Hegseth Responds To Critics Of Service At The Pentagon

By
Rachel Stevenson
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Well, grab your smelling salts, because the left is having a full-blown constitutional panic attack—again. This time it’s over a Christian prayer service held gasp inside the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a man who not only understands the history of this country but seems to have read a Bible once or twice, dared to invite his hometown pastor to lead a voluntary prayer session for our nation’s defenders. And naturally, the usual suspects in the liberal media and academia are foaming at the mouth.

Let’s be clear: this was not a mandatory revival meeting. There were no altar calls between national security briefings, no sermons wedged into drone strike planning sessions. It was a voluntary, 30-minute prayer service. Voluntary. But to hear CNN or the former Pentagon “legal experts” tell it, you’d think Hegseth was carving the Ten Commandments into the walls of the Situation Room.

Here’s the part they can’t stomach: Hegseth didn’t just allow faith—he embraced it. Publicly. Unapologetically. And that’s where the real problem lies for the secular left. See, it’s not about the Constitution. It’s about the culture. When 70% of active-duty service members identify as Christian, maybe—just maybe—it’s not crazy to offer a prayer service in a building filled with those men and women. It’s not “establishing religion”; it’s recognizing the very real, very longstanding role faith plays in the life of our military.

Hegseth hit the nail on the head by reminding everyone that prayer and patriotism have always walked hand-in-hand in American history. George Washington didn’t consult a DEI officer before kneeling in the mud to pray at Valley Forge. Lincoln didn’t check with MSNBC before invoking the Almighty in his addresses. And in every foxhole, from Normandy to Kandahar, there’s been a soldier whispering a prayer before the bullets fly. But today, apparently, faith is only acceptable in the foxhole—as long as it never crosses into a federal building.

The attacks on Hegseth’s decision aren’t legal arguments; they’re ideological temper tantrums. These critics don’t want to interpret the First Amendment—they want to weaponize it against anything that smells like traditional values. They pretend to be worried about “theocracy,” while championing every fringe ideology they can cram into a diversity seminar. Drag queens at military bases? That’s empowerment. But a prayer service with a conservative pastor? That’s suddenly a constitutional crisis.

Even more ridiculous is the pearl-clutching over Pastor Potteiger’s theological background. He’s from a theologically conservative denomination—oh no! In other words, he believes the Bible means what it says. That’s more than we can say for half the people writing headlines about this story. And yes, he preached from the Gospel of Matthew, not from Marx or Foucault, which is apparently now a radical act in Washington, D.C.

The truth is, Pete Hegseth understands something basic: moral clarity matters. If we’re asking our soldiers to face the unthinkable, to stand ready at a moment’s notice, we better make sure they have more than bureaucratic talking points in their spiritual toolkit. Offering prayer isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a show of strength, humility, and moral grounding. And it’s about time someone in the Pentagon remembered that.

So let the critics howl. Let the retired colonels and keyboard warriors pontificate on the evils of prayer. Meanwhile, Hegseth’s over at Fort Bragg, honoring paratroopers and boosting their hazard pay. While his critics whine from think tanks and newsrooms, he’s got his boots on the ground with the very men and women who make this country possible. And if they want to bow their heads for a few minutes each month and ask for some divine help? Well, in Pete’s Pentagon, that’s not just allowed—it’s encouraged. As it should be.

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