire at the nuclear security wing of the Department of Energy has previously called for disarmament policies – which reduce or eliminate nuclear weapons – arguing that advancing “queer theory” was essential to that agenda as well as important to America’s national security.
The Biden-Harris administration announced Sneha Nair had been 
appointed as special assistant at the National Nuclear Security Administration in February 2024. Nair believes in eradicating purported “White supremacy” in the nuclear field as well as “queering nuclear weapons” as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion push she believes is essential for deterring threats to nuclear energy facilities in the U.S.
“Finally, queer theory informs the struggle for nuclear justice and disarmament,” she wrote last year. “Queer theory helps to shift the perception of nuclear weapons as instruments for security by telling the hidden stories of displacement, illness, and trauma caused by their production and testing.”
This is stupidity on the megaton scale.
So, who is this person?
Before she joined the administration, she worked for the Stimson Institute, which has received hundreds of thousands from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and millions from “The Embassy of the State of Qatar” over the years, Fox News Digital’s review of their funding sources revealed.
Stimson and the Department of Energy were contacted for comment for this story but did not respond.
They did not respond. No shit.
Yeah, OK, so you see the upshot here – another Soros lackey, whether by design or by stupidity attempting to disassemble the United States from within. And we can lay the blame for this idiot being employed at the Department of Energy at the feet of the Biden/Harris administration, whose hiring practices have, since day one, not been about finding the best, brightest, and most dedicated people for the job, but about ticking off the most “diversity” checkboxes.
And this is the result:
“Queer theory: changing the narrative…. Queer theory is a field of study, closely related to feminist theory, that examines sex- and gender-based norms. It shines a light on the harm done by nuclear weapons through uranium mining, nuclear tests, and the tax money spent on nuclear weapons… “
In what way does this lunacy enhance national security? This moron probably is incapable of absorbing certain facts, but the reason we have a nuclear arsenal is to protect the republic against other, less stable regimes that also have nuclear weapons. That’s it. There is no 
other reason. Our nuclear weapons do not exist to provide a jobs program for imbeciles. They do not exist to shine a light on “sex- and gender-based norms.”
This person should be fired immediately. And if the Trump/Vance ticket is looking for a good campaign talking point, here’s one: On Day One of the second Trump administration, all DEI programs at the Imperial level will be ended, and all DEI bureaucrats and DEI hires will be sent packing. Imperial hiring, especially where national security is concerned, should be on merit, and nothing else.
Before we start, check out the latest chapter of Barrett’s Privateers – Quark Star as well as my literary buddy UnCivil Servant’s Prince of the North Tower over at Glibertarians.
Now then, are we looking at the opening rounds of a third world war?
Hurry up. America’s top shooters are moving into position to target Iran. With Sunday night’s announcement hastening the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and moving the submarine USS Georgia under U.S. Central Command’s control, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is making sure U.S. Central Command is prepared to attack Iran, and/or its proxies, if Tehran strikes Israel in the next few days.
Air Force F-22 fighter jet pilots have already unpacked their bags at a Middle East base where they arrived Aug 8. Here are more top shooters under Central Command’s operational control – that we know of.
It’s very unusual for the Pentagon to make announcements about secretive submarines. But then, the USS Georgia is a very special vessel. Powered by a nuclear reactor, the USS Georgia began life as an Ohio-class “boomer” designed to carry nuclear weapons, then underwent a high-tech conversion into a conventional guided-missile attack submarine. Now she can carry an astounding 154 precision Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles. And SEAL teams with mini-submarines. Add in a highly advanced communication suite, and USS Georgia can stare down Iran all by herself.
In other words, even given the deterioration the American military has suffered under the Biden/Harris administration, the U.S. is reminding Iran that we damn well better still be on their “don’t fuck with” list. Iran has a few obsolete, Cold-War-era fighter planes; in the event Iran started something one fine Persian morning, all of their aircraft would be wiped out of the sky before the Supreme Leader took his morning dump. And the USS Georgia would be hidden somewhere nearby, in the Persian Gulf or the Med, ready to start pumping freedom downrange to start revoking Iranian birth certificates.
Now, I’m not sanguine about the idea of America getting involved in a war with Iran. But Iran also has to know that if they fuck with America, they are going to get more fuckery back than they can comfortably absorb. That, in and of itself, may make this a saber worth rattling.
Before I get into this tidbit, check out the latest chapter of Barrett’s Privateers – Unrepentant Sinner over at Glibertarians.
Now then: Check out this fence-scaling critter, who (as Must Read Alaska’s Suzanne Downing puts it) puts the “bear” in “JBER.”
A black bear scaling the fence at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage was caught in the act by a passerby with a video camera, who posted the evidence on social media of the trespassing bear scaling the fence and then tightrope walking on the barbed wire.
It’s a Derpbook video so I can’t embed it here, as I don’t do the Book of Face, but even without a Derpbook account, you should be able to view the video at the link.
Black bears are amazing animals. They are adaptable, can eat almost anything, and do very well near human habitations. Along this 
stretch of the highway near JBER it’s not at all uncommon to see blacks waiting to cross the highway or just feeding on grass and forbs along the road. We have them here in our Susitna Valley homestead as well, although they usually just pass through spring and fall, going between their winter dens in the hills and the rivers and streams where they feed in summer.
It’s not clear what this bear was looking for. But it’s a safe bet it was after food – and for bears, everything’s on the menu. Including, sometimes, us.