November 13, 2024 • 34 mins
A veteran of the Army National Guard, Pete Hegseth served for two decades, embodying dedication to his country. A proud son of Minnesota, he’s the author of American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free and a well-known co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend. Pete’s unwavering commitment to defending American values and freedoms makes him a powerful voice in the fight to preserve our way of life.
President-Elect Donald Trump nominated Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.
“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation with one of America’s most influential defenders.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
On this episode of Newts World. The origins of the
Memorial Day date back to eighteen sixty eight. Commander in
Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the
Republic issued General Order Number eleven designating May thirtieth as
a Memorial Day quote for the purpose of strewing the
flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died
(00:25):
in defense of their country during the Late Rebellion, and
whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and
hamlet churchyard in the land. In nineteen seventy one, an
Act of Congress changed the observance of the holiday to
the last Monday in May and extended the honor to
all soldiers who died in American wars. Today, national observance
(00:47):
of the holidays still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery,
with the placing of a wreath of the tomb of
the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with
a small American flag. So while many Americans think of
it as a weekend that marks the start of summer
parades and backyard gatherings with family and friends, please also
remember why Memorial Day was established to honor those men
(01:11):
and women who gave their life in service to our
country and to protect our freedoms. As part of our
Memorial Day episode, I wanted to invite back someone who
is a true American patriot. He served in the Army
National Guard for two decades until last month. He is
a proud son of Minnesota, the author of American Crusade,
Our Fight to Stay Free, and Fox and Friends Weekend
(01:34):
co host. I'm really pleased to welcome back my guest
and good friend, Pete Hegseth. Pete, welcome back on mister speaker.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thank you for having me, always an honor.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm curious because you have so many experiences, and I
love watching when you're off at some breakfast place talking
to people you've probably talked to more everyday Americans and
almost anyone I know in your heart, what does it
mean to you to have Memorial Day?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Memorial Day crystallizes it all for me.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And you're right when you're talking to everyday Americans, it's
the type of day that means a great deal to
them because they're still tethered to how precious our American experiment,
this mission of freedom really is. When I think of
Memorial Day, these days and for many years, I ask myself,
and I hope people ask themselves the same thing. You know,
(02:40):
my living worthy of the sacrifice that previous generations gave
at the altar of freedom.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's a gut check.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's a gut check that day, but also a reminder
for the upcoming year that all the things that we have,
all the opportunities we have here. Yes, we declared our
independence with a bold document from brilliant minds. It was
the gritty men and women who are willing to pick
up a musket or a rifle. It was the men
and women who picked up machine guns and grades and
(03:09):
got on ships and deployed around the globe, knowing that
when they left they may not come home, and many
of them have not.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Billions of Americans over.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
The course of time have sacrificed their lives so that
we can live free. And when you realize our republic
is not that old, it's young, two hundred and forty
odd years young. And yet you look at the scope
of the gift that has been given of human being,
human souls, Americans who were willing to die so that
we can be here today. It encapsulates the gravity of
(03:41):
this holiday that we have to work really hard to
make sure our kids and grandkids understand and appreciate fully
that they know that it's more than a backyard barbecue.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I love the backyard barbecues and all the gatherings
that happen.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think celebration is a part of what we should
do for those of us who have our lives here
in America today.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Joy it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
But man, we better be drilling into the minds. I
love the history that you read up at the beginning,
new about where this came from, what it was meant
to recognize. And I've had my own special moments of
Memorial Day, but each in our own way pass on
to the next generation so they get the gravity of
what it took to get us to this place.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm really curious because I've watched you for years, and
you have a remarkable talent for speaking with people, for
getting things down to a kind of common everyday understanding.
This clearly grew out of your very being. I mean,
it seems to me that somehow, when you were very young,
you understood and you valued patriotism and you valued service.
(04:46):
Where do you think that came from?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I got to give it to my family and to
faith and to community. I mean, my mom and dad
are just hard working everyday folks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
My dad was a high.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
School gym teacher and a basketball coach, and my mom
stayed home. And it wasn't an overtly political household, but
it was patriotic, it was hard working, it was truly
rooted and invested in Christian faith and just go out
and be good people according to the Gospel. And I'll
tell you there's a reason I'm a big believer in
civic ritual parades fireworks, because I know that left a
(05:18):
big imprint on my heart. And one particular example is
a small town of one Mingo, Minnesota. It's nowhere southern Minnesota.
It's a small farming town. It's where both of my
parents grew up. And they would hold parades throughout the year,
but the biggest.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
One in town was the Memorial Day parade.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And again I can't underscore how small a town this is,
but they had a huge, wide main street and they
would have a Memorial Day parade and the whole town.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Would come out. We didn't live there at the time,
but we'd always go back to our grandparents.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Stand by the side of the road and it would
be the line of veterans from that town with the
band in front. And it's one of these blinket you
miss it, mister speakers. It's not long. But what you
had was the entire town, hundreds of people standing as
these vets World War two vets, then Korean War vets,
then Vietnam vets, and then you had Gulf War vets
(06:08):
who were young and still fitting into their uniforms marching
down that parade, and everyone would stand and revere them
for their service. But of course that parade ended at
Memorial Park, where all those men and women in uniform
would give honor to those who didn't make it home.
And I remember they would read the names and talk
about the lives of the people that were no longer there.
(06:29):
And I don't know if it hit me then, but
it certainly hits me now. But it left an imprint
on me. Holy, this is tiny Oneamingo, Minnesota, and these
are the list of names of people in this town
and in the county who never came home. Imagine amplifying
that across every small town across America. It started to
give me a sense I, just as a kid watched
the way the town revered those vets and those military members,
(06:51):
and I thought, man, they've done something special, something bigger
than this town, bigger than themselves.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That seems really important to me. I didn't come from
a military family at all.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I couldn't tell you the difference between the Army and
the Marine Corps when I graduated high.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
School, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So when Donald Trump talked about things like military parades,
there's a reason why I truly believe in those things,
and they need to happen because they're special events that
you don't otherwise get in your life that remind you
about the things that a society is supposed to value,
back to basics of our military, of our flag. So
recapturing those and doing more of that, I think is
(07:29):
truly important. But I benefited a great deal from serving
the military. It's the best education I've ever received. Is
every background, every socio economics said, every race who was
dedicated to something bigger than themselves. And you know the
other thing is I love doing the diners because just
relating to people where they're at and hearing their stories
and talking about the things that really motivate them and
(07:51):
animate them. Part of my enjoyment of doing that is
on deployments, being stuck. You're stuck with a thirty forty
fifty guys is who you would otherwise never hang out with,
who you didn't grow up with, and you are bored
out of your mind half the time, and the only
thing you have to do is to bs is to
chat and tell stories and to talk and find ways
(08:13):
to relate to.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
People who you otherwise wouldn't hang out with.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
In many ways, it was a forged opportunity because you
spend so much time doing it, and then you end
up appreciating it because those are not the type of
people you meet in the IVY.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
League or in the media world or in politics.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But the common sense wisdom that emanates from that I
think has served you well.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That's cually, Andreting. I have this imagery of you walking
into a diner and it's just like revisiting your platoon.
