Don't get me wrong I'm all for that message, but I'm with MattyD on this one in that the message could have been effectively delivered and made known to the world without the grandstanding involved and having the top of our chain of command all in one building…

The most important thing he talked about was empowering leaders to enforce standards, make decisions, and function as leaders without the fear of reprisal for upholding a standard or being so afraid of a single mistake torpedoing their career that they fail to make a decision, take action, or uphold a standard. By supporting and empowering leaders, he will foster a climate where discipline and accountability can be enforced at the lowest level, where a company grade officer can make a decision, and even make a mistake, and not have that wreck his promotion potential 20 years down the road.

And that message had to be delivered in person. If anything, it should have been a broader audience, with more commanders and senior NCOs present to look him in the eye and see that he is dead serious about this part, and to then check their email and see that the policies implementing this have already been signed and distributed. Other leaders have paid lip service to this idea, but it's a bad cliche that no one believed. But this time it came from the CinC, and the SECWAR, and they stood in front of every senior leader and said it in plain English. "We've got your back." It wasn't a bs mission statement, or a commander's vision, something that comes out as an email, a mandatory poster, or a card that you have to carry around in your pocket as an inspectable item. Delivering that message in person was worth every penny it cost and every second of effort needed to make it happen.

Sure, it could've not been televised. But now the whole formation has seen it, heard it, and should know how serious SECWAR is about it. That has real value. And if it hadn't been televised, the liberal media could've lied and mischaracterized everything he said much easier than they probably will.

Sorry, but worth a laugh: Trump and Hegseth bombed so badly the generals are subsequently calling them Fat Man and Little Boy.

74OA said:

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Sorry, but worth a laugh: Trump and Hegseth bombed so badly the generals are subsequently calling them Fat Man and Little Boy.

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That probably sounded a lot more funny in your head, didn't it?

Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

maverick2076 said:

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The most important thing he talked about was empowering leaders to enforce standards, make decisions, and function as leaders without the fear of reprisal for upholding a standard or being so afraid of a single mistake torpedoing their career that they fail to make a decision, take action, or uphold a standard. By supporting and empowering leaders, he will foster a climate where discipline and accountability can be enforced at the lowest level, where a company grade officer can make a decision, and even make a mistake, and not have that wreck his promotion potential 20 years down the road.

And that message had to be delivered in person. If anything, it should have been a broader audience, with more commanders and senior NCOs present to look him in the eye and see that he is dead serious about this part, and to then check their email and see that the policies implementing this have already been signed and distributed. Other leaders have paid lip service to this idea, but it's a bad cliche that no one believed. But this time it came from the CinC, and the SECWAR, and they stood in front of every senior leader and said it in plain English. "We've got your back." It wasn't a bs mission statement, or a commander's vision, something that comes out as an email, a mandatory poster, or a card that you have to carry around in your pocket as an inspectable item. Delivering that message in person was worth every penny it cost and every second of effort needed to make it happen.

Sure, it could've not been televised. But now the whole formation has seen it, heard it, and should know how serious SECWAR is about it. That has real value. And if it hadn't been televised, the liberal media could've lied and mischaracterized everything he said much easier than they probably will.

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This x100000000

OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

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Did you not hear Hegseth say that we have lost every theater war since WWII, with the outlier being the Gulf War? Hegseth wouldn't have to tell Norm to buck up his grooming standards because our military back then was kicking a** and winning a war in a very short time instead of "nation building with nebulous end states" as Hegseth put it. Our military in the 90s didn't have transgenders, wasn't focused on reducing our carbon footprint, and didn't lower the physical standards.

OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

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A. No one in uniform gives a **** about SECWAR's hair. He's a civilian. He can wear his hair however he wants. And it's still more professional and neater in appearance than some I see in uniform.

B. If Schwarzkopf had needed to tell his generals to enforce PT standards, he would've done so without hesitation. He didn't have to because the Army at that time had a culture of enforcing and exceeding standards, and leadership from the top down that empowered subordinate leaders to enforce those standards. Schwarzkopf didn't have to deal with over a decade of democratic leadership gutting standards and destroying a culture of excellence in the name of diversity and inclusion. Hegseth wouldn't have to tell Schwarzkopf to enforce standards. It was already done. And if he did, Schwarzkopf would have saluted and carried out his orders to the best of his ability. Because he was a professional, and he knew that even Stormin' Norman had to answer to civilian leadership.

OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

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I think it's pretty evident at this point your personal biases are compromising your attempts to construct any rational argument on this topic.

OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

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It's going to blow your mind to learn:

- Schwarzkopf was never SecDef/War
- The CENTCOM commander (what Schwarzkopf was) is a combatant commander, not a force provider
- Hegseth is not the CENTCOM (or any unified combatant command) commander
- Hegseth is a civilian
- Lots of generals, colonels, captains, and staff sergeants comb their hair
- General/Flag officers FREQUENTLY tell their formations how to enforce all kinds of standards
- It's literally the SecDef/War's job to tell General/Flag officers how to perform
- Secretaries of War, Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. have often combed their hair

This thread is astounding even by your standards

Hegseth may have given his speech in front of Admirals and Generals, but that wasn't his target audience.

As an Army veteran, I watched that talk with great interest. Some points I really liked - especially the emphasis on enforcing and maintaining standards. I've been retired for several years now, but reports of complacency and slackening of standards in the military have concerned me. Glad the Sec War has refocused our senior leaders on the basics and getting back to the business of warfighting. I also liked the emphasis on the primary mission of "fighting and winning America's wars." Nothing like getting back to a clear purpose to drive how you prepare your formations for the future. I hope our senior leaders listened and do what needs to be done to get our formations back to the core mission of warfighting again. Nothing else is more important for our military.

I didn't like his calling out Chiarelli in a negative way. I served with Chiarelli in the 1st Cav, and he's as fine an officer and leader as you will find - one who never let up on standards, especially when we deployed to Iraq. Not sure what led to the Sec War calling him out, but that bothered me. I'd follow Chiarelli into combat again at any time. He didn't deserve to be called out like that.

While the media likes to make a big deal about this, I appreciate the Sec War being so transparent in his talk to all those GO/FOs. I've never seen a meeting like that open to the media, and it says a lot that the administration was willing to make that meeting an "open forum" and allowed access to the media. Sure, it opens up our Sec War and his staff to criticism about what he said, but the media certainly can't say that the War Dept was trying to "hide" anything from them with a closed meeting not open to the media.

Only time will tell where this all leads, but I appreciate the Sec War doing what he did. It was a bold move on his part, but at least no GO/FO in the military can say they don't understand "commander's intent" from the very top. He made it very clear, point by point, from the very beginning of his talk. I just hope they listened and get our troops focused back on the mission of fighting and winning America's wars. Our nation's security certainly depends on it.

OldArmyCT said:

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Tango.Mike said:

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OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

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It's going to blow your mind to learn:

- Schwarzkopf was never SecDef/War
- The CENTCOM commander (what Schwarzkopf was) is a combatant commander, not a force provider
- Hegseth is not the CENTCOM (or any unified combatant command) commander
- Hegseth is a civilian
- Lots of generals, colonels, captains, and staff sergeants comb their hair
- General/Flag officers FREQUENTLY tell their formations how to enforce all kinds of standards
- It's literally the SecDef/War's job to tell General/Flag officers how to perform
- Secretaries of War, Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. have often combed their hair

This thread is astounding even by your standards

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I've got a fairly decent 20 year military resume' so lets just agree to disagree. Most of the old school retired military I'm still in contact with are not fans of Hegseth. If I had misused classified info as a regular officer I would have been ****canned. I'd have more respect for Hegseth if he would fund the weapons needed to have the military he professes to want. If stressing a PT standard is more important than buying more Patriot missiles or funding a Golden Dome, well, he's the guy. Weapons systems are a constant, haircuts and morning PT edicts can be changed as soon as we get a new administration.

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Disagree about what? Do you disagree that Schwarzkopf was a combatant commander and not the SecDef/War? Do you disagree that the SecDef/War is the commander of the entire US military - you know, that critical part of the Constitution that guarantees civilian control of the military? (In case you don't know, the SecDef/War is the rater for the CJCS, combatant commanders, TRANSCOM, STRATCOM, etc. The Service Secretaries are the raters for their respective Service Chiefs).

And what's this new complaint you have about funding? Have you looked at the 2026 Defense Authorization Act? Have you looked at the 2026 President's Budget? They have more procurement dollars, more personnel dollars, and more infrastructure dollars than 2025 (and 2024, and 2023, and 2022, etc.). What funding is Hegseth withholding for weapons? Be specific. And make sure you specify where Congress appropriated funding and Hegseth has personally ignored that law by not delivering those funds to the force.

