Pete Hegseth
Pete Hegseth
Peter Brian Hegsethis a former executive director of Vets For Freedom and was a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul with the Minnesota National Guard in 2011–2012. Hegseth is a FOX News Channel contributor and lost the Republican party endorsement for the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2012, to Kurt Bills. He was formerly the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America but separated with the organization...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSoldier
Date of Birth6 June 1980
CountryUnited States of America
Combat duty is strenuous and physically demanding, and I'm not the first person to notice that men and women are built differently. And while many will argue that women will only be allowed into combat arms units under the same requirements as their male counterparts, count me as skeptical.
As an infantry officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, I have led men in combat and trained them on tactics and strategy. The mission of the infantry is to 'close with, and destroy, the enemy.' Our job, in a direct way, is to fight and win wars.
In the 360-degree battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, women have served honorably and fought valiantly. Yet there is a key difference between being in harm's way and reacting to enemy contact, and being in a direct combat operations role day in and day out. They are different scenarios that require different standards.
Whether we like it or not, gender differences matter in a combat situation.
Being a defense hawk and a budget hawk are not mutually exclusive.
Peace through strength works; but the flip side is war invited by weakness.
President Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed the enemy had to be defeated. He was right.
At Concerned Veterans for America, we've made the case that the defense budget could be targeted for spending reform, but in a targeted fashion that genuinely changes unsustainable spending trajectories while preserving U.S. defense capacity.
I believe, if done correctly, eliminating Saddam and liberating Iraq could be the 'Normandy Invasion' or 'fall of the Berlin Wall' of our generation... the Iraqi people are eager to be rid of Saddam, and there is equally encouraging evidence that republican principles could thrive there.
The choices Israelis face and the decisions they make, day in and day out, are literally the difference between life and death. In many ways, I liken their reactions to the way I felt while serving in Iraq.
The incremental approach without a strategy doesn't improve the strategy.
As the publisher of the 'Tory,' I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.
Two things are to blame for our predicament, one a corollary of the other. The first reason is that we did not have enough troops in Samarra. The skill and courage of 150 American soldiers prevented chaos, but was never enough to fully secure a city of 120,000 people or maintain the rule of law [...] Second, because of a lack of troops, American military leaders are forced to make a choice between mission objectives and self-preservation.
Memorial Day isn't just about honoring veterans, its honoring those who lost their lives. Veterans had the fortune of coming home. For us, that's a reminder of when we come home we still have a responsibility to serve. It's a continuation of service that honors our country and those who fell defending it.