SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PETE HEGSETH: I cannot tell you how humbled I am to be in this room amongst the absolute and very best that our country produces. You could pick any other ballroom in the country, including in Washington DC, and you're not going to find the likes of Americans like we have in this room. So, good morning and thank you very much for having me. And I want to thank the mayor and Senator Collins and all of Tampa for the incredible and wholehearted support that it gives to the United States military. SOCOM, CENTCOM have no better home than here on the Gulf Coast.
Looking out at this crowd and hearing Jay speak, I'm reminded of one of the first SOF truths, which is "humans are more important than hardware." More than any other military formation, I saw it in a small way as a conventional infantryman 20 years ago, SOF is about people, it starts and ends with the troops downrange.
Each of you and your commitment to the mission is more important than any of the cutting-edge hardware and software we're going to see on the convention floor. And I look forward to seeing it. Gathered here in record breaking numbers are warriors, patriots, innovators, entrepreneurs, visionaries, allies and partners. It is an absolute honor, and I mean it, to be here with you.
Special operations has never been more important for our country. Yesterday was actually my 100th day in office as Secretary of Defense. And as I said from the beginning, this is the deployment of a lifetime. Each day I get a chance to see, like few others do, the great work that SOF does around the world.
The battle tested team in this room is essential to everything that President Trump does in his leadership to put America first and establish peace through strength. I wish everyone in this room could have a chance to be in the Oval Office like I was yesterday and watch how this Commander in Chief puts the interests of our nation first in advancing the safety and security of the American people. It's a thing to behold.
That first and foremost includes defending our homeland, our border, Golden Dome, standing up to the Communist Chinese and, of course, increasing burden sharing with our allies and partners. Border security equals national security. And we're going to get 100 percent operational control of our southern border. And SOF is making a unique contribution there as well.
Our long-standing relationship with our partners in Mexico is crucial to supporting NORTHCOM and securing our border, something that's ongoing to this day.
But homeland defense, as you all know, first and foremost is a global mission. In the last six months, SOF has eliminated over 500 terrorists who threaten our homeland directly.
And alongside global SOF partners your team has captured at least another 600 terrorists.
So, it starts and ends with the homeland. That's why we do this. We don't fight because we hate what's in front of us; we fight because we love what's behind us.
But second, overseas we are reorienting toward deterring the Communist Chinese, no doubt our pacing threat. As America's experts in irregular warfare, SOF brings to bear unique capabilities and leverages critical partnerships. SOF's global efforts, below the threshold of conflict, which you all know, and often out of sight, create the very dilemmas that the Communist Chinese need as we shape their perceptions.
You see we have to convince Xi Jinping that today is not the day to test the United States' resolve. And SOF underpins deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, you're preparing the battlefield and standing ready to help us prevail if China were to choose conflict.
And third, as I've said many times before, but it's important to hear today with so many of our partners, America First does not mean America alone. We shift our focus as we do to the Indo-Pacific, President Trump looks to our partners throughout the world to put their shoulder to the plow and take their share of the burden in their own defense, which is a message you've heard from me on the world stage multiple times and we will continue to yell from the rooftops.
We look to our friends to be force multipliers alongside the United States. It has to be a two-way street. We can't want your security more than you want your own security. How many times have we seen that? SOF is playing a key role in accomplishing this goal shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies, many of which, as I mentioned, are with us this morning.
In addition to these ongoing efforts, SOF provides lethal precision and timely crisis response options to the Commander in Chief, President Trump. He confronts the hardest challenges in the world. As you know, no one brings easy problems to the Oval Office, but SOF brings solutions. When called, SOF snuffs out urgent threats, rescues American citizens and protects our diplomats.
In the last three years, these and other presidentially directed missions have increased by 200 percent. SOF has answered the call, and SOF has risen to the challenge every single time. They're doing this day in and day out around the world and around the clock, and I don't have to tell this group, sometimes in open combat, but more often in the twilight challenges just short of war.
Most of you in this room have done just that. So, the question is, following two decades of conflict in the Middle East, where do SOF and DOD go from here? Well, from day one at the Department of Defense, our overriding objectives have been clear: restore the warrior ethos, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence.
It all starts with restoring the warrior ethos. When President Trump asked me to take this job, he told me, well, one key thing, but really two. The first was, "Pete, you're going to have to be tough as shit, [laughter] [applause] they're gonna come after ya." Boy, he was not kidding about that one. This job requires a steel spine and that's fine.
My job's easy compared to what you do. We're doing the work on behalf of the American people and the American warfighter. But then the president, after he said that went on to say, I need you and I want you to restore the warrior ethos in our military full stop. And that's been my first priority since day one is restoring the warrior ethos.