Some of the most important things Trump and Hegseth are doing is reducing waste in the procurement chain so that more dollars wind up in war. Reducing (and hopefully one day eliminating) cost-plus (CPFF, CPIF, CPAF) IDIQ contracts that provide 10% value to the DoD and 90% value to the MIC, reducing (and hopefully one day eliminating) slush funds like OCO funding that serve nobody but fraudsters like the Boeing Dragon Lady, reducing (and hopefully one day eliminating) forty-round markup sessions that leave us with useless tools like the Bradley and the Gen 1 F-35 because they've got every MIC contractor's pet project and none of what the force really wants.

Having a "fairly decent 20 year military resume" doesn't make anyone an expert on the entire US military. I'm sure you were an excellent Huey pilot, but it's pretty clear you don't have any knowledge of the larger strategic enterprise

Quote:

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If stressing a PT standard is more important than buying more Patriot missiles or funding a Golden Dome, well, he's the guy.

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All the weapon systems in the world won't overcome the little things slipping beneath the big things.

Quote:

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I've got a fairly decent 20 year military resume'

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and probably live by the culture of this is the way it's always been done

OldArmyCT said:

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inconvenient truth said:

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OldArmyCT said:

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I wonder what the tab for this meeting will come to. TDY, travel, mileage, lodging, some of those guys will fly in on military aircraft. All to listen to a radio jock who has no idea how to communicate securely.

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So emotional, cry harder.
Where was all this manufactured outrage when the last administration was spending money on a bunch of dumb **** way worse than this?

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For the record I have never voted for a Democrat in my entire life and voted for Trump twice. I also spent 20 in the Army and flew Hueys in Vietnam. But you know if they can cut the pilots and airframes out of the picture you can be sure tanks are next followed by non-mobile artillery and a lot of the storage and maintenance support that goes with it. So if you're a 12 year FA Major thinking you will retire at least as a Colonel what are you going to do? What's you're alternate specialty and is there a space somewhere you can fit into? When does the Army designate a Drone Branch? Are boots on the ground important anymore? What does a 12 year CW3 aviator do to get to 20? Why is Bell proceeding with the Valor? And yeah, the cost may be insignificant in the scheme of things but they could have fixed a lot of military quarters/barracks with some of that money. Now maybe I don't like Hegseth, well that's true, I don't, and it has nothing to do with DEI, any competent leader could have fixed DEI in the military if charged to do so. If I had my druthers I would have talked to McChrystal but no one asked me.

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You are wrong if you think the military leadership was going to fix DEI. I work closely with the army and the Biden administration destroyed the culture I knew in my 26 year service. DEI and the Biden administrative, with multiple woke generals, have made the army much less capable. I won't give Trump and Hegseth credit for bringing it to the appropriate level of readiness yet but their vision is the correct one. I now need to see them remove barriers to training and resource military training and equipment maintenance.

O.G. said:

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Hegseth may have given his speech in front of Admirals and Generals, but that wasn't his target audience.

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Louder for those in back. This speech had damn little to do with haircuts and beards.

OldArmyCT said:

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Tango.Mike said:

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OldArmyCT said:

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Hegseth talked grooming standards to include haircuts and shaving profiles. And he puts $5 worth of hair gel on his head every morning.
Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf telling every general in the US Army how to enforce PT standards? Better yet, can you imagine Hegseth telling Norm in a 1 on 1 conversation that he needs to buck up grooming and get ready to train his troops in the streets of Chicago?

---

It's going to blow your mind to learn:

- Schwarzkopf was never SecDef/War
- The CENTCOM commander (what Schwarzkopf was) is a combatant commander, not a force provider
- Hegseth is not the CENTCOM (or any unified combatant command) commander
- Hegseth is a civilian
- Lots of generals, colonels, captains, and staff sergeants comb their hair
- General/Flag officers FREQUENTLY tell their formations how to enforce all kinds of standards
- It's literally the SecDef/War's job to tell General/Flag officers how to perform
- Secretaries of War, Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. have often combed their hair

This thread is astounding even by your standards

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I've got a fairly decent 20 year military resume' so lets just agree to disagree. Most of the old school retired military I'm still in contact with are not fans of Hegseth. If I had misused classified info as a regular officer I would have been ****canned. I'd have more respect for Hegseth if he would fund the weapons needed to have the military he professes to want. If stressing a PT standard is more important than buying more Patriot missiles or funding a Golden Dome, well, he's the guy. Weapons systems are a constant, haircuts and morning PT edicts can be changed as soon as we get a new administration.

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I live near Ft. Hood and all the retirees I know, that served in the army with standards, love what he is doing. You are confused if you think his meeting was about PT. It is about lost standards in the military. I work closely with the army and they have significantly digressed over the past 4 years. Singnificantly!