Maybe he does - but the rank and file have duties I'm sure, which might make obligatory PT sessions something else to cram into the schedule .

One of the first things that Unqualified Pete did as Secretary of Defense was to remove all of the then current JAG officers and replaced them with loyalists.

So any orders that the troops are given will be followed.

I see that November 3rd 2026 will be a shitstorm the likes we never seen, but it's what the people wanted.

We ain't voting our way out of this.............

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the Quantico Officers Club that evening.

Implicitly pissing on the Geneva Convention, authorizing assault on recruits, sending EO policies back to the 1970's era... this guy is wacked out of his head.

Unfortunately, he seems to have similar-minded company on all sides - not least the guy in charge who 'was right about everything'

At least Hegseth kept saying 'at my direction' - so when it all goes wrong (and it will) - there is no doubt about blame. Try rowing THAT one back, Peter !

It was also nice to hear the lack of enthusiastic applause that Trump and Hegseth thought they would receive.  Trump delivered his usual campaign rally ramblings.  That might rev up the blue collar base, but it fell flat with an audience of university or equivalent grads.  

You could definitely tell Hegseth practiced his delivery as if he was in a 'normal' presentation setting, right down to the pauses. I've seen it suggested that the presentation wasn't even as much for those in attendance but for the audience it was streamed and recorded for, which is evident by his mugging for the camera. 

But, yeah... sir, this could have been a PowerPoint in an email...

I didn't mention earlier - I worked in corporate culture for almost 40 years - we had various 'brilliant' ideas presented to us in similar circumstances ... they were all generally a sales pitch by talentless people desperate to make a difference. None of the ideas ever worked as - hey ! real world doesn't comply all the time with corporate idiocy - but thankfully none of those barmy schemes ever involved deploying the military. 

Hegseth was even worse than the poorest presenter I ever saw. Full of his own importance - emboldened by Trump's ego. Slimy, awful little man. And - as we listened to the corporate blather and knew it rang false, I am absolutely sure that the assembled military chiefs felt similarly.

A reckoning will come at some point for these tools. 

Donald though ... is severely testing my resolve. 

I'm currently reminded of the Elvis Costello song 'Tramp the Dirt Down', which he wrote as a commentary against Margaret Thatcher. Personally, Thatcher's policies helped us as a family, but I also knew folk who really struggled through unemployment and the bitter class division we had in 1980's Britain.

'And when they finally put you in the ground ; I'll stand on your grave. And tramp the dirt down"