The Dangerous Shift in Military Messaging

Instead of a message about honorable service or sacrifice, the hundreds of American generals and admirals gathered this morning at Quantico received a blunt directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: their job is simply to kill people and break things. Hegseth told the top military leaders that they “don’t necessarily belong always in polite society” and that their mission wasn’t defined by tradition or service, but by the stark reality of killing.

“You kill people and break things for a living,” he said.

The framing was jarring. For generations, service members were told that their duty was to protect freedom, to stand guard over democracy, to represent the best of American ideals. It was a service as a public good, an expression of citizenship. That was the language my husband heard during combat deployments as a United States Marine. It was the language our grandparents heard during World War II. However, now that Hegseth and other political appointees are filtering their messaging through the Pentagon, the rhetoric has shifted. Today’s military leaders are instructed to tell the rank and file that their job is, simply put, to kill people and break things.

This is not semantics. It represents a profound reorientation of how America understands its military and the people who serve in it. Nor does it align with the traditions of a “warrior ethos.”

The traditional warrior’s code is founded on values like courage, discipline, selflessness, and integrity, viewing killing as a necessary and regrettable act of defense, not the definition of service. By stating that they are no longer part of “a polite society” and defined solely “by killing,” the Secretary strips the military role of its ethical, protective, and sacrificial dimensions, reducing it to a purely destructive function that undermines the ideal of the warrior as a noble protector.

I’ve spent years in war zones, chronicling both the horrors of conflict and the extraordinary resilience of those who endure it. Those who sign the dotted line to serve America are among the best of the best. And I understand this jarring truth: soldiers already realize that killing is part of war. They don’t need to be reminded. What is often needed is a reminder of why this is important. Why their sacrifices matter. Why they are missing the birth of their first child or may spend the rest of their lives gripped by nightmares. Why the wrenching decisions made in combat are part of a larger story about protecting their country and its values.

Stripping that away leaves only violence.

It’s especially disturbing in the wake of recent tragedies. Over the weekend, two veterans carried out mass shootings, one at a restaurant in North Carolina, another at a church in Missouri. These incidents raise uncomfortable but urgent questions about what happens when military identity is reduced to “killer.” When young men and women leave service with that branding burned into their sense of self, where do they turn? How do they reconcile the moral injuries of war with civilian life if the message they absorbed was not one of honor and sacrifice, but one of sanctioned violence?

Patriotism is not the same as glorifying destruction.

We can love our country deeply. We can believe in a strong defense. We can reject the excesses of political correctness and “wokeism” without throwing away the moral compass that has guided generations of service members. The notion that America’s armed forces are nothing more than a blunt instrument of war is not just ahistorical; it is corrosive. It erodes the very bond between the military and society, a bond built on respect, gratitude, and trust.

Photo by Richard Catabay on Unsplash

When the Secretary of Defense, or the new-fangled “Secretary of War,” as he now prefers, endorses rhetoric that frames our military as a caste of killers, we should pause and ask: where are we going as a country?

This is not just about politics. It’s about the story we tell ourselves, and our children, about what military service means. The story of the citizen-soldier, of sacrifice in the name of something greater, has always anchored the American experiment. To reduce that to a job description of killing is to hollow it out. It is to invite alienation among service members, to blur the moral boundaries of warfare, and to risk creating a generation of veterans who see themselves less as guardians of the republic than as perpetual combatants untethered from society.

In the rush to reject “wokeism,” leaders risk embracing nihilism — defining strength not by honor or resilience but by destruction. Yet true strength, in war and in life, has always meant discipline, integrity, and the willingness to bear burdens for others. A tougher military need not come at the cost of its humanity.

History shows that when militaries define themselves only as instruments of violence, they often turn inward, detached from the societies they serve. That is the path of juntas, not professional armed forces in a democracy.

This morning’s spectacle at Quantico was more than rhetoric — it was a warning. Words shape culture, and culture shapes behavior. If we brand service members as killers, they may come to see themselves only that way, with consequences for veterans, communities, and democracy itself.

War demands honesty, but honesty is not nihilism. It is the balance between hard truths and higher ideals; the reminder not just of what must be done, but why. Lose that balance, and we risk losing not only the story we tell about our military, but the very soul of it.

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