At next week’s unusual gathering of several hundred senior U.S. Generals and Admirals, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will unveil details of the Trump administration’s reinvention of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War” and deliver his message of restoring the “warrior ethos” to the military and present new standards toward that goal, according to U.S. officials.
Many of the senior military officers will come to the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, from all over the United States and from around world to hear Hegseth in an event that could last just 30 minutes, according to two officials.
ABC News has previously reported that only officers in command positions and not staff positions are being summoned to the gathering and that they will also be joined by the senior enlisted adviser in that unit.
Five U.S. officials told ABC News that the rare gathering will allow Hegseth to personally tell the officers about the warrior ethos he envisions for the U.S. military and the path forward.
“It’s meant to be a show of force of what the new military now looks like under the president,” a White House official told CNN.
The meeting is expected to resemble “a pep rally” where Hegseth will underscore the importance of the “warrior ethos” and outline a new vision for the US military, said three of the sources. He is expected to discuss new readiness, fitness and grooming standards the officers are expected to adhere to and enforce.
“It’s about getting the horses into the stable and whipping them into shape,” said a defense official familiar with the planning. “And the guys with the stars on their shoulders make for a better audience from an optics standpoint. This is a showcase for Hegseth to tell them: get on board, or potentially have your career shortened.”
That will also include a discussion of new standards associated with how to achieve that goal and how the U.S. military will conduct itself.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson declined to comment to ABC News about what Hegseth planned to discuss at Tuesday’s meeting.
Restoring the warrior ethos to the U.S. military is a message that Hegseth delivers regularly during his speaking engagements in the U.S. and abroad.
While it is common for Hegseth and previous defense secretaries to meet with generals and admirals during their travels or at the Pentagon, it is unusually rare for so many high-ranking officers to be gathered at one location to hear from the defense secretary.
Overall, there are 838 total general officers and admirals on active duty — 446 of them are from the higher two-star, three-star and four-star ranks — according to the Pentagon’s latest statistics from June, though it is difficult to ascertain a breakdown of how many officers are in command positions versus staff positions.
Several questions have been raised about the increased security requirements that will be needed at the large Marine base located 35 miles south of Washington, D.C.
Questions have also been raised about the significant travel and lodging costs that would be associated with transporting so many senior military officers and their senior enlisted advisers to Quantico, said two U.S. officials.
Video of Tuesday’s meeting will be recorded by the Pentagon for future public distribution, according to officials.
The invitations that went out to officers in command positions earlier this week did not disclose a reason or topic as to why they were being summoned to the gathering in Quantico.
In recent years, Hegseth, an Army veteran, has repeatedly expressed disdain for general and flag officers, accusing them of being responsible for injecting “woke” politics into US military culture.
Because of that, speculation among military officials had been rampant about the topic for the meeting and whether it was related to his earlier announcement this year of a 20% reduction in the number of officers of four-star rank.
Concerns had also been raised about his previous removal of 15 senior military officers from their posts, including Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, Jr. the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top admiral.
Written with reports from ABC News, CNN
