Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to motivate the troops on Saturday by sharing advice from a Marine who had been relieved of his duty after the military lost “confidence in his ability to lead.”
Hegseth, who has spent his tenure at the DOD attempting to install what he calls “warrior ethos” in the military to eliminate “woke,” has spent the last three weeks going to bat for Trump’s war in Iran.
On Saturday, he shared an old video of Marine Christian Barry Bull telling the troops to leave their feelings at home if they are called to fight in a war.
“Everybody wants my friggin opinion on what’s going on in the country right now. I’m not going to give it to you,” Bull states in the video filmed from his car.
“You know what I am going to tell you? If you’re a marine, if you’re a service member of this country, the United States of America, you got one freaking overall job and one overall mission: It’s to be combat ready,” he declared.
“If the balloon goes up, you and me, and every freaking body else, we’re getting on a plane, we’re getting on a ship, and we’re going to go forward,” Bull said. “And you know what? You’re going to leave every freaking thing that you got here stateside behind, and that includes your feelings about everything.”
“Don’t freaking forget it!” he signs off the video.
Bull was relieved from his military duties in 2021 following a viral video in which he entered another Marine’s home without permission.
“Sgt. Maj. [Christian] Bull was relieved due to the loss of confidence in his ability to lead,” a Marine Corps spokesman said in a statement at the time.
“It is a necessity to enforce standards and expectations and to ensure that 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing provides strong and effective leadership to promote operational excellence, trust, and combat readiness,” the statement continued.
Hegseth was widely mocked online for sharing the video, given Bull’s past.
“Good to see the SECDEF is staying right on top of things during a war,” Tom Nicholes, staff writer at the Atlantic, posted.
“This video reposted by defense Secretary Hegseth is from 2021 and is from a former Marine who broke into the home of another Marine and was relieved of duty,” a Politico reporter posted.
The Daily Beast reached out to the Pentagon for comment.
The video Hegseth reposted, which urges troops to be ready for combat at all times, comes as he and the president have refused to rule out putting boots on the ground in Iran.
Earlier this month, Hegseth completely dismissed a reporter’s line of questioning about troops potentially being inside Iran.
“We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said.
“I think it’s one of those fallacies for a long time that this department or presidents or others should tell the American enemies, by the way, here’s exactly what, here’s exactly how long we’ll go, here’s exactly how far we’ll go, here’s what we’re willing to do and not do — it’s foolishness,” he complained.
During his press briefings on the war, Hegseth has consistently spent large chunks of time complaining about the media’s coverage of Trump’s war in Iran.
At the start of the conflict, he complained that the media had been portraying the war in a bad light because news outlets had covered the deaths of U.S. troops.
“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” he ranted. “I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad.”
