Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was the featured speaker on May 23 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as 998 cadets were graduated to become U.S. Army officers. Hegseth told the graduates that they have his trust and the trust of President Trump.
“You’ve proven that you have what it takes to lead our nation’s top 1%, America’s most valued treasure, America’s sons and daughters,” Hegseth said. “We’re sending you to lead, we’re sending you to forge warriors, and we’re sending you perhaps, to war — and you are ready. The world today is at a crossroads, just as it has been for the past 250 years of our great republic. You are stepping into the arena at a time when the stakes could not be higher.”
Hegseth told the graduates that four years ago when they raised their hand to become cadets at West Point, they committed to serve the nation as students, with the understanding that later, they’d be called upon to serve and possibly be sent into combat. He said that the time to be sent in has arrived, without specifying where they would be sent such as to Iran.
Without specifically mentioning his purging of top, experienced officers from the ranks of the military, Hegseth said that he and his staff are eliminating what he described as the bureaucracy and red tape that make it difficult for service members to do the job of defending the nation.
He also emphasized the Trump administration’s belief that programs promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) need to be eliminated and he was doing just that at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military structure.
“We are taking a chainsaw to all of it,” Hegseth said. “That means real acquisition reform, procurement reform, ending the culture of spending 10 years and $10 billion extra to build a system that’s obsolete by the time it reaches your platoon. We’re going to buy lethal, effective gear, and we’re going to get it into your hands fast and then get you the right to repair.”
While there has been much said about Hegseth and President Trump valuing loyalty to themselves more than loyalty to the U.S. Constitution as demanded in the oath taken by people entering military service, Hegseth said something quite different to the cadets.
“Our strength is our oath to the Constitution,” Hegseth said. “It’s our embrace of the Army values, the idea of merit, our mission, our absolute commitment to duty and honor and country. These are the things that unify us. ‘Send me’ becomes ‘send us,’ because you are one fighting force, just as we are one nation under God. My job is to untie your hands and to have your back — when you make hard calls, when you enforce the standards, when you prioritize lethality over likability. You will have top cover. … No more walking on eggshells.”
Hegseth made it plain what he expects from those in the military.
“We want high, uniform, unwavering standards,” he said. “We want meticulous discipline, the kind I see right here. We want true accountability, and we want it all in service of readiness and lethality. Readiness means preparation; it means training — realistic, tough training. We must train exactly like we fight, and that means real, practical warfighting skills; it means lethality.”
