Secretary of War Pete Hegseth tore into DEI and a “woke military” in a fiery speech to graduating cadets at West Point Saturday.
With President Trump considering renewed strikes against Iran, Hegseth directed his toughest talk toward military leaders who backed diversity programs he said were sapping the armed forces of strength.
Opening his remarks on a rainy day at the storied military academy overlooking the Hudson River, Hegseth ripped “woke and weak leaders trying to make West Point look like woke Princeton, which happens to be my long lost and lost alma mater.”
Hegseth, who was admitted to the military academy but picked the Ivy League school where he joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps instead, said prior leaders “embraced the DEI craze” and endangered soldiers.
“Let me be perfectly clear, you are not an ‘army of one’, and you are certainly not an army of woke. You are an American army, an army of warriors,” he said.
Speaking at an institution that trained both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, Hegseth also took a shot at woke efforts to scrub military bases and monuments of confederates generals who led the rebellion against the Union.
“You’ve seen standards lowered, you’ve seen an obsession with race and gender, you’ve seen the watering down of discipline, codes weakened, and traditions tossed aside in the name of political correctness,” he fumed.
Then he railed against “statues taken down, paintings placed in the basement. I’m here to tell you the slow slide here at West Point, and across the United States Army, is over,” Hegseth promised.
He spoke of the phrase “our diversity is our strength,” which the secretary called “the single dumbest phrase in military history.”
“Diversity is not our strength. Unity is our strength,” he said, before touting the Army meeting its recruiting goals.
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