The officer ranks, especially generals and admirals, have been top-heavy for too long. On Wednesday, during a speech at the Pentagon, Secretary of War Hegseth announced that there will be a 20% reduction in the number of officers. He’s right. This is something that is long overdue.

Keep in mind, our military has not been focused on readiness over the last few years. Instead the focus has been on climate change, DEI, transgenders within the ranks, forcing good soldiers out for not taking the Covid shot, and more.

Too many good soldiers left the service because of policies like that that. Military readiness, capability, and lethality suffered. And don’t get me started on the Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq that put our soldiers at risk.

Critics immediately started whining about how this was not going to change the military for the better.

RIDICULOUS exaggeration.

The only things Hegseth is doing is REMOVING culture war battles from our nation's military.

The invasion of America's military by the racist, sexist, xenophobic, bigoted principles of DEI was the very worst instance of the politicization of America's… https://t.co/HryM8q7Jxw

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) October 1, 2026

The military is supposed to be LETHAL. It is supposed to be ready to go to battle immediately should it be necessary. A military is never a place where any kind of “culture battle” should take place.

Yet, our military is top-heavy when it comes to admirals and generals. To the tune of 4X more than at the end of World War II.

RE: Pete Hegseth’s Cut of 20% of Generals & Admirals

According to Grok, in 1945 generals and admirals represented 0.017% of the total active US military.

In 2026, that percentage is 0.065%

For you political science majors out there, that basically means that we have four times…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) September 30, 2026

David Ignatius of The Washington Post actually likes a significant portion of Hegseth’s plans. What he doesn’t like is that the military will lose “good” officers. He claims the only ones left will blindly support Hegseth’s policies no matter what.

The damaging part is Hegseth’s rage against senior military leaders. He has dismissed 26 generals and admirals since he became defense secretary and blocked or withheld the promotions of about 55 others, according to a careful count by a congressional official who helps oversee the Pentagon. This purge has driven out some of the military’s most respected combat veterans — the very warriors Hegseth claims he wants to support.

Hegseth said Wednesday he wants to go further and slash a total of 20 percent from the general officer ranks. “The number crunchers say we fired 10 percent of the generals and admirals across the force, and that number sounds about right,” he said. “We’ve also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10 percent. So yes, 20 percent reduction across the board.”

Our military needs strong leadership. What our military needs and must have are strong leaders who put military readiness and lethality above politics.

There are politicians out there that fail to understand that.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA analyst, said Wednesday that by any standard, Hegseth is carrying out a “purge” at the Pentagon.

“And what I’ve been hearing from people inside the department is just how bad morale is. How many folks in uniform, extremely promising people, who are people of color or women just feel like there’s no way they’ll ever get ahead; that they’ll always be perceived as a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] case, no matter how fantastic a job they do,” Slotkin told reporters.

Elissa is one of the Seditious Six, so of course she’s against anything and everything that Pete Hegseth is doing to ensure our Department of War is truly a lethal Department of WAR. Her cohort, Mark Kelly feels the same, and took the opportunity to take a potshot at Hegseth.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), a 25-year Navy veteran and former astronaut who drew Hegseth’s wrath after the senator urged military officers to resist any illegal orders, put it plainly in an interview: “He holds some sort of grievance against senior military officers, perhaps because he wasn’t one himself.”

Kelly has no standing here. None whatsoever.

What’s telling is that many of those who are oh so concerned about what Hegseth is doing and planning to do, were completely fine with Sec Def Austin parading around wearing 3 types of masks while in full uniform, going AWOL several times, and having zero problems with our military’s lack of readiness. Then there was former Joint Chief Mark Milley. If he had a problem with Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, he didn’t say. Instead he was fine with putting all our troops at risk and leaving BILLIONS in military equipment behind for the Taliban to get hold of and either use or sell.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of those generals and admirals facing the chopping block are those who were totally fine with the ranks being dumbed down and having to endure power point presentations about white rage.

The U.S. Army’s erstwhile “Commander’s Assessment Program” was a colossal failure. A “toxic” leadership screener that couldn’t differentiate between hard and corrosive leadership types, so it screened out both.

What remained were leaders who could go along to get along. Leaders… https://t.co/fTPM2eLhmD

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) October 1, 2026

Yes, too many “leaders” went along to get along and nab that next promotion. And that kind of “leadership” sent many very good soldiers into retirement. InfantryDort nails it here. 

Was it “competence, civility, honesty, and integrity” when the military:

>divided the formation through DEI
>hosted drag shows on bases and called them essential to readiness
>ordered a force wide extremism stand down aimed at the ranks
>separated thousands over a COVID shot and denied nearly every religious exemption
>paid for sex change surgeries
>told the academies to teach “white rage”

You people are the absolute worst. Why? Because you’ll bow down to a leader who will say the worst things imaginable in a calm “professional” tone, and you give them a pass because they make you feel good when they say it.

You hear someone in measured tones state “I want more transsexuals in the military because equality, diversity, fair, justice” and you clap like a retarded baby seal.

Then you hear someone viscerally say “No trannies, fatties, beardos, weirdos” and you gasp like someone kicked your dog.

That’s the key. Look very carefully at who is and isn’t whining about Hegseth’s plan to cull the ranks of generals and admirals.

Democrat Jason Crow is fear mongering after Pete Hegseth removed woke DEI policies by purging over 80 generals and admirals from the Pentagon. Let's not forget the military doesn't need DEI it needs standards & merit. Something Democrats are allergic to at this point. Which is… pic.twitter.com/7y8UqciIBB

— DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) September 7, 2026

When you have members of the Seditious Six clutching pearls over this, it speaks volumes.

Feature Photo Credit: U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons