Pete Hegseth Orders Meeting With Hundreds Of Generals

Something big appears to be going on in Washington, or maybe even the world, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is being pretty hush-hush about it.

According to the Washington Post, Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, which is short notice for a meeting that would include some 800 top military officials who are spread out across the U.S. and several other countries. The directive was issued by Pentagon officials last week, as confirmed by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.

Of course, all Parnell actually confirmed was that the order happened and that Hegseth “will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” but he offered no other details, which reportedly has military officials concerned and frustrated due to the inconvenience and possible dangers of having so many top military leaders leave their posts, as due to how highly unusual such an order is.

From the Post:

Top commanders in conflict zones and senior military leaders stationed throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region are among those expected to attend Hegseth’s meeting, said people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. The order does not apply to top military officers who hold staff positions.

“All general officers in command in grade O-7 through O-10 and their general officer senior enlisted advisers are directed to attend within operational constraints,” the order states, according to one person who saw a copy. O-7 through O-10 refers to the military’s classification for all generals and admirals.

None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns.

“People are very concerned. They have no idea what it means,” one person said.

Others expressed frustration that even many commanders stationed overseas will be required to attend Hegseth’s impromptu summit, with some questioning the wisdom in doing so. “It will make the commands just diminished if something pops up,” a defense official said.

The Post also noted that the Defense Department typically uses “highly secure videoconferencing technology” when military officials who are stationed around the world need to correspond with the White House or the Pentagon, making it all the more odd that Hegseth has called for hundreds of officials to meet at this specific military facility in Virginia.

“You don’t call GOFOs ( general officers and flag officers) leading their people and the global force into an auditorium outside D.C. and not tell them why/what the topic or agenda is,” one official said.

“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now?” another official said. “All of it is weird.”

Besides the fact that Hegseth is apparently doing big things in ways they’re not usually done, much of the concern behind his directive must stem from the fact that his qualifications to be a defense secretary have always been in doubt, and a number of actions he has taken since he’s been in the role — including his sharing of confidential military business through unsecure Signal chats, his firing of senior military leaders without cause as part of a directive to reduce the number of general officers by 20%, and his obsession with ending “wokeness” in the military — have done little to remove that doubt.

But, hey, maybe the defense secretary, whose idea it was to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War, has a really good reason to issue such an extreme directive for such an extreme meeting.

We’ll have to wait and see.

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