https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/10/laurence-m-vance/what-pete-hegseth-should-have-said-about-the-military/

What Pete Hegseth Should Have Said About the Military

By Laurence M. Vance

On the last day of September, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summoned about 800 generals, admirals, commanders, officers, and senior enlisted leaders of the U.S. military from around the world to a meeting at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.

“Good morning and welcome to the War Department because the era of the Department of Defense is over,” began Hegseth.

I’ve got news for Secretary Hegseth, there never was an era of the Department of Defense. The DOD was formed by the National Security Act of 1947, which set up a single Secretary of Defense over the Army, the Navy, and the newly established Air Force. (The Marine Corps is part of the Navy but has its own commandant.) The last time the United States actually declared war on a country for “defensive” purposes was during World War II when it declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor and then declared war on the other axis powers of Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Department of Defense has always been a Department of Offense and Intervention: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Grenada, Honduras, Libya, Persian Gulf, Panama, Colombia, Philippines, Bosnia, Somalia, Macedonia, Haiti, Kuwait, East Timor, Serbia, Yemen, Syria, and, most recently, Iran.

Not one of these military actions was in defense of the United States. They were all done to carry out a reckless, belligerent, and meddling foreign policy. ......