And I must say, you connect. Every time I've seen you,
usually at breakfast. You connect with people as well as
anybody I know. Part of it is that they like Fox,
(08:52):
part of it is that they like you. The part
of it is your style. You can be with almost
any group and you're curious about them. And I think
they can sense that no one is genuine and when
it isn't do.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You know much I've learned new from those assignments.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I truly enjoy it because the camera's on for four
minutes three times over the course of the show. But
you're spending three and a half four hours with people,
and it's always a different part of the country, a
different kind of crowd, and you just sit down and say,
how's life going, what are you facing.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I don't know if you saw this, but I got mocked.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I gave a seapack speech and talked about these diners,
and I talked about how people talk about the First
Amendment and the Second Amendment and the Tenth Amendment, and
it was broadcast and a bunch of folks on MSNBC
and CNN went nots and said, oh, Pete Hexef claims
he goes to diners and talks about the tenth Amendment,
and what they don't understand is you know that, of
course is code for They talk about God and free
(09:44):
speech and the Second Amendment and their right to bear arms,
and of course the idea of local control and states' rights.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Those are other things they talk about all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
And so we actually played a clip of diners talking
about those things over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
As I was smacked back at them. But I do
love it. They always say, hey, we feel.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Like we know you, Pete, and I turn around and say, hey,
I feel like I know you. Also, because there are
a shared set of values of people who often show
up at these things.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We have to remember, though, if you're MSNBC, your idea
of going to breakfast is either the Upper west Side
or Rodeo Drive, And so you're thinking, you know, I
don't know anybody a rodeo drive who even knows what
a constitution is? How can you be talking like this.
I have to go back, because you know, I used
to be a historian in a different life, and so
I try to think about things historically. You leave this
(10:31):
small town, you go to Princeton, which is hardly a
ground central for patriotism, and you end up joining the ROTC.
Now that's almost counterculture for Princeton. What got you across
that bridge? So you found yourself in the ROTC.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I almost went to West Point almost. I wasn't ready. Again,
I didn't know the military well enough, and so I
instead went to Princeton, knowing they had an ROTC program.
I actually signed up in May of two thousand and one,
so four months before nine to eleven I joined our OGC,
and then nine to eleven happened. It was the ultimate validator.
I knew I wanted to serve that much. I knew
for the reason I sort of mentioned briefly before. But
(11:13):
then watching the forces on campus, I mean watching the
preemptive peace rallies at Princeton as there was still smoke
smoldering at ground zero. Professors and students were saying, it's
time for peace, and it's time to understand, and these
people who attacked us, there's a rationale for it. We
need to understand. And I remember scratching my heeaguing this
(11:35):
doesn't make sense. Of course, it didn't make sense. When
the first Christianity course.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
In the Religion department, from a so called.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Expert on Christianity Day one, they said, well, the most
likely scenario is that Jesus was buried in a shallow
grave and eaten by dogs, and.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
The rest of it is just mythology.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I had to go into the Firestone Library to read
actual Bible history about apologetics of the history of.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It to fight back in class. I think the grounding
would everything.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And that's why I'm so focused now on K through
twelve and we're doing a huge documentary and Fox Nation
about the Progressive which you're a part of. Thank you
very much, mister speaker for taking the time to do that,
and it's a five part series. It's coming together fantastic.
I've learned an amazing amount. If you've talked to Robbie
George at Princeton, for example, the prominent constitutional professor who
(12:20):
is one of my mentors there, and he'll say, it
used to be that the liberals would lick their chops
when the kids would come to Princeton because they were
ready to deconstruct their worldview that they showed up with.
People like me would come in as these rude conservatives,
you know, patriots, and then they would contort them. And
he said, now it's the other way around. Everyone shows
up at Princeton already woke effectively, and it is Robbie
(12:41):
George who licks his chops at the opportunity to deconstruct
the work world do they show up with. I've had
my own failings and mistakes and all of that, But
coming back to the foundation of the way I was
raised helped me get through that clear eyed. And then
joining the military, I mean, forget a degree from Princeton
University of the one hundred and first Airborne was way
(13:02):
more educational for getting a sense of human nature, good
and evil, and appreciation for America and vets who get
a chance to travel the world. You see the alternatives
and you realize how special this really is, which makes
it easy to make the case for it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I have to say, by the way, just for a
moment about ROTC, my dad went into World War Two
as an enlistic guy in the army, came out, worked
for the Reading Railroad, and got a GI Bill went
to Gettysburg College, was pre med, but also joined ROTC
and came out in the middle of the Korean War,
(13:39):
and he found that survey in the uniform was so
rewarding psychologically that he spent twenty seven years in the infantry.
So I grew up in that world and surrounded by
that really deep sense of service, which I think you
get in organizations like the infantry, where you realize that
you're going to be out there on your own and
(14:00):
hopefully it's all going to work. So when we get
to Memorial Day. One of the things I always think
about is my father's role and also my mother's, because
she was an army wife and she went wherever he went,
and times like when he was in Vietnam and Korea,
she stayed home and took care of the kids and
tried to balance the family checkbook because he was gone,
and as you know, back in those days, gone meant
(14:22):
really gone. You didn't have any of the modern capacity.
So I often think of lessons I learned from my
dad and from growing up inside the US Army. Now,
(14:51):
your unit went to Guantanamo Bay, where you served as
an infantry platoon leader. What was it like to go
to Cuba?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
May I never go back. It was the longest year
of my life. But I was also a new second.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Lieutenant, and I had a platoon out of New Jersey
which was largely Hispanic and Italian, and they were almost
all older than me, had been in the Army much
longer than me. And here we were on a one
year deployment ninety miles from Florida, effectively at a naval station,
because the Guantanmo Base as a naval station. Where on
the naval station side. It was an accompanied station, so
(15:32):
you had sailors with their families and their kids with schools,
in a grocery store and a PX and all of
those things. And on the other side of the island
at the detention center at Camp x Ray and where
we were as guards. We were living in tin Can,
six guys for a year, lining up to use the
AT and T phone to call home if we wanted to.
So we may as well have been thousands of miles away,
(15:53):
even though we were that close to the States. It
was much like a deployment. There were seven hundred detainees
there at that time, so it was still full. There
were the MP guards that were actually in the cells.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That was not us.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
We were on the towers and the gates, patrolling, mounted
and dismounted. We were a quick reaction force into the facility.
These are nasty, nasty dudes, and the things they would
yell at the towers, the confrontations that we would have
inside the jail cells because we would they would have
to call in the QRF and I would often have
a I'd a Muslim member of my platoon who spoke Arabic,
(16:26):
and I would stand in the tower with him for
many hours, and he would sort of translate a lot
of what was being yelled or what was being said,
and it was.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Not you know, I misunderstood, please let me go.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It was threats to if I find your name, if
I find where you live, if I find your wife.
