The argument Pete Hegseth wasn’t qualified to be Secretary of Defense was always nonsense. There are no statutory qualifications. The SecDef serves at the president’s pleasure and is expected to implement his agenda. But he lacks experience managing huge organizations! So what? While generals ostensibly manage big organizations, they do it by delegating to innumerable officers and noncoms. Hegseth was an officer who served multiple combat deployments and earned the Bronze Star. He’s undeniably smart, patriotic and determined to return our military to its real mission. He knows which officers are posing ass-kissers and unearned medal racks and which are warriors. Those are the qualifications that matter, and they mattered immediately:

In a historic moment for the US Army, recruitment has surged to a level not seen or reported in the past 15 years, setting a new milestone for the organization.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to social media to announce that the service achieved its “best recruiting numbers” last month — its highest since 2010.

The numbers surpassed a 12-year record set in December 2024, when the service said it enlisted nearly 350 soldiers per day.

Hegseth credited the surge to President Donald Trump, asserting that America’s youth are now eager to serve under a “bold and strong, America-first leadership.”

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Former, frequently AWOL SecDef Lloyd Austin, a general, assured us DEI, drag queens, trans, pronouns and the like were our strength and had no role in suppressing recruitment and retention. Like so much else, he was laughably wrong, and in behaving like a prissy, less than manly germaphobe, laughable. 

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Get rid of wokeness, which Hegseth did immediately and continues to do, and young Americans suddenly find the desire to serve their country again. Who could have imagined that? The young Americans anxious to join a real military rather than a Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) parody of a military. They’ll fight and die for a country worthy of their sacrifice, not for the cross-dressing mentally ill and their enablers.

Our troops have always been able to tell the difference between a D/s/c poser and the real thing, a SecDef who understands and cares about them:

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That’s Hegseth, without a mask or face shield, doing daily PT with our troops, something Austin never could or would do.

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That’s Hegseth running with the troops. The pleasure on their faces comes from knowing Hegseth was one of them, is one of them, and gives a damn about them and their mission. It’s also because they, and he, recognize he’s no longer in their kind of shape, which he readily admitted in appreciation of them. Still, they honored his effort and presence, just as he honored them:

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Recruiting ads under Hegseth have also taken a turn for the better:

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Young Americans have always looked to the military to instill a sense of belonging and purpose, to discipline them, make them stronger, smarter, better than they were. They want adventure, to achieve great things. Mastering faux pronouns has never been among them. The military has always served to give them a sense of responsibility, to make them men and women ready to be productive citizens who love their country. 

Lloyd Austin, doing the bidding of Joe Biden’s handlers, betrayed them, betrayed us all. He reflected D/s/c division and hatred of America and Americans. His “strengths” were weaknesses our enemies, domestic and foreign, exploited. His kind of experience in managing large organizations translated into plummeting recruitment and retention, badly diminished readiness and effectiveness and a near complete loss of world-wide deterrence.

Hegseth, a real warrior and patriot, a real American leader, is restoring all of that and more, and like Donald Trump, doing it in record time and none too soon. Under Biden’s handlers and Austin, our enemies greedily eyed their long-time prizes, confident our weak military and civilian leaders would make their totalitarian goals achievable. Only our technological superiority restrained them to any degree. 

Under Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, deterrence, and America, are back.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.