Hegseth’s address largely focused on his own long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by “woke” policies, and he said military leaders should “do the honorable thing and resign” if they don’t like his new approach.
During his nearly hour-long speech, Hegseth said the U.S. military has promoted too many leaders for the wrong reasons based on race, gender quotas and “historic firsts.”
“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth said he was ordering a review of “the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.”
He called for “changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.”
“People make honest mistakes, and our mistakes should not define an entire career,” Hegseth said. “Otherwise, we only try not to make mistakes.”
Hegseth said the department has been told from previous administrations that “our diversity is our strength,” which he called an “insane fallacy.”
“They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQE+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they’re females is totally normal,” he said, adding the use of electric tanks and the COVID vaccine requirements to the list as mistaken policies.
Hegseth said this is is not about preventing women from serving.
“But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” he said. “If women can make it excellent, if not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result.”