Most of them were hardcore jiahatists who sought our destruction,
which is why the way in which Guantanamo Bay devolved
into this sort of holding cell and releasing center of
very little consequence. I think it was so underutilized in
what it could have been.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But it was a.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Leadership year for me, learning how to lead men through
largely the mundane. We had day shifts and night shifts
and all of that, and ultimately, thankfully everybody made it
home just fine. But it was more of a leadership
in a regimented process away from their families. But I
did appreciate it because it was post nine eleven. It
was an opportunity to be a part of it. And yeah,
(17:19):
it was a long year.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Was the quality of that year? Did that make it
easier to volunteer to go to Baghdad?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes? Yes, because I.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Mean you normally think Cuba Iraq, Cuba Iraq, but Cuba
was so miserable that all of a sudden became, well,
what have I got to lose?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Kind of the case, Well, if I'm going to do
this whole deployment thing, why don't we go to the
main effort was a big part of the feeling. And
I love the guys I served within Guantanamo with great men.
In fact, one of the guys that I memorialize every
year and think about.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Is Jorge A. La Vera, who was a.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Specialist in my platoon at Guantanamo Bay, a National guardsman
who went back and became a police officer who community revered,
and then deployed to Afghanistan, which is the third place
I went, and was killed in Afghanistan on an ambush
while I was not with him in that unit, but
I was in Afghanistan the same time he was killed,
and he was just beloved by his troops and beloved
by his department and lived a life of service. And
(18:15):
he was one of my platoon members who was amazing
at Guantanamo in what was done there.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, I got.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Home and it took a while to unwind, and then
I was restless. I'll never forget I actually worked for
Bear Stearns in New York City, and it was watching
the war unfold, having come back from Guantanamo Bay for
a year because I was a guardsman and I just
got this abiding sense. In fact, it was a Wall
Street Journal article that I read of suicide bombing that
killed a bunch of men and a bunch of children
(18:43):
in Iraq, including a soldier. I remember thinking, I've got
to do my part. I'm a trained infantry officer. I'm
going to regret if I'm not in the middle of
it as quickly as I can. And so I actually
emailed the only guy I knew. He was a company
commander in the hundred and first and he had been
my platoon trainer at Fort Benning, trained me as an
infantry officer, and he wrote me back almost immediately. I'll
(19:03):
never forget staring at the screen. It was like fifteen
minutes later. He said, actually, I need a second platoon leader.
If you can get here, I'll take you. And I
started the process of working through the Pentagon bohemoth of
a machine that doesn't move quickly ever, but ultimately it
came back to Princeton. There was a major general that
had visited Princeton who had given me his card when
I was a senior and said if you ever need
(19:25):
anything you know, shoot me an email. Well, it turns
out he was now the commander of all forces in Korea,
and I just emailed them, thinking what do I have
to lose? You know, can he help the National Guard
talk to the regular army so that I can join
the one hundred and first for their deployment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And he must have known somebody, because I got a call.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
One day at my trading desk at bear Stearns and
it said, is this first lieutenant Hegseth And I said, yes,
he goes, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Who the bleep you think you are. Well you better
not bleep this up because.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Your orders are going to one hundred and first Airborne.
So I got my orders and went down to Fort
Campbell and met my platoon down there just a few
weeks before they mobilized to go to Kuwait. And a
few weeks after that in Kuwait, we were in Bagdad
and I was the National Guard Wall Street Ivy League
non ranger qualified new platoon leader. I had a lot
(20:13):
to credibility to gain because I didn't come in with
many attributes. A lot of my guys liked.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So you didn't actually go airborne.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I did not go airborne. Nope, I was not a
airborne qualified.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
But then you were taking on a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, imagine that I had not had an opportunity to
go to ranger school or airborne school because I was
in the National Guard and I had all these other
parts of my background. But I knew my company commander
had trained me and knew that he would love to
have me as a platoon leader, and so a lot
of it was him vouching for me and my viability.
Now we did training and all of that, obviously once
I got there, high intensity because he wanted to make
(20:46):
sure I was caught up on all the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
TTPs and all the ways the unit operated.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But at that point the one hundred and first Airborne
is it's actually not an airborne unit anymore. It's all
air assault on helicopters, so really aerossaults getting on and
off and planning missions that way. It wasn't until our
first night air assult raid against an al Kaita target
that went well where we nabbed a bunch of them
in Baghdad that a couple of my staff sergeants came
to me and they were like, all right, LT's okay.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know, all right, you're okay. That's when you know
you got a shot.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, I was going to ask you A key question
I think to understanding any military is when did you
learn to rely on your sergeants?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Oh, early heavy, I mean they drill it into you
at your basic course that hey, it's a platoon sergeant
and your squad leaders that you're going to have to
lean on. There's a lot of young lts can still
come in hard charge and thinking they're the next patent
and you know, run into a brick wall. And I've
always taken the opposite approach, like, listen, you guys have
been doing this. Yes, I'll ultimately be making certain decisions
(21:47):
at certain moments, but my job is to bring different
assets to bear to the battlefield. You guys are the
ones closing with and destroying the enemy. My job is
to make sure we've got air support, to make sure
we're coordinating with higher and with adjacent units on the
radio directing things, but also close enough to the front
to make sure that I'm making the decisive choices.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So early on I had no choice. You have no choice.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You can't show up at a unit like that or
anywhere and pretend like you're going to run the joint.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You're very reliant. I still remember starting first pass Goodoy.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
My first beteen sergeant took me under his wing and said, LT,
here's how we do things around here, and it was
a lot more listening than talking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I think one of the greatest lessons I had learned
was from my father about relying on the non comms.
And when I got to be a member of Congress,
I very rapidly worked at figuring out who are the
people who really make it work, you know, And because
I would pay attention to them, they responded wonderfully and
(22:44):
I got a lot of stuff done that you couldn't
get done if you relied on yourself. The other lesson
I father kept trying to drill into me, which I
think you'll identify with, is that if the platoon leader
starts shooting, you have added a rifleman and lost a leader.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yes, yes, you've got to be.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Very disciplined and only shoot on defense because you want
all of your offensive thinking going on while other people
are doing the shooting. Again, was one of those things
where I didn't learn it quite as well as I
should have. But it does make a huge difference to
not get sucked into a fight that you should be
directing and not participating.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
In absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
And of course, the first time I was ever shot at,
what's the first thing I did is if it's doon theitter,
I started shooting back, and it took a while for
me to realize no, no, no, I got to drop down.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
In the tour here and start directing things.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You'll enjoy this. Duncan hunter was a great supporter of
mine in Congress from San Diego. Ultimately ended up as
chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Got to Vietnam and
big outdoor guy, you know, bow hunting and all that stuff,
and so he's there as a very young officer. He
gets involved in his very first ambush and they're gathered
(23:55):
around the trail. They're waiting for the I think it
was Viet Cong at that point to show up. And
when they show up, he shows leadership by pulling a
grenade off his vest and throwing it, and nothing happens.
So he pulls a second grenade off starts to throw it.
Then the sergeant leans in and says, if you pull
the pin, they work better. At Man a great combat leader,
(24:23):
but he said there were those moments early on when
you felt, you know, like you're an idiot when you
look at the American military and compared to almost any
place else in the world except maybe the Israelis, our
ability to grow our non coms so that they perform
functions that in the old Soviet Army would have been
done by majors and lieutenant colonels, and it gives us
(24:45):
just a combat capability that I think sometimes the Memorial
Day we should remember all the way down the line,
all of these folks play a real role in our survival.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
All the way down to the E five lowest level
noncommissioned office, or who's leading a fire team, you know,
and he's maneuvering his three guys himself, that four man team.