It's one of the most fundamental of those three objectives. Again, humans more important than hardware. Everything starts and ends with warriors, from training to the battlefield. We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses, we're done with that shit [applause] [cheering].
We're focused on lethality, meritocracy, accountability standards and readiness. That's why since Election Day, since President Trump was elected, recruitment and retention numbers are up historically. Attracting military service is something Americans have long been attracted to. But more so when they see leadership they want to follow.
They want to be in disciplined formations that value them not for immutable differences, not for the color of our skin, or gender, but because of honor and integrity and grit and patriotism. They want a meritocracy where they can work hard, make themselves better, kick ass and rise up. They're looking for adventure, camaraderie, risk, danger.
They want to push themselves and test themselves against others. They want to flourish in an environment that embraces hard work, discipline and the warrior ethos. Special operators know a thing or two about all of those. I've experienced it firsthand across the world.
I have a chance to get up and do PT with the troops oftentimes when we're traveling. And some people think it's a novelty, it's not — it's always been a basic part of military service. You get up early, you get up and you work out because we're going to be fit and we're not going to be fat. And even if the SecDef has a little bit of time to do it, every troop has an opportunity to do it. The problem is it went from let's do PT with the troops to every special operations group in the world trying to smoke the SecDef [laughter].
I find myself almost blacking out by the end of the workout [laughter] and then having to hand out coins and try to stay right ways up. Appreciate that. You, this group, have long been the standard bearers of what it means to be an American warrior, an exclusive club where the cost of membership is commitment, toughness, courage, grit, paired with accountability, intelligence and skill.
At times, and this is a key thing and something we've seen firsthand, when the broader force has strayed from the path, has strayed from sanity, has strayed from standards, you have been keepers of the flame.
So, it's great to see so many outstanding leaders this morning who embody that warrior ethos. General Fenton, thank you for your courage, your determination and your grit showing your forces what right looks like. And of course, Command Sergeant Major Shorter, the real boss of SOCOM.
Thanks for leading your troops and demonstrating that the US military strategic advantage lies in the strength, and it's true, of our NCO corps. Like so many other SOF leaders past and present, you have kept the flame of the warrior ethos burning bright.
In 1943, Naval combat demolition units were preparing for the imminent invasion of Sicily. Lieutenant Commander Draper Kauffman compressed their physical training program into a demanding week known as Hell Week. Even with the demand to get many more sailors to the line more quickly, Lieutenant Commander Kauffman kept the standards high. Between 30 to 40 percent of students failed the program, but those who graduated were ready.
Today, the standards remain high across special operations training programs and I thank you for that. In fact, we're doing standards assessments across DOD, and we started at special operations, multiple accessions courses. And the report back from the Green Berets and the Army Rangers that we sent the Navy Seals to those courses standards still high, sir.
We're heading out to other formations in basic courses to determine why those standards have dropped and to make sure they're raised. In this particular instance, it included the Navy's rigorous basic underwater demolition school or BUDS, which traces its roots to Lieutenant Commander Kauffman's training. As you know, it still features Hell Week, high expectations and high attrition — soft, fat, easy, weak, mushy and quitter are not the adjectives that attract these types of professionals, it's the opposite and this will continue. We will never compromise; we cannot compromise on standards. Our standards will be high and in combat formations they will be gender neutral because the weight of a 155 round or a rucksack or a human being doesn't care if you're a man or a woman.
All that matters is whether you are capable of executing that combat mission in front of you. I spend a lot of time in a town in Washington DC where there's a deficit in one thing, common sense. I mean that's why President Trump is so popular. That's why the American people responded, he leads with common sense.
He's asked me to apply common sense. Our combat formations don't need to look like Harvard University. They need to look like killers, trained and skilled and prepared. The standards need to be high, and they need to be gender neutral, so that if you can do the job, you're in that formation and if you can't, you are not.
That is restoring the warrior ethos, and it's something we've seen across our formation that the troops are responding to — morale, recruiting, retention, readiness, training, capabilities, responding to common sense and a back-to-basics approach. That's the warrior ethos. So, we start there.
Our second priority is rebuilding the military. And President Trump has declared and delivered on a generational investment, rebuilding our military much like Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s. Our goal is to put the best systems in the hands of our warfighters because you, our warfighters, should never be in a fair fight. We're doing this by reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process and rapidly fielding emerging technologies.
Sure, Golden Dome for America is a part of that. The new sixth generation fighter, NGAD F-47 is a part of that, B-21s are a part of that. But what we see today and what you see in your formations are the fielding rapidly emerging technologies which are critically important, that help us remain the leader in the world for generations to come.
