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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Robert Tait in Washington

No more ‘woke’ in the US military: key takeaways from Pete Hegseth’s speech

a man in a suit speaks and gesticulates
Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on 30 September 2025. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Reuters

Pete Hegseth, secretary of the newly renamed Department of War, made no bones about what he sees as the principal enemy in a keynote speech to military commanders at Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday – wokeness and all its advocates.

“We became ‘the woke department’,” Hegseth said in an address that seemed to designed to be as incendiary as possible. “Not any more. We’re done with that shit.”

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