The North Carolina reason Pete Hegseth isn’t qualified to be defense secretary | Opinion

Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth wants to honor one of the country’s most incompetent military leaders by putting the man’s name back on the well-regarded military base in North Carolina now known as Fort Liberty.

Hegseth probably wants company because he, too, is about to receive a job for which he is clearly unqualified. And he’s doing so all while telling lies about the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, better known as DEI.

A Black man with Pete Hegseth’s thin resume would have no shot at becoming secretary of defense.

A woman with Hegseth’s myriad personal problems and indiscretions would have no chance of leading the world’s most powerful military.

No person of color with Hegseth’s archaic, superficial views on race this deep into the 21st century would be a shoo-in to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate the way Hegseth is expected to be soon. Republicans in the U.S. Senate who swear they love and respect the troops will be the reason.

Make no mistake. Hegseth isn’t a “DEI hire,” a term critics use as a slur. DEI is a principle which aims to ensure issues such as race, gender, sexuality and disability don’t prevent qualified people from receiving positions they’ve earned. DEI also tries to remove barriers that might stand in the way of anyone being able to become their full selves, to reach their full potential.

Hegseth could never be a DEI hire. He isn’t qualified enough.

He was a platoon leader in Iraq and Afghanistan as a junior officer, which is commendable. He was the head of two small-conservative nonprofits, managing maybe 100 people — though reports say not very well. Yet his primary qualification seems to be that he was a Fox News commentator.

Compare his resume to that of Gen. Lloyd Austin, the Black man Hegseth would replace. Lloyd’s numerous accomplishments include that he is a Silver Star recipient — the third highest award for valor in combat — and that he led 152,000 troops in Iraq and the United States Central Command, or CENTCOM.

That’s after successfully navigating Jim Crow in the Deep South as a Black man.

In front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Hegseth downplayed his long-held beliefs about women in combat roles.

Before the hearing, he had no trouble speaking boldly.

“I’m just straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said on a podcast in November. “It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”

One of the people President Joe Biden considered making the nation’s first female defense secretary is Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, and a Purple Heart recipient. She sacrificed her legs — literally — trying to protect this country. Another person Biden considered was Michèle Flournoy, an under secretary of defense for policy in the Barack Obama administration who oversaw a staff of about 1,000.

Each of them is more qualified than Hegseth to be the secretary of defense, and neither would have been considered had they been accused of multiple marital indiscretions — a no-no in the military — sexual assault and drunkenness, all accusations leveled against Hegseth.

He isn’t about to be defense secretary because he’s the most qualified, or qualified at all. It’s because his status as a heterosexual white man opened doors that would be closed to most others.

Laughingly, Hegseth has also questioned if Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Black man serving as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, got that role because of his skin color, despite Brown having accomplished more than Hegseth.

Black troops have long had their worth questioned despite their history of service and sacrifice for this country, even during World War II when they were treated worse than Nazi prisoners of war. They are still underrepresented among military leadership.

Now Hegseth wants to restore honor to a man like Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, the native North Carolinian whose name was replaced at Fort Bragg last year after more than a century of prominence.

Bragg was an enslaver of Black people. He was a traitor who took up arms against the U.S. during the Civil War. He lost most of the battles he was involved in. He was disliked even among the people who served with him. He was incompetence personified.

Few people as unworthy and unqualified have risen so high in U.S. military ranks.

Hegseth would be one.