The Patriot Post® · Does Hegseth Have a 'General' Problem?

Perhaps it betrays an enlisted Marine’s mind that one of my favorite military quotes is also a strikingly simple one: “My duty is to obey orders.”

That was Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and he knew a thing or two about both following orders and about brilliant generalship. And it wasn’t a one-off. Jackson once reportedly gave a junior officer some stern advice on this very point: “My advice to you,” he said, “is to obey orders, no matter how unjust they may be.”

George Washington also understood the importance of following orders, especially as it concerned the big picture: “Discipline,” he said, “is the soul of an army.”

I mention these things as a backdrop to some predictable hand-wringing from the usual suspects about War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ongoing housecleaning at the Pentagon. “At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian defense leaders,” caterwauled CBS News’s Eleanor Watson, “have been fired or have departed their jobs since Pete Hegseth became defense secretary at the beginning of the second Trump administration.”

Watson continued: “Some of the military's most decorated leaders have either been fired by Hegseth and President Trump or have retired with little explanation, including the Army, Navy and Air Force's highest-ranking officers and the leaders of key units. The Army and Navy's top civilian leaders have also either been forced out or resigned.”

As the once-great George Will once put it: Well.

But there’s more from SeeBS: “The Trump administration has pushed out top female and Black officers, and Black and female officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists.”

Ah, so there’s a bit of a merit-based DEI purge going on, eh? Now we’re getting somewhere.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the American military. But the damage that eight years of Barack Obama and four years of Joe Biden did to our Armed Forces — to its esprit, its morale, its recruitment, its readiness, its ruggedness, its warfighting capability, and especially its leadership pipeline — can’t simply be shrugged off.

When Obama made his 2008 preelection promise of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America," this is exactly what he had in mind, though he’d never admit it. He had our Armed Forces squarely in his sights, because he and his fellow leftists knew that this was the most highly respected and most fundamentally conservative institution in the United States. But when it came time for the mainstream media to report on Obama’s hollowing out of our military leadership? Crickets and tumbleweeds.

This week, the Leftmedia hysterics are on the departure of a Pentagon civilian, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Driscoll was apparently concerned about the exit of some Army generals who’d been leading the push to modernize the Army. As The Atlantic reported: “During a White House meeting last week … Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump — a sign of how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated, and of the dysfunction inside the building, four people familiar with the conversation told us.

But let’s listen to Driscoll himself, shall we?

As a third-generation Army veteran, it has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as the Secretary of the Army under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. … I had the privilege of working with them to modernize and accelerate how the Army mans, trains, and equips the most lethal fighting force on the face of the earth. We could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth. I am forever grateful to President Trump for the opportunity to once again serve my country.

Next man up. Apparently, though, Driscoll’s dignified words weren’t good enough for one Senate “Republican” — an outgoing chamber-of-commerce RINO milquetoast named Thom Tillis: “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”

Those are stern words from the Trump-deranged Tillis, and they merely confirm that Secretary Hegseth is directly over the target.

Tillis went on to “urge” President Trump to fire Hegseth. And I’m sure the commander-in-chief will give that advice the attention it deserves.

When Tom Cotton or Wesley Hunt or Brian Mast or Ronny Jackson start calling Pete Hegseth inept, then I’ll pay attention. In the meantime, Mr. War Secretary, keep on keepin’ on.