He is empowered to make decisions at that level obviously
all embedded that are critical to any outcome. I can't
even conceive of this sort of old autocratic way of
(25:15):
organizing your military, which is like one officer giving a
bunch of you know, polags in order. It is the
dynamic nature in which the American military and the Israeli military,
if you talked about can operate is all credit to
a noncommissioned officers court.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
That police is itself.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I mean, it's its own hierarchy as well and complimentary
to what officers.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I have to ask you. I think that what Fox
Nation is doing offering a free year to all active
United States military members and veterans as a part of
their Grateful Nation initiative, that's a big decision. They're putting
a pretty good bit of money on the table encouraging
current military and veterans to look at Fox Nation and
(26:23):
join it and get a year of free subscription. I
just want to commend you because I know you're a
part of this entire initiative, and I think you're probably
as hard a charge or inside Fox as you are
outside on nice kind of issues. But talk just from
here about why you hope retired military and active duty
(26:44):
military we'll see Fox Nation as something that really fits
into their interest and their concerns.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I'm really proud of Fox Nation for doing this, Fox
News for doing it. It's the right thing to do,
and I know they've seen a huge response so far,
and it is that simple. If you're an active military
guard Reserve veteran. You can go to foxnation dot com
or fox nation dot com slash military sign up for
a free year, and I think what they're going to
see is a streaming service that reflects their values. I mean,
(27:16):
I've said it before, but it's worth reiterating. I mean
Fox Nation is the Netflix for conservatives, Christians, patriots, people
that are looking for content oriented towards the family and history,
real history, and so I think once they jump in there,
they're going to find whether it's the Modern Warrior series
that I do, the documentaries in Israel, the stuff that
Brian Kilme does on Forgotten History, the Unauthorized History of Socialism,
(27:39):
or Unauthorized History of Taxation. I mean, there's so much
great content there that you're never ever going to see
anywhere else, especially on a digital streaming service these days,
and there's new content coming all the time. I mean, obviously,
the hope for Fox Nation is that these patriots who
sign up for free for a year say hey, I
don't want to live without this, and they want to
(28:00):
subscribe going forward.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think that will happen because the more people.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Are exposed to the content on Foxnation, the larger the
catalog gets and the bigger the names and things are
getting bigger every day. I think people will be drawn
to it. We need that kind of alternative. There are
these monster streaming services that just ram the same Hollywood
content into our brains, and we need an alternative, and
Fox is trying to grow that through Fox Nation.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And this is a neat aspect of it. So I
hope that's in military will take advantage of it.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So you have think an upcoming Memorial Day weekend show
from the Modern Warriors series, And as I understand, you
have a couple guys with you having a really interesting conversation.
Can you talk briefly about how that show has been developed.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
The show Modern Warriors was developed out of frustration I
had at Fox and Friends that you talk to these
amazing war vets and you get three and a half minutes,
and you know it's utterly insufficient, and so let's get them,
you know, in a bar or round a fire pit
and get a beer in their hand and with other
vets and that's usually where you get the real story,
the longer conversation, the deeper conversation. And so Modern Warriors
(29:07):
is an ongoing series on Fox Nation, and you know,
we'll do it on the fourth of July. We'll do
it on Veterans Day, we'll do it for Memorial Day.
We'll do it just to do it. And we get
different collections of vets, you know. Usually it's rangers and
seals and Green Berets and infantrymen and aviators, just different backgrounds,
and it's amazing. Sometimes they know each other, sometimes they don't.
New But when you get a group of vets like
(29:29):
that from the post nine to eleven generation and you
just throw topics out there like Memorial Day or service
or rules of engagement or woke military or withdrawal from
Afghanistan or threats from China, you get an amazingly rich conversation.
And this one in particular is called Modern Warriors Reflections,
and it is almost all reflections on the gravity and
(29:51):
weight and the meaning of Memorial Day. And we do
it at the new National Veterans Museum and Memorial in Columbus, Ohio,
which is beautiful, by the way, and it's very well
put together, and you get candid conversation like these guys
get really honest. You can let the conversation breathe go
deeper into the topics.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I also conceived this idea. I was supposed to meet.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Robb O'Neil, the guy that shot in Louden, for one beer,
just to chit chat and talk to him.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Because we met at like three.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
O'clock four hours later, and you know, ten beers later,
I had the whole story of the Bigloden raid and
his entire career. My mind was just swirling because I
couldn't believe what an opportunity to had been to hear
that story firsthand, and I wanted to get a little
bit of that into people's lives, you know, sit at
the bar with Robb O'Neil and hear the real story.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I was at the museum in Columbus about three months ago,
and I was really impressed with how modern it is,
how well they've done a getting people to tell their stories.
So you're really in direct contact with people who've done
the real thing. And I commend anybody when you go
to Columbus. That's a great museum and a great place
(31:00):
for you to be doing this. Let me ask you
one last thing, is I really appreciate you spending this
kind of time with us, And I have to say,
by the way I used to spend time traveling with
Oli North, and in terms of your whole point, you know,
OLLI been in so many fights in so many different places,
both as a marine and then later as a correspondent,
(31:21):
and it's such a great storyteller that you'd be sitting
there with your jaw hanging open, as he said, and
then this happened. And I think what it goes back
to in the Civil War, they had a phrase about
whether or not you had seen the elephant, and what
they meant by that was had you been in combat.
And this was always sort of my father's position was
that you'd seen the elephant, you understood and we didn't
(31:42):
have to talk about it. And if you hadn't seen
the elephant, you aren't going to understand anyway. And I'm
not talking about it. And I think you're what you're
doing is you're getting people together who've seen the elephant,
and they're sharing, i think, with the rest of the
country what it's been like it and I think it's
a great service to the long term health and long
(32:03):
term patriotism of the country. So I hope you have
a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I'm really grateful you take
this kind of time. I hope your new series really works,
and I hope that veterans and their friends and relatives
will realize that at Fox Nation, they've got a real
opportunity to sign up for a year and taste it,
see what we think of it. And it's a great
(32:24):
act of patriotism by Fox to make that kind of
offer to those who serve with us. Pete, let me
just mention one more thing. I understand that your book
American Crusade, Our Fight to Stay Free just came out
in paperback, and we're going to have a link to
it at our show page so people can get it directly.
Once again, you're a remarkably prolific guy. You work really hard,
(32:47):
but you somehow seem really happy and positive through all
of it. So it's great.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
You know why, because there was a book that influenced
me a lot, written by Jeffrey Hardy's a professor at
Dartmouth and the Ready many years ago. It's entitled Smiling
through the Cultural Catastrophe, and I think that's maybe that's how.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
The spirit I try to have as things swirl around us.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
But you are a leader for all of us, and
such a great patriot, such a great fighter, and I'm
always honored to spend any time with you.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Thank you to my guest Pete Hesath. You can learn
more about the Fox Nation promotion for active duty and
military veterans on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
Newtsworld is produced by Gingrick three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our
executive producer is Debbie Myers, our producer is Guarnsey Sloan,
and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the
(33:41):
show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the
team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Nutsworld,
I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate
us with five stars and give us a review so
others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners
of nuts World can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at Gingrich three sixty dot com slash newsletter.
