He's got 4 stars. His command is now a 3 star command. DoW is actively working to reduce the absurd number of general officers in the force structure.

I know nothing about him personally, other than highlights of a service record that shows, like every other flag officer, he had the right assignments at the right times and performed well enough to advance. The only other thing I know about is the infamous "last man to leave AFG" pic. Which was most likely staged and is completely asinine.

He was asked to retire. He wasn't relieved. There is a difference. Force structure changes. Anyone mad about this is looking for a reason to be mad.

I don't think a self-promoting picture of being the last person leaving a complete failure of a military withdrawal is good for morale at all. I think it is shameful self-promotion at best, and every senior leader involved in that debacle should've resigned in shame 4 years ago.

It's not that he was the last one on the plane (which he absolutely should've been)… it's the staged photo op. Hal Moore didn't stop and pose for a picture to be publicized as some great achievement.

OldArmyCT said:

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I'm pretty sure Donahue didn't ask for that picture to be taken but his being the last to board the plane endeared him to a lot of his men. Hegseth has no duty to explain himself, he is after all the boss, but one has to think he has tossed out more than a few really good officers for reasons that don't compute. Compare Pete to Driscoll and ask yourself who you'd rather serve under.

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I don't see why someone "has to think" that at all. I don't know the reasons why Hegseth has removed each of the officers he has, and I really don't care. It's his prerogative.

As for comparing Hegseth to Driscoll, it's not the comparison I'd choose to make. Instead, I'd compare Hegseth to every SEDEF I served under from 1999 until my retirement last year, and I'd rather be serving under Hegseth than any of his predecessors.

In your time the list of Sec Defs included Gates, Hagel, and Mattis. To put Hegseth at the top is laughable. Leaders often try to cover their incompetence with bluster. I went to a 5th Special Forces Group change of command where GEN Abram's gave command to a leg because he did not like SF. The guy didn't last 2 weeks. Hegseth is directly responsible for a flu outbreak, he mishandled classified information and he tries to pass himself off as warrior, something real warriors, the ones who never tell you who they are, silently snicker at. I vote for our current president twice but he bungled this one.

lol, seriously? Directly responsible for a flu outbreak? You lost whatever shred of credibility you had with that.

The flu shot is about 40% effective in a good year…and this wasn't a good year. My boss, my ED, and I all have had the flu in the last month. We are all vaccinated. We all work in emergency health, and coincidentally all work within 5 miles of JBSA.

Every single SECDEF you listed contributed to a general lowering of standards, bloat in bureaucracy, and failure in leadership from their office down.

Hegseth is FAR from perfect. But if he can actually reduce bureaucracy and bloat, both in the senior ranks and the DoD civilian sectors, and actually prioritize warfighting and lethality in the formations then he will have accomplished far more than any of his predecessors in my lifetime.

Donahue 100% asked for that picture to be taken.

I flew him into Kabul and he asked to sit upstairs for the ride in (not uncommon) so he could get a "feel" for the situation and took pictures and videos the whole ride like a tourist not a mil leader. His aide was cool, he was an asshat.

He also wasn't the last person on the ground…there were several other C-17s that left after his chalk in the final ex-fil

Hegseth is way rough around the edges for a SECDEF, and under qualified as a leader to understand how to get the support of a huge bureaucracy behind him.

BUT, from the perspective of this troop, and many like me, he's been systematically targeting the tiny crap that makes military life annoying and trying to allow us to focus on our jobs as war fighters.

The flu shot is just a giant ponzi scheme to lace the pockets of big pharma with guaranteed pay outs each year for a vaccine that is historically not very effective. Military aged females and males can handle getting sick for a couple of days, it was happening anyway even with the flu shot mandate. Also, anyone who wants it can still take it, it's called freedom and after the Covid vac fiasco many of us appreciate having a leader that isn't afraid to delegate this kind of risk assumption to the individual soldier.

He's removed a bunch of CBT requirements and tried to empower units to be mission focused. Some of you would lose your minds if you knew how many days some units were wasting checking boxes on dumbass requirements mandated from above.

I'm also now allowed to take my troops lack of physical conditioning into account on the evaluations again. It's an essential part of soldiering and thank God I can now prevent people who refuse to take care of their body from promoting into leadership roles.