Everyone here today from SO/LIC to the SOF Secretariat to SOCOM and every special operations network has a role to play in rebuilding our military. Special operations forces have long operated like a tech startup, you're agile and nimble, lean and lethal. You leverage innovation to get more capability, and you push the limits of technology and human performance in ways that conventional formations just cannot.
You adopt advanced technologies early, you make them better and then you help them spread to the rest of the joint force. You are willing to experiment and fail while learning from each failure and each success. We need you to keep doing that.
I get a chance to see it with my own eyes. When I travel, I see it in the reports that are sent up from General Fenton and others. That rapid fielding, that rapid iteration, that feedback loop is critical across the joint force.
And this tradition of rapidly introducing trailblazing technology can be traced, of course, to SOF World War II roots and the Office of Strategic Services. They developed briefcase radios, modified small arms and more which met wartime needs. Today, that means loitering munitions, AI enabled targeting platforms and new counter UAS systems.
I want to recognize and thank a few DOD pathfinders in these critical efforts. SOF AT&L and their expert team of teams led by Melissa Johnson, callsign Mojo, and the Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate led by Gabe Ramos.
With their rapid prototyping and innovative partnerships, these teams and others like them are moving out with a sense of urgency. While some in Washington talk about acquisition reform — and I'll tell you there's plenty of white papers out there that will tell you about acquisition reform — you, they are acquisition reform.
So, we want to thank our industry partners, many of which are here today, over 800 companies this year at SOF Week, you're an essential part of the global Special Operations network. I'm grateful that so many of you participate in the events this week to enable the SOF enterprise.
You must know what we need, and we must know what you can build. And together, we can broaden the boundaries of what is possible. Because as we rebuild the military, we have to unlock the creativity of our companies for our arsenal of democracy. Even though we're not a democracy, we're a republic and we need to start teaching that in our schools again, [laughter] [applause].
You know it's the basic stuff they slip by us, the small lies they tell us, those are the ones that grow in the minds of young people who then turn around and don't love their country. A huge part of ensuring we have a room like this full in the future is ensuring our kids and grandkids know why America is such a special place.
What our founders gifted us 250 years ago, there's a reason we're going to have a big old Army parade on June 14th of 2025. It's because what we celebrate in this country is a reflection of what we value. There are a lot of vapid things to celebrate, plenty of reality shows and garbage music and stuff on Netflix. How about we hold up our special operations community? How about we recognize the Army and the Marine Corps and the United States at 250 years, the sacrifice of those men who stood on bridges 250 years ago and said we will live free.
We have an incredible story to tell, if we're willing to tell it, and then if we're willing to raise young men and women willing and able to raise their right hand to defend this nation. Never compromise on what you believe and why. You raised your right hand — you raised it to defend our country and the Constitution. Know the why and share it with your kids and grandkids, encourage them to serve.
It was one of the challenges of the book I wrote before I had this job, The War on Warriors. I was asking myself the same question, do I want to serve in today's military given what has happened to it. And I can tell you 100 days in, watching our Commander in Chief, what he has been willing to do, the common sense he has applied, the courage he has shown, I look forward to having a military, my kids would — I would proudly ask my kids to join.
I've got a 14-year-old boy, I look out, he's my oldest and 13-year-old and 12-year-old. And I'm fighting right now to create the kind of formations, to provide the kind of platforms that would serve them should they have the courage to do exactly what all of you have done.
So, we need to continue to reward innovation, encourage creative solutions, move faster than ever before. As General Fenton points out, threats evolve now in hours, not in years. In fact, I saw a report this morning on the plane here that demonstrated our enemies are adapting in a matter of hours, not in a matter of years. Days if we're lucky.
We can't and we won't fight today's opponent at yesterday's pace. When our opponents know that our military is armed with the most capable weapons systems known to man, wielded by skilled warriors with the will to prevail, they are less likely to challenge us on the battlefield and that is the point. Which leads to our third objective, restore the warrior ethos, rebuild the military and, third, reestablish deterrence.
After four years of deferred maintenance under the Biden administration; after a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, which we are still investigating and we'll get completely to the bottom of, especially DOD's role; after what happened in October 7th in Israel; after the war that was unleashed in Ukraine the world saw what it — after a frigging spy balloon flew over our country for a week, the world saw what it believed was a feckless America. Not anymore. And a huge part of it is SOF's capabilities.
In today's contested world SOF does not go alone. They go first, but they also go with partners. SOF's ability to work by, with and through international partners pays huge dividends on our border, in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.