(34:04):
I'm Nute Gingrich. This is nuts World.
On this episode of Newts World. The origins of the
Memorial Day date back to eighteen sixty eight. Commander in
Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the
Republic issued General Order Number eleven designating May thirtieth as
a Memorial Day quote for the purpose of strewing the
flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died
(00:25):
in defense of their country during the Late Rebellion, and
whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and
hamlet churchyard in the land. In nineteen seventy one, an
Act of Congress changed the observance of the holiday to
the last Monday in May and extended the honor to
all soldiers who died in American wars. Today, national observance
(00:47):
of the holidays still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery,
with the placing of a wreath of the tomb of
the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with
a small American flag. So while many Americans think of
it as a weekend that marks the start of summer
parades and backyard gatherings with family and friends, please also
remember why Memorial Day was established to honor those men
(01:11):
and women who gave their life in service to our
country and to protect our freedoms. As part of our
Memorial Day episode, I wanted to invite back someone who
is a true American patriot. He served in the Army
National Guard for two decades until last month. He is
a proud son of Minnesota, the author of American Crusade,
Our Fight to Stay Free, and Fox and Friends Weekend
(01:34):
co host. I'm really pleased to welcome back my guest
and good friend, Pete Hegseth. Pete, welcome back on mister speaker.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thank you for having me, always an honor.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm curious because you have so many experiences, and I
love watching when you're off at some breakfast place talking
to people you've probably talked to more everyday Americans and
almost anyone I know in your heart, what does it
mean to you to have Memorial Day?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Memorial Day crystallizes it all for me.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And you're right when you're talking to everyday Americans, it's
the type of day that means a great deal to
them because they're still tethered to how precious our American experiment,
this mission of freedom really is. When I think of
Memorial Day, these days and for many years, I ask myself,
and I hope people ask themselves the same thing. You know,
(02:40):
my living worthy of the sacrifice that previous generations gave
at the altar of freedom.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's a gut check.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's a gut check that day, but also a reminder
for the upcoming year that all the things that we have,
all the opportunities we have here. Yes, we declared our
independence with a bold document from brilliant minds. It was
the gritty men and women who are willing to pick
up a musket or a rifle. It was the men
and women who picked up machine guns and grades and
(03:09):
got on ships and deployed around the globe, knowing that
when they left they may not come home, and many
of them have not.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Billions of Americans over.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
The course of time have sacrificed their lives so that
we can live free. And when you realize our republic
is not that old, it's young, two hundred and forty
odd years young. And yet you look at the scope
of the gift that has been given of human being,
human souls, Americans who were willing to die so that
we can be here today. It encapsulates the gravity of
(03:41):
this holiday that we have to work really hard to
make sure our kids and grandkids understand and appreciate fully
that they know that it's more than a backyard barbecue.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I love the backyard barbecues and all the gatherings
that happen.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think celebration is a part of what we should
do for those of us who have our lives here
in America today.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Joy it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
But man, we better be drilling into the minds. I
love the history that you read up at the beginning,
new about where this came from, what it was meant
to recognize. And I've had my own special moments of
Memorial Day, but each in our own way pass on
to the next generation so they get the gravity of
what it took to get us to this place.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm really curious because I've watched you for years, and
you have a remarkable talent for speaking with people, for
getting things down to a kind of common everyday understanding.
This clearly grew out of your very being. I mean,
it seems to me that somehow, when you were very young,
you understood and you valued patriotism and you valued service.
(04:46):
Where do you think that came from?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I got to give it to my family and to
faith and to community. I mean, my mom and dad
are just hard working everyday folks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
My dad was a high.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
School gym teacher and a basketball coach, and my mom
stayed home. And it wasn't an overtly political household, but
it was patriotic, it was hard working, it was truly
rooted and invested in Christian faith and just go out
and be good people according to the Gospel. And I'll
tell you there's a reason I'm a big believer in
civic ritual parades fireworks, because I know that left a
(05:18):
big imprint on my heart. And one particular example is
a small town of one Mingo, Minnesota. It's nowhere southern Minnesota.
It's a small farming town. It's where both of my
parents grew up. And they would hold parades throughout the year,
but the biggest.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
One in town was the Memorial Day parade.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And again I can't underscore how small a town this is,
but they had a huge, wide main street and they
would have a Memorial Day parade and the whole town.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Would come out. We didn't live there at the time,
but we'd always go back to our grandparents.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Stand by the side of the road and it would
be the line of veterans from that town with the
band in front. And it's one of these blinket you
miss it, mister speakers. It's not long. But what you
had was the entire town, hundreds of people standing as
these vets World War two vets, then Korean War vets,
then Vietnam vets, and then you had Gulf War vets
(06:08):
who were young and still fitting into their uniforms marching
down that parade, and everyone would stand and revere them
for their service. But of course that parade ended at
Memorial Park, where all those men and women in uniform
would give honor to those who didn't make it home.
And I remember they would read the names and talk
about the lives of the people that were no longer there.
(06:29):
And I don't know if it hit me then, but
it certainly hits me now. But it left an imprint
on me. Holy, this is tiny Oneamingo, Minnesota, and these
are the list of names of people in this town
and in the county who never came home. Imagine amplifying
that across every small town across America. It started to
give me a sense I, just as a kid watched
the way the town revered those vets and those military members,
(06:51):
and I thought, man, they've done something special, something bigger
than this town, bigger than themselves.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That seems really important to me. I didn't come from
a military family at all.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I couldn't tell you the difference between the Army and
the Marine Corps when I graduated high.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
School, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So when Donald Trump talked about things like military parades,
there's a reason why I truly believe in those things,
and they need to happen because they're special events that
you don't otherwise get in your life that remind you
about the things that a society is supposed to value,
back to basics of our military, of our flag. So
recapturing those and doing more of that, I think is
(07:29):
truly important. But I benefited a great deal from serving
the military. It's the best education I've ever received. Is
every background, every socio economics said, every race who was
dedicated to something bigger than themselves. And you know the
other thing is I love doing the diners because just
relating to people where they're at and hearing their stories
and talking about the things that really motivate them and
(07:51):
animate them. Part of my enjoyment of doing that is
on deployments, being stuck. You're stuck with a thirty forty
fifty guys is who you would otherwise never hang out with,
who you didn't grow up with, and you are bored
out of your mind half the time, and the only
thing you have to do is to bs is to
chat and tell stories and to talk and find ways
(08:13):
to relate to.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
People who you otherwise wouldn't hang out with.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
In many ways, it was a forged opportunity because you
spend so much time doing it, and then you end
up appreciating it because those are not the type of
people you meet in the IVY.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
League or in the media world or in politics.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But the common sense wisdom that emanates from that I
think has served you well.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That's cually, Andreting. I have this imagery of you walking
into a diner and it's just like revisiting your platoon.
