Recruits Are Lining Up Again: Hegseth's Record for the Troops on Veterans Day

Much of Wednesday's Veterans Day coverage centered on video of a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier sentinel ordering a group with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to keep silence and show respect after laughter rose from the group. Some headlines said the secretary himself was scolded, but Newsweek, which reviewed the footage, reported it was not clear who laughed or whether Hegseth was among them. The sentinel was right to speak, and nobody in that party should have made him. Here is the rest of the story.

Start with the man on the mat. A Tomb sentinel breaks his silence only when he must, and on Wednesday he did exactly what the Old Guard trains him to do. Every visitor, Cabinet officers included, owes that ground silence. Hours earlier, Hegseth had stood with President Trump at the national wreath-laying. The bigger record matters too. The Pentagon reported that all five active-duty services met their recruiting goals in fiscal 2025, the best results in more than 15 years. The Army signed 62,050 recruits against a goal of 61,000, and the Navy brought in 44,096 against 40,600. Then the Army hit its 2026 goal four months early, Hegseth announced at West Point in May. Young Americans are voting with their feet.

The Unknown Soldier of World War I came home from the battlefields of France and was laid to rest at Arlington on Nov. 11, 1921, and soldiers have guarded his tomb around the clock since 1937. Our allies notice how America honors its dead, and they notice whether America is strong. Hegseth has framed his agenda as peace through strength and has defended the Iran war as an effort to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, WJLA reported. Americans can and do debate that war. But a country that keeps faith with its fallen, and keeps its military ready, is a country friends trust and rivals respect. Scripture says there is "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." Strength speaks for us abroad.

Standards are the story here, and Hegseth has made standards his calling card. In a video released last week he said the department had removed DEI programs and fired leaders he said had failed, and he counted securing the border as a military mission, WJLA reported. He has also asked Congress for at least $350 billion more for defense, calling it a once-in-a-generation investment. You can argue about the price tag. You cannot argue that the troops on the southern border or the sentinels at the Tomb should be held to anything less than the highest standard, and that standard applies to everyone who travels with the secretary. His message to the force in that same video: "Don't blink. Ignore the noise. Never hesitate."

A short clip can circle the globe before the facts get their boots on. CNN aired the footage live Wednesday afternoon, labeled as happening moments ago, Newsweek reported. Headlines that followed went further than the video, saying Hegseth was yelled at, while Newsweek's own review of the broadcast found it was not clear who in the group laughed. Platforms reward the angriest framing, and readers deserve the fuller one: a guard enforced a rule, members of a group fell short, and the secretary had spent his morning honoring the fallen beside the commander in chief. Before you share, watch the whole thing and ask what the clip does not show.

I follow the record, so here it is. Newsweek asked the Pentagon for comment Wednesday afternoon and reported no reply. If anyone in that party laughed at the Tomb, the right answer is the one a soldier gives: own it. The rest of the record is numbers, and the numbers are strong. The Pentagon's own figures show the Marine Corps hit its goal of 26,600 exactly, while the Air Force and Space Force both topped theirs. The one soft spot was the Army Reserve, which met about 75 percent of its goal, and that deserves attention. Honest accounting reports both, and on balance this is a force that young Americans want to join.

Some of the proudest stories of this day come from Indian Country. Six years ago today, the National Native American Veterans Memorial opened on the National Mall, a steel ring above a carved stone drum near the entrance of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, NPR reported. Kevin Gover, the museum's director and a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, told NPR it is "an article of faith in Indian country" that Native people serve at a greater rate than almost any other group. That spirit of service is what the sentinel defended Wednesday and what every new recruit signs up for. Greater love hath no man than this. On Veterans Day, we honor every one of them.