It’s hard to truly imagine how humiliating it must be for America’s top brass to have Pete Hegseth as their boss. The newly christened “Secretary of War” is one of the Trump administration’s most ridiculous figures, and for decorated military figures having to answer to him must be excruciating. Hegseth began his role with a bang by accidentally including the editor of The Atlantic in a top-secret group chat, and recently cemented his bad reputation with a truly loopy speech to America’s top military figures. This saw him raving about “maximum lethality” and the “warrior ethos”, emphasizing that “violence” will be part of life in his new Department of War, saying under him the Pentagon will be known for its “violence, precision and ferocity”. The audience was singularly unimpressed and, courtesy of a new report in the right-leaning Washington Times, those in attendance are now anonymously speaking out. A “current Army general” summed up the mood: “[The speech] was a massive waste of time. … If he ever had us, he lost us.” Other senior sources deemed it “embarrassing” and “below our institution”. Note the outlet here. https://t.co/xN20tjAcN7— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 21, 2025 They also zeroed in on his fixation on the beauty standards and fitness of America’s soldiers: “F**king haircuts…” groaned one Army general, with another deeming this “the mentality of a midgrade officer”. A current senior officer explained that Hegseth’s micromanagement and insistence on ideological conformity is actively damaging America’s military: “Across the services, we are bleeding talent, talented generals and flag officers, for what appears to be the opposite of a meritocracy. There are people being held back from promotions, or being fired, or removed for sometimes unknown reasons, often for favoritism, or just simple relationships.” How long can he last? For many, the writing is on the wall when it comes to Hegseth’s future, so they’re just counting down the days until he’s inevitably fired from the job. When discussing the damage he’s doing to America’s war preparedness, one current officer hoped it could be undone soon: “I hope all of this is temporary. Who knows how long he’ll be in the position and how much damage he can do.” Hegseth’s Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, addressed the anonymous figures quoted in the piece and told them they should resign: “The anonymous general and senior officer quoted in your article should put their names to their comments if that’s what they truly believe in and consider resigning from their post.” In the meantime, I guess we have to just live with the fact that America’s Secretary of War seems to be collapsing into a paranoid and twitching whirlwind of fury and resentment. Ah, what’s the worst that could happen?