And I must say, you connect. Every time I've seen you,
usually at breakfast. You connect with people as well as
anybody I know. Part of it is that they like Fox,
(08:52):
part of it is that they like you. The part
of it is your style. You can be with almost
any group and you're curious about them. And I think
they can sense that no one is genuine and when
it isn't do.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You know much I've learned new from those assignments.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I truly enjoy it because the camera's on for four
minutes three times over the course of the show. But
you're spending three and a half four hours with people,
and it's always a different part of the country, a
different kind of crowd, and you just sit down and say,
how's life going, what are you facing.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I don't know if you saw this, but I got mocked.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I gave a seapack speech and talked about these diners,
and I talked about how people talk about the First
Amendment and the Second Amendment and the Tenth Amendment, and
it was broadcast and a bunch of folks on MSNBC
and CNN went nots and said, oh, Pete Hexef claims
he goes to diners and talks about the tenth Amendment,
and what they don't understand is you know that, of
course is code for They talk about God and free
(09:44):
speech and the Second Amendment and their right to bear arms,
and of course the idea of local control and states' rights.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Those are other things they talk about all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
And so we actually played a clip of diners talking
about those things over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
As I was smacked back at them. But I do
love it. They always say, hey, we feel.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Like we know you, Pete, and I turn around and say, hey,
I feel like I know you. Also, because there are
a shared set of values of people who often show
up at these things.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We have to remember, though, if you're MSNBC, your idea
of going to breakfast is either the Upper west Side
or Rodeo Drive, And so you're thinking, you know, I
don't know anybody a rodeo drive who even knows what
a constitution is? How can you be talking like this.
I have to go back, because you know, I used
to be a historian in a different life, and so
I try to think about things historically. You leave this
(10:31):
small town, you go to Princeton, which is hardly a
ground central for patriotism, and you end up joining the ROTC.
Now that's almost counterculture for Princeton. What got you across
that bridge? So you found yourself in the ROTC.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I almost went to West Point almost. I wasn't ready. Again,
I didn't know the military well enough, and so I
instead went to Princeton, knowing they had an ROTC program.
I actually signed up in May of two thousand and one,
so four months before nine to eleven I joined our OGC,
and then nine to eleven happened. It was the ultimate validator.
I knew I wanted to serve that much. I knew
for the reason I sort of mentioned briefly before. But
(11:13):
then watching the forces on campus, I mean watching the
preemptive peace rallies at Princeton as there was still smoke
smoldering at ground zero. Professors and students were saying, it's
time for peace, and it's time to understand, and these
people who attacked us, there's a rationale for it. We
need to understand. And I remember scratching my heeaguing this
(11:35):
doesn't make sense. Of course, it didn't make sense. When
the first Christianity course.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
In the Religion department, from a so called.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Expert on Christianity Day one, they said, well, the most
likely scenario is that Jesus was buried in a shallow
grave and eaten by dogs, and.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
The rest of it is just mythology.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I had to go into the Firestone Library to read
actual Bible history about apologetics of the history of.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It to fight back in class. I think the grounding
would everything.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And that's why I'm so focused now on K through
twelve and we're doing a huge documentary and Fox Nation
about the Progressive which you're a part of. Thank you
very much, mister speaker for taking the time to do that,
and it's a five part series. It's coming together fantastic.
I've learned an amazing amount. If you've talked to Robbie
George at Princeton, for example, the prominent constitutional professor who
(12:20):
is one of my mentors there, and he'll say, it
used to be that the liberals would lick their chops
when the kids would come to Princeton because they were
ready to deconstruct their worldview that they showed up with.
People like me would come in as these rude conservatives,
you know, patriots, and then they would contort them. And
he said, now it's the other way around. Everyone shows
up at Princeton already woke effectively, and it is Robbie
(12:41):
George who licks his chops at the opportunity to deconstruct
the work world do they show up with. I've had
my own failings and mistakes and all of that, But
coming back to the foundation of the way I was
raised helped me get through that clear eyed. And then
joining the military, I mean, forget a degree from Princeton
University of the one hundred and first Airborne was way
(13:02):
more educational for getting a sense of human nature, good
and evil, and appreciation for America and vets who get
a chance to travel the world. You see the alternatives
and you realize how special this really is, which makes
it easy to make the case for it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I have to say, by the way, just for a
moment about ROTC, my dad went into World War Two
as an enlistic guy in the army, came out, worked
for the Reading Railroad, and got a GI Bill went
to Gettysburg College, was pre med, but also joined ROTC
and came out in the middle of the Korean War,
(13:39):
and he found that survey in the uniform was so
rewarding psychologically that he spent twenty seven years in the infantry.
So I grew up in that world and surrounded by
that really deep sense of service, which I think you
get in organizations like the infantry, where you realize that
you're going to be out there on your own and
(14:00):
hopefully it's all going to work. So when we get
to Memorial Day. One of the things I always think
about is my father's role and also my mother's, because
she was an army wife and she went wherever he went,
and times like when he was in Vietnam and Korea,
she stayed home and took care of the kids and
tried to balance the family checkbook because he was gone,
and as you know, back in those days, gone meant
(14:22):
really gone. You didn't have any of the modern capacity.
So I often think of lessons I learned from my
dad and from growing up inside the US Army. Now,
(14:51):
your unit went to Guantanamo Bay, where you served as
an infantry platoon leader. What was it like to go
to Cuba?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
May I never go back. It was the longest year
of my life. But I was also a new second.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Lieutenant, and I had a platoon out of New Jersey
which was largely Hispanic and Italian, and they were almost
all older than me, had been in the Army much
longer than me. And here we were on a one
year deployment ninety miles from Florida, effectively at a naval station,
because the Guantanmo Base as a naval station. Where on
the naval station side. It was an accompanied station, so
(15:32):
you had sailors with their families and their kids with schools,
in a grocery store and a PX and all of
those things. And on the other side of the island
at the detention center at Camp x Ray and where
we were as guards. We were living in tin Can,
six guys for a year, lining up to use the
AT and T phone to call home if we wanted to.
So we may as well have been thousands of miles away,
(15:53):
even though we were that close to the States. It
was much like a deployment. There were seven hundred detainees
there at that time, so it was still full. There
were the MP guards that were actually in the cells.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That was not us.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
We were on the towers and the gates, patrolling, mounted
and dismounted. We were a quick reaction force into the facility.
These are nasty, nasty dudes, and the things they would
yell at the towers, the confrontations that we would have
inside the jail cells because we would they would have
to call in the QRF and I would often have
a I'd a Muslim member of my platoon who spoke Arabic,
(16:26):
and I would stand in the tower with him for
many hours, and he would sort of translate a lot
of what was being yelled or what was being said,
and it was.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Not you know, I misunderstood, please let me go.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It was threats to if I find your name, if
I find where you live, if I find your wife.
Most of them were hardcore jiahatists who sought our destruction,
which is why the way in which Guantanamo Bay devolved
into this sort of holding cell and releasing center of
very little consequence. I think it was so underutilized in
what it could have been.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But it was a.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Leadership year for me, learning how to lead men through
largely the mundane. We had day shifts and night shifts
and all of that, and ultimately, thankfully everybody made it
home just fine. But it was more of a leadership
in a regimented process away from their families. But I
did appreciate it because it was post nine eleven. It
was an opportunity to be a part of it. And yeah,
(17:19):
it was a long year.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Was the quality of that year? Did that make it
easier to volunteer to go to Baghdad?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes? Yes, because I.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Mean you normally think Cuba Iraq, Cuba Iraq, but Cuba
was so miserable that all of a sudden became, well,
what have I got to lose?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Kind of the case, Well, if I'm going to do
this whole deployment thing, why don't we go to the
main effort was a big part of the feeling. And
I love the guys I served within Guantanamo with great men.
