A former Lieutenant General in the United States Army has taken aim at President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for breaking an unwritten rule of military discipline during a public address yesterday.
Hegseth summoned all a large number of armed forces to Quantico, Virginia, and delivered a speech about the future of the forces.
Not everyone was as impressed as the Trump administration would have hoped.
Ex-Army leader wasn’t happy with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth
During his speech, Donald Trump covered a lot of ground - as he likes to do during his public addresses - including stating that there are ‘two N words’.
The second is nuclear, by the way.
However, Hegseth caught a lot of attention for his calls to end the ‘woke’ practises of the military, taking aim at everything from female armed forces staff to beards.
One particular thing didn’t sit right with retired US Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who didn’t hold back in his criticism of Hegseth’s speech.
He even went as far as to say that some might disobey the commands that the Secretary of War made, and claimed that they broke an unwritten code of military discipline during the speech.
Speaking on MSNBC, Hertling said Trump was clearly ‘rattled’ by the response in the room, and said that Hegseth had essentially called upon the leaders to violate the oath of service that they took.
“But truthfully, those individuals will leave that room or left that room yesterday and they'll start discussing and analyzing how they can implement some of the lawful orders that they got,” he explained.
"You know, okay, great, we can buck up the standards.
“We can take a look at the kinds of things to get some soldiers, not all, certainly not even the majority, back in better shape. Take a look at what our ranks look like.
“But there were also soldiers and, well, all ranks of services, in that audience that said, wait a minute.
“When they were writing down the same kind of checklist that I was writing down, saying, wait a minute, we can't do that, or we shouldn't do that, or this is a true violation of what we are as professionals or, hey, I've got women in my ranks who are performing admirably.
“Why should I kind of lump them all together like the secretary did? Or I'm certainly now going to debate with myself, what am I going to say if I'm asked to go on the street and conduct illegal actions?”
“And I guarantee you that the people in that audience will not execute illegal orders,” he added.
The unwritten rule of US Army discipline broken by Trump and Hegseth
Hertling continued: “But at the same time, all of them, not only were they personally embarrassed, but they were embarrassed for their services that had, you know, sit in that audience and listen to this kind of stuff,
“That's the worst part of all this.
“You know, there's a saying in the military that's a great leadership dictum: ‘You praise in public and you discipline in private.’
“This was a disciplinary approach in public with cameras, so the whole nation could see. And it was an attempt at separating the military institution from the people that they defend.”
It remains to be seen what further changes Trump and Hegseth plan to implement within the US military, but it is clear that nothing they suggest will be without controversy, both within and without the ranks.
Featured image credit: Fox News