Hegseth's Warrior Image Meets a Sentinel's Rebuke at the Tomb of the Unknowns

On Veterans Day, at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, an Army sentinel raised his voice at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's party. Hegseth, his wife and his top advisers had been laughing and talking near the memorial. As they departed, the soldier called out in their direction: all visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times.

Such rebukes happen daily at Arlington, where crowds of tourists run up against strict military protocol. What made this one stand out was its target. Hegseth may be the most stage-managed defense secretary in the department's history. Nearly everything he does, down to his wardrobe, seems built either to rally supporters or to provoke critics: the American-flag pocket squares, the patriotic socks, the slicked-back hair, the "This is War" T-shirts, and the carefully curated videos of him doing push-ups with the troops. There are a great many of those.

Against that backdrop, the unscripted moment pointed to a larger question about how the military relates to the country it serves. Hegseth is an Iraq veteran and former Fox News host who casts himself as the ultimate warrior and patriot, leading an elite force of like-minded people. Only about one percent of Americans serve in the all-volunteer military, a fact that presidents, politicians and Pentagon chiefs routinely cite in Veterans Day speeches.

Most recent defense secretaries have lamented that distance between soldiers and civilians, describing it as a potential danger to democracy and to the principle of civilian control of the military. Hegseth appears to read the gap differently, as proof of moral and physical superiority. "You are the real one percent," he told hundreds of young officers and sergeants at his "State of the Force" speech in late September. "You feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully." He paced the stage before a giant American flag, a backdrop that echoed the opening of the 1970 film about Gen. George S. Patton. "You don't want to look like civilians, because you are different," he said. "You are set apart. You are warriors."

He returned to the theme at a Tuesday news conference, where he defended himself ahead of an impeachment vote in Congress. The charges accuse him of carrying out unlawful strikes on suspected drug traffickers on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. Hegseth portrayed himself and the troops as targets of opportunistic politicians who could never understand their service. "Make no mistake about what is happening. This is not about me," he said. The true targets, he argued, were the troops who had pulled the triggers. "If they want to come for the warriors, they're going to have to come through me."

Some senior military officers, speaking anonymously to discuss a superior candidly, questioned his motives. In their view, rather than owning responsibility for his orders, the defense secretary seemed to be hiding behind the troops.

The impeachment effort did not succeed. Afterward, Hegseth and his team posted "TOTAL VICTORY!" on social media, and Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, wrote, "We will always stand tall and fight to defend the Republic!"

The sentinel's rebuke, coming in the same week, read as a counterpoint: the troops belong to no single party, president or defense secretary, but to the nation. At Tuesday's news conference Hegseth had declared that "Americans are lining up to serve in President Trump's Department of War." Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling took issue with that on a podcast. "It is not President Trump's Department of War," he said. "It doesn't belong to the president." How Hegseth keeps framing the troops as his shield against critics is the dynamic to watch in civil-military relations.