QUANTICO, Va. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood before junior officers and non-commissioned officers this week and announced that the Department of War would no longer be “the woke department or the weak department.” Officials confirmed the older name has returned because the word “Defense” no longer captured the full range of lunar security and spiritual battle planning.
Hegseth introduced Project Meridian, a 120-day study co-led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The project will cover artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, subterranean warfare, and lunar security. “Their work will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the warfighting tools of tomorrow,” he said.
The panel will report to Emil Michael, the department’s chief technology officer. A one-page fact sheet described the study as a way to determine next-generation operational dominance. It did not mention that two of the three co-leads run defense technology companies.
The secretary then announced a 20 percent cut in the number of top generals and admirals. He called risk aversion poisonous and said leaders would no longer walk on eggshells. “No more silly PowerPoint trainings or drag queen shows. No more diversity quotas. No more gender pronouns. No more identity months. Only the warrior ethos,” he said.
He credited Dickhead Donny with the new personnel model. “Or as the president likes to say to me, ‘I want central casting,’” Hegseth said. “The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in with testosterone testing on top.”
Hegseth summarized the revised physical and moral code. “No fatties, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors,” he said. The audience of junior officers and NCOs cheered. A senior officer watching from the back was not invited to comment.
The new personnel standard will be enforced by a central casting office inside the Pentagon. Applicants must submit a headshot and a brief statement of patriotic cowboy readiness.
At the same event, Hegseth said generals who treated civilian control of the military as a suggestion “no longer work here.” An aide introduced him moments earlier as “the 29th Secretary of War.” Hegseth did not correct the title.
He also announced a new Office of Religious Affairs at the Pentagon. The office will treat spiritual health at the same level as physical health. “Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God,” Hegseth said. “Because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual.”
A department spokesperson called the office “the next logical step in unifying the force around a single accountable truth.” The spokesperson confirmed that lunar security would remain secular for now. The Department of War did not respond to a request for the exact definition of a “real battle.” A religious affairs liaison said the answer was above his clearance level.
