Charlie Kirk<\/a>, who was killed Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n\n \u201cThe life, example, and even death of Christ-follower and American patriot Charlie Kirk give me hope.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cFull heart, clear eyes \u2014 like those on 9\/11, you will never be forgotten,\u201d Hegseth said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The defense secretary also reflected on his own military service, telling the audience he watched the 9\/11 attacks as an Army ROTC officer while a junior in college.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLike too many Americans, I was naive to the threats brewing abroad and infiltrating our shores, but from that day forward, I felt an unshakable call to action, a duty to defend our sacred homeland with everything I had,\u201d he said. \u201cLike all of you, 9\/11 was the ultimate validator to serve.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n And Hegseth said that the Trump administration was committed to \u201clearning the correct lessons of that day and the decades of courage that followed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWar must not become a mere tool for global social work, eager to risk American blood and treasure from utopian fever dreams,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe should hit hard, wreak vengeance and return home. For two decades, our warriors fought with valor, valor every day, far from home, even though sometimes their leaders gave them nation-building missions and half-baked exits. Thankfully, today we have an American military that President Trump has now rebuilt twice.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reflected on the \u201cact of savage evil