Defense secretary’s speech touching on physical fitness and doctrine of lethality was seen as ‘egotistical’ and ‘dangerous’

Naveed Shah, a veteran and activist who served as an enlisted public affairs specialist – an army journalist – uncharacteristically found himself searching for words to describe the address of the newly styled secretary of war to flag officers on Tuesday.

“A lot of the words that are coming to me aren’t fit to print,” said Shah, policy director for Common Defense, a veterans advocacy organization. “The people in that room who have served for 20, 30-plus years in uniform do not need Pete Hegseth to tell them about warrior ethos.”

Hegseth’s hour-long Ted talk-style address touching on physical fitness, the doctrine of lethality and the perils of DEI certainly drew more attention than a policy memo might have, and perhaps more than Donald Trump’s rambling, politically charged hour-long speech that followed.