In fact, one of the guys that I memorialize every
year and think about.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Is Jorge A. La Vera, who was a.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Specialist in my platoon at Guantanamo Bay, a National guardsman
who went back and became a police officer who community revered,
and then deployed to Afghanistan, which is the third place
I went, and was killed in Afghanistan on an ambush
while I was not with him in that unit, but
I was in Afghanistan the same time he was killed,
and he was just beloved by his troops and beloved
by his department and lived a life of service. And
(18:15):
he was one of my platoon members who was amazing
at Guantanamo in what was done there.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, I got.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Home and it took a while to unwind, and then
I was restless. I'll never forget I actually worked for
Bear Stearns in New York City, and it was watching
the war unfold, having come back from Guantanamo Bay for
a year because I was a guardsman and I just
got this abiding sense. In fact, it was a Wall
Street Journal article that I read of suicide bombing that
killed a bunch of men and a bunch of children
(18:43):
in Iraq, including a soldier. I remember thinking, I've got
to do my part. I'm a trained infantry officer. I'm
going to regret if I'm not in the middle of
it as quickly as I can. And so I actually
emailed the only guy I knew. He was a company
commander in the hundred and first and he had been
my platoon trainer at Fort Benning, trained me as an
infantry officer, and he wrote me back almost immediately. I'll
(19:03):
never forget staring at the screen. It was like fifteen
minutes later. He said, actually, I need a second platoon leader.
If you can get here, I'll take you. And I
started the process of working through the Pentagon bohemoth of
a machine that doesn't move quickly ever, but ultimately it
came back to Princeton. There was a major general that
had visited Princeton who had given me his card when
I was a senior and said if you ever need
(19:25):
anything you know, shoot me an email. Well, it turns
out he was now the commander of all forces in Korea,
and I just emailed them, thinking what do I have
to lose? You know, can he help the National Guard
talk to the regular army so that I can join
the one hundred and first for their deployment.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And he must have known somebody, because I got a call.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
One day at my trading desk at bear Stearns and
it said, is this first lieutenant Hegseth And I said, yes,
he goes, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Who the bleep you think you are. Well you better
not bleep this up because.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Your orders are going to one hundred and first Airborne.
So I got my orders and went down to Fort
Campbell and met my platoon down there just a few
weeks before they mobilized to go to Kuwait. And a
few weeks after that in Kuwait, we were in Bagdad
and I was the National Guard Wall Street Ivy League
non ranger qualified new platoon leader. I had a lot
(20:13):
to credibility to gain because I didn't come in with
many attributes. A lot of my guys liked.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So you didn't actually go airborne.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I did not go airborne. Nope, I was not a
airborne qualified.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
But then you were taking on a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, imagine that I had not had an opportunity to
go to ranger school or airborne school because I was
in the National Guard and I had all these other
parts of my background. But I knew my company commander
had trained me and knew that he would love to
have me as a platoon leader, and so a lot
of it was him vouching for me and my viability.
Now we did training and all of that, obviously once
I got there, high intensity because he wanted to make
(20:46):
sure I was caught up on all the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
TTPs and all the ways the unit operated.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But at that point the one hundred and first Airborne
is it's actually not an airborne unit anymore. It's all
air assault on helicopters, so really aerossaults getting on and
off and planning missions that way. It wasn't until our
first night air assult raid against an al Kaita target
that went well where we nabbed a bunch of them
in Baghdad that a couple of my staff sergeants came
to me and they were like, all right, LT's okay.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know, all right, you're okay. That's when you know
you got a shot.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, I was going to ask you A key question
I think to understanding any military is when did you
learn to rely on your sergeants?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Oh, early heavy, I mean they drill it into you
at your basic course that hey, it's a platoon sergeant
and your squad leaders that you're going to have to
lean on. There's a lot of young lts can still
come in hard charge and thinking they're the next patent
and you know, run into a brick wall. And I've
always taken the opposite approach, like, listen, you guys have
been doing this. Yes, I'll ultimately be making certain decisions
(21:47):
at certain moments, but my job is to bring different
assets to bear to the battlefield. You guys are the
ones closing with and destroying the enemy. My job is
to make sure we've got air support, to make sure
we're coordinating with higher and with adjacent units on the
radio directing things, but also close enough to the front
to make sure that I'm making the decisive choices.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So early on I had no choice. You have no choice.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You can't show up at a unit like that or
anywhere and pretend like you're going to run the joint.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You're very reliant. I still remember starting first pass Goodoy.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
My first beteen sergeant took me under his wing and said, LT,
here's how we do things around here, and it was
a lot more listening than talking.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I think one of the greatest lessons I had learned
was from my father about relying on the non comms.
And when I got to be a member of Congress,
I very rapidly worked at figuring out who are the
people who really make it work, you know, And because
I would pay attention to them, they responded wonderfully and
(22:44):
I got a lot of stuff done that you couldn't
get done if you relied on yourself. The other lesson
I father kept trying to drill into me, which I
think you'll identify with, is that if the platoon leader
starts shooting, you have added a rifleman and lost a leader.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yes, yes, you've got to be.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Very disciplined and only shoot on defense because you want
all of your offensive thinking going on while other people
are doing the shooting. Again, was one of those things
where I didn't learn it quite as well as I
should have. But it does make a huge difference to
not get sucked into a fight that you should be
directing and not participating.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
In absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
And of course, the first time I was ever shot at,
what's the first thing I did is if it's doon theitter,
I started shooting back, and it took a while for
me to realize no, no, no, I got to drop down.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
In the tour here and start directing things.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You'll enjoy this. Duncan hunter was a great supporter of
mine in Congress from San Diego. Ultimately ended up as
chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Got to Vietnam and
big outdoor guy, you know, bow hunting and all that stuff,
and so he's there as a very young officer. He
gets involved in his very first ambush and they're gathered
(23:55):
around the trail. They're waiting for the I think it
was Viet Cong at that point to show up. And
when they show up, he shows leadership by pulling a
grenade off his vest and throwing it, and nothing happens.
So he pulls a second grenade off starts to throw it.
Then the sergeant leans in and says, if you pull
the pin, they work better. At Man a great combat leader,
(24:23):
but he said there were those moments early on when
you felt, you know, like you're an idiot when you
look at the American military and compared to almost any
place else in the world except maybe the Israelis, our
ability to grow our non coms so that they perform
functions that in the old Soviet Army would have been
done by majors and lieutenant colonels, and it gives us
(24:45):
just a combat capability that I think sometimes the Memorial
Day we should remember all the way down the line,
all of these folks play a real role in our survival.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
All the way down to the E five lowest level
noncommissioned office, or who's leading a fire team, you know,
and he's maneuvering his three guys himself, that four man team.