Partners, as I see so many of our partners right here in the front, are central to how SOF works. They have to believe that America is strong, that peace through strength is real, then they want to come into our orbit and be force multipliers. I'm talking about generational relationships that we have built with partner forces around the globe.
I can't tell you how many meetings I'm in here or around the globe where I meet with foreign ministers or ministers of defense from allied countries, or countries sort of on the brink of whether they're going to go our way or the way of the Communist Chinese. And I'm looking at a minister of defense who was a part of an exchange program 20 years ago with US special operators, with Green Berets. Or they went to a military education school at Fort Benning 20 years ago.
And so, their affinity for US troops, for the United States is real. That is mostly, especially on the leading edge, a product of SOF. The level of cooperation between US SOF and our allies and partners is unprecedented in scale and invaluable from what we gain from it.
Today, there are over 6,000 US special operations professionals at work outside the US in over 80 countries. Representatives from 60 of those countries are with us here at SOF Week, and we welcome all of them. We also have international partners from 28 nations stationed right here at SOCOM. These relationships and partnerships take years to build, and the impact will be — could be in some cases decades from now.
But these allies and partners strengthen our militaries as they build their own Tier 1, Tier 2 special operations forces. No one does that partnership better than SOF. And I know it's not a surprise to any of you.
Again, it's in your roots. In World War II, joint US and British teams went behind enemy lines with resistance fighters in Europe. In Vietnam, SOF worked closely with South Vietnamese counterparts on some of the most dangerous missions, including daring rescues of downed pilots. And more recently, special operators have worked shoulder to shoulder with partners across the globe, like assisting our Colombian and Filipino partners in fighting against insurgents. And that tradition continues today.
Just last month I was in Panama and saw how closely the US and Panamanian Special Forces work together to combat shared threats and achieve common goals. Just watching in our own hemisphere in Panama, but it's not just Panama. The way in which the Communist Chinese, through malign influence, attempt to leverage their relationships and just straight up money with local leaders to try to pull them in their direction, it's happening in real time.
And yes, we have diplomats and there's politicians that think about these problem sets. But for the most part it's special operators, its COCOM commanders, its others who are on the ground partnering, creating that enduring bond and relationship with local forces that pulls them out of that orbit and toward the United States.
In an instance of the Panama Canal, that's key terrain, a choke point built by Americans that ought have our focus. And the point of that trip was to partner with Panamanians and take back the Panama Canal from Chinese influence, a strategic prerogative, the president has pointed out, that special operations plays a large role in. so SOF Week helps us build these generational relationships and they are needed.
Our adversaries are working together as well, China, Iran, Russia, North Korea. And so, we have to as well. Harnessing our partnerships gives us strategic and tactical advantage, achieving peace through strength. Under the leadership of President Trump, the message to our adversaries has been undeniably clear — America is back.
SOF amplifies this message and carries it to all the far-flung corners of the world. It's a pivotal mission that is laser focused on warfighting. As I know all of you are, we're restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence. Enemy aggression will be met swiftly and harshly, and we're beginning a new golden age of America and a golden age of national defense. But there is no time to waste.
As General Fenton said, and he's right, we're in the midst of a special operation forces renaissance. And I know I can count on SOF to step up and meet this moment, to set the standards, to serve at the tip of the spear. And my pledge to you is the same pledge that President Trump has made to me that has asked me to share with all the formations I meet with when I travel abroad and talk to formations here at home.
He tells me to tell every warrior out there we have your back. That's all I ever wanted when I was a rifle platoon leader leading 40 men in combat. I wanted to know my company commander, my battalion commander, my brigade commander, my division commander had my back — in any difficult situation I was in.
Where split second decisions are made in the fog of war, sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes you hit the right target, sometimes you miss. Most politicians can't understand the impossible dynamics that our special operators face. Take what I experienced and make it 25x what special operators experience.
What he did in his first term, President Trump, and what he has pledged in his second and is ongoing to this day is we will have your back. As you execute violently the defense of our nation, our job is to ensure we have yours. So, I want to thank you for everything you do and the best gift I can give you is getting up every day, working as hard as I can with my staff from the West Wing to the Pentagon to ensure you have everything you need.
And when you make that tough call your Commander in Chief, your Secretary of Defense and your country are behind you because we are grateful — beyond grateful for what you, your families give on behalf of this nation.
No one serves alone, it's you, your kids, your spouses, your communities, your churches, the people that love you, the people that support you that believe in what we do. We have your back, and we love you too. God bless the United States and all of our warriors. Thank you. [Applause]