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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hauled every U.S. flag officer—generals and admirals, more than 800 of them—into Quantico. Not a Zoom, not a memo, not a mil-spec Teams call where everybody’s muted and nobody knows it. In person. Fly in, sit down, look the man in the eye.

Why? Because he wanted to deliver a change of era, not just a change of policy.

There was plenty of speculation beforehand—some of it silly (coup, anyone?). I told you last week the simplest answer was the right one: he was going to reset the culture of the U.S. military. And that’s exactly what he did. Trump showed up and spoke too, but let’s be honest—his improv rallies don’t land like a disciplined, written, memorized commander’s brief. Hegseth’s remarks were the speech I’ve been praying to hear from a SecDef—or in this case, a Secretary of War—since before the Obama years.

From Defense to War

Hegseth’s core thesis was simple enough to tattoo on a forearm: we fight wars to win. Defense is constant; war is rare, decisive, and done on our terms. We do not hobble warfighters with needlessly restrictive rules of engagement. We intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and—if necessary—kill the enemies of the United States. Full stop.

That’s not bloodlust. That’s clarity. And clarity saves lives—ours.

The Standards Are Back (and Some of You Won’t Like It)

This is where some folks in that auditorium started sweating through their Class As.

Hegseth rolled out ten directives—think of them as the “1991 Test.” If you served back then, you know the vibe: meritocracy, combat readiness, no social engineering, no endless PowerPoints replacing range time.

• One combat standard. Every designated combat-arms job returns to the highest male standard of performance—because physics doesn’t care about feelings. Women who meet the standard? Welcome. But there’s no “pink PT chart” in a firefight.

A lot went down over the weekend: a cluster of targeted violent incidents nationwide, and a political fistfight over President Trump’s decision to federalize 200 Oregon National Guard soldiers for duty in Portland under Title 10.

Online, the usual chorus is screaming “authoritarian!” and “fascist!” Let’s slow down, look at what’s actually happening, and stack it against history and the law.

What Trump Ordered — And Why It Matters

• The order: At the request of DHS, the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth federalized roughly 200 Oregon Guard troops to help protect federal facilities in Portland (notably the ICE facility) and restore order around recurring violent “protests.”

• Immediate response: Oregon’s governor, Portland’s mayor Keith Wilson, and a constellation of activist groups filed lawsuits alleging constitutional violations and abuse of the Insurrection Act.

• The rhetoric: Social feeds lit up with claims this is a “loyalty test,” “martial law,” and a “dry run” for wider crackdowns.

Reality check: Courts have long given presidents wide discretion to define when conditions for the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 251–253) are met. If federal law is being obstructed, federal property attacked, or civil rights denied and local authorities are unwilling or unable to act, the President may federalize Guard units and even deploy active-duty forces. That’s black-letter law, not a Twitter take.

“Isn’t That Posse Comitatus?” Yes — And No