He is empowered to make decisions at that level obviously
all embedded that are critical to any outcome. I can't
even conceive of this sort of old autocratic way of
(25:15):
organizing your military, which is like one officer giving a
bunch of you know, polags in order. It is the
dynamic nature in which the American military and the Israeli military,
if you talked about can operate is all credit to
a noncommissioned officers court.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
That police is itself.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I mean, it's its own hierarchy as well and complimentary
to what officers.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I have to ask you. I think that what Fox
Nation is doing offering a free year to all active
United States military members and veterans as a part of
their Grateful Nation initiative, that's a big decision. They're putting
a pretty good bit of money on the table encouraging
current military and veterans to look at Fox Nation and
(26:23):
join it and get a year of free subscription. I
just want to commend you because I know you're a
part of this entire initiative, and I think you're probably
as hard a charge or inside Fox as you are
outside on nice kind of issues. But talk just from
here about why you hope retired military and active duty
(26:44):
military we'll see Fox Nation as something that really fits
into their interest and their concerns.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I'm really proud of Fox Nation for doing this, Fox
News for doing it. It's the right thing to do,
and I know they've seen a huge response so far,
and it is that simple. If you're an active military
guard Reserve veteran. You can go to foxnation dot com
or fox nation dot com slash military sign up for
a free year, and I think what they're going to
see is a streaming service that reflects their values. I mean,
(27:16):
I've said it before, but it's worth reiterating. I mean
Fox Nation is the Netflix for conservatives, Christians, patriots, people
that are looking for content oriented towards the family and history,
real history, and so I think once they jump in there,
they're going to find whether it's the Modern Warrior series
that I do, the documentaries in Israel, the stuff that
Brian Kilme does on Forgotten History, the Unauthorized History of Socialism,
(27:39):
or Unauthorized History of Taxation. I mean, there's so much
great content there that you're never ever going to see
anywhere else, especially on a digital streaming service these days,
and there's new content coming all the time. I mean, obviously,
the hope for Fox Nation is that these patriots who
sign up for free for a year say hey, I
don't want to live without this, and they want to
(28:00):
subscribe going forward.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think that will happen because the more people.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Are exposed to the content on Foxnation, the larger the
catalog gets and the bigger the names and things are
getting bigger every day. I think people will be drawn
to it. We need that kind of alternative. There are
these monster streaming services that just ram the same Hollywood
content into our brains, and we need an alternative, and
Fox is trying to grow that through Fox Nation.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And this is a neat aspect of it. So I
hope that's in military will take advantage of it.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So you have think an upcoming Memorial Day weekend show
from the Modern Warriors series, And as I understand, you
have a couple guys with you having a really interesting conversation.
Can you talk briefly about how that show has been developed.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
The show Modern Warriors was developed out of frustration I
had at Fox and Friends that you talk to these
amazing war vets and you get three and a half minutes,
and you know it's utterly insufficient, and so let's get them,
you know, in a bar or round a fire pit
and get a beer in their hand and with other
vets and that's usually where you get the real story,
the longer conversation, the deeper conversation. And so Modern Warriors
(29:07):
is an ongoing series on Fox Nation, and you know,
we'll do it on the fourth of July. We'll do
it on Veterans Day, we'll do it for Memorial Day.
We'll do it just to do it. And we get
different collections of vets, you know. Usually it's rangers and
seals and Green Berets and infantrymen and aviators, just different backgrounds,
and it's amazing. Sometimes they know each other, sometimes they don't.
New But when you get a group of vets like
(29:29):
that from the post nine to eleven generation and you
just throw topics out there like Memorial Day or service
or rules of engagement or woke military or withdrawal from
Afghanistan or threats from China, you get an amazingly rich conversation.
And this one in particular is called Modern Warriors Reflections,
and it is almost all reflections on the gravity and
(29:51):
weight and the meaning of Memorial Day. And we do
it at the new National Veterans Museum and Memorial in Columbus, Ohio,
which is beautiful, by the way, and it's very well
put together, and you get candid conversation like these guys
get really honest. You can let the conversation breathe go
deeper into the topics.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I also conceived this idea. I was supposed to meet.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Robb O'Neil, the guy that shot in Louden, for one beer,
just to chit chat and talk to him.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Because we met at like three.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
O'clock four hours later, and you know, ten beers later,
I had the whole story of the Bigloden raid and
his entire career. My mind was just swirling because I
couldn't believe what an opportunity to had been to hear
that story firsthand, and I wanted to get a little
bit of that into people's lives, you know, sit at
the bar with Robb O'Neil and hear the real story.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I was at the museum in Columbus about three months ago,
and I was really impressed with how modern it is,
how well they've done a getting people to tell their stories.
So you're really in direct contact with people who've done
the real thing. And I commend anybody when you go
to Columbus. That's a great museum and a great place
(31:00):
for you to be doing this. Let me ask you
one last thing, is I really appreciate you spending this
kind of time with us, And I have to say,
by the way I used to spend time traveling with
Oli North, and in terms of your whole point, you know,
OLLI been in so many fights in so many different places,
both as a marine and then later as a correspondent,
(31:21):
and it's such a great storyteller that you'd be sitting
there with your jaw hanging open, as he said, and
then this happened. And I think what it goes back
to in the Civil War, they had a phrase about
whether or not you had seen the elephant, and what
they meant by that was had you been in combat.
And this was always sort of my father's position was
that you'd seen the elephant, you understood and we didn't
(31:42):
have to talk about it. And if you hadn't seen
the elephant, you aren't going to understand anyway. And I'm
not talking about it. And I think you're what you're
doing is you're getting people together who've seen the elephant,
and they're sharing, i think, with the rest of the
country what it's been like it and I think it's
a great service to the long term health and long
(32:03):
term patriotism of the country. So I hope you have
a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I'm really grateful you take
this kind of time. I hope your new series really works,
and I hope that veterans and their friends and relatives
will realize that at Fox Nation, they've got a real
opportunity to sign up for a year and taste it,
see what we think of it. And it's a great
(32:24):
act of patriotism by Fox to make that kind of
offer to those who serve with us. Pete, let me
just mention one more thing. I understand that your book
American Crusade, Our Fight to Stay Free just came out
in paperback, and we're going to have a link to
it at our show page so people can get it directly.
Once again, you're a remarkably prolific guy. You work really hard,
(32:47):
but you somehow seem really happy and positive through all
of it. So it's great.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
You know why, because there was a book that influenced
me a lot, written by Jeffrey Hardy's a professor at
Dartmouth and the Ready many years ago. It's entitled Smiling
through the Cultural Catastrophe, and I think that's maybe that's how.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
The spirit I try to have as things swirl around us.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
But you are a leader for all of us, and
such a great patriot, such a great fighter, and I'm
always honored to spend any time with you.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Thank you to my guest Pete Hesath. You can learn
more about the Fox Nation promotion for active duty and
military veterans on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
Newtsworld is produced by Gingrick three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our
executive producer is Debbie Myers, our producer is Guarnsey Sloan,
and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the
(33:41):
show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the
team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Nutsworld,
I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate
us with five stars and give us a review so
others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners
of nuts World can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at Gingrich three sixty dot com slash newsletter.
(34:04):
I'm Nute Gingrich. This is nuts World.
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