Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times,
Secretary of War Hegseth’s Sept. 30 State of the Force speech was refreshingly blunt, but it was also extremely informative. On the blunt side of things, Hegseth let the sergeants, chiefs, and junior officers know that the U.S. military was done with the woke mindset that had been destroying its fighting power:
“We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors. Just tough, ready, committed troops.”
He framed last year’s historic speech as a break from “the Defense Department of old” and “liberation day [from the DEI/woke mindset],” stating that the War Department’s mission was “war fighting. Preparing to fight and preparing to win, unrelenting, unapologetic, and uncompromising in that single pursuit.”
The Golden Rule
Encouragingly, just as he did a year ago in his Sept. 30, 2025, speech to generals and admirals, he stated civilian and military leadership were morally obligated to follow the Golden Rule:
“Do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want them serving in a unit where standards were lowered to meet quotas? Or a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance, or war fighting? The answer is not just no. The answer is hell no.”
But along with his emphasis on rooting out the corrosive DEI/woke mindset that was seriously damaging America’s fighting ability, Hegseth made a whole bunch of announcements and claims, including:
- Recruiting is at multi-decade highs across the active force, Guard, and Reserve, and retention is at record levels, including among sailors on long deployments.
- About 10 percent of generals and admirals have been removed, and general-officer billets cut by another 10 percent, for a reduction of about 20 percent.
- Standards from around 1990 are back, including gender-neutral combat standards set at the previous male level, a combat field test, two fitness tests a year, height and weight standards, and daily physical training.
- Diversity quotas, identity observances, and social-emotional leader evaluations have been dropped in favor of merit-based promotion and a performance test for colonels seeking general rank.
- Military sexual assaults and suicides are down, and black and female recruiting are up even without quotas.
- Commanders report more authority, capability, and backing than at any point in their careers.
- Autonomous Warfare Command: A new four-star command dedicated to deploying autonomous and robotic systems across the joint force, slated for full launch by Oct. 1, 2027.
- Project Meridian: A comprehensive 120-day future warfare study co-led by high-profile figures including Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich, with findings expected in late January 2027.
- Fortress America: An initiative focusing on domestic base resilience by requiring major U.S. installations to self-generate power, bringing critical supply chains home, and hardening communications.
- The Next Great American Base: A competitive program encouraging state governors to vie to host a new installation for 15,000 to 25,000 troops, marking the first new domestic military base in approximately 40 years.
- America’s Corps of Cadets, with distinguished-military-college status and commissioning priority for new programs at Louisiana State, Liberty, Tuskegee, Mississippi State, and Hillsdale.
- An Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to the Secretary, charged with protecting chaplain funding, chapel infrastructure, and religious support.
Recruiting and Retention Up Bigly
Many of the announcements warrant a whole article, if not a book, but the claims on recruiting and retention will be addressed here. Hegseth said the turnaround is “wildly popular both inside our ranks and with young Americans looking from the outside,” and that retention is at record rates. As an implied rebuke to the exaggerated narrative of how bad things had been aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, he noted the ship had an 84.4 percent reenlistment rate – among the highest of any aircraft carrier despite being at sea for more than 260 days. But beyond the one ship, Hegseth noted that when it comes to recruiting, every branch has been setting records since President Donald Trump won in November 2024: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, National Guard, Reserves, pilots, and special forces.
Indeed, all five active-duty services met or exceeded their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals, the strongest department-wide performance in about 15 years. The Army signed about 62,050 recruits, the Navy about 44,096, and the Air Force about 30,166, with both the Marine Corps and Space Force meeting their goals of 26,600 and 819, respectively. Through the first part of fiscal 2026, the services were still at or above their retention goals. The Air Force, for example, has been maintaining retention rates of between 85 and 90 percent.
Hegseth attributes the success in recruiting and retention to restored confidence in military leadership rather than bonuses: Americans enlist and stay, he argued, when they are led by “strong patriots, not by weak weirdos,” and when promotion is merit-based. With recruiting and retention up, Hegseth made the case, a strong case, that Trump’s support for restoring the warrior culture of the U.S. military reversed a downward slide and replaced it with an upward trend in competence, readiness, and warfighting. The new commands, bases, and pipelines matter, but for men and women that comprise the backbone of the military, what mattered more was the promise that he and Trump have their back, and that the people fighting beside them will be there because they meet the higher, revitalized standards, not a quota, and that the same rule will apply to the leaders giving the orders.
And that is the way it should be – period.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2026 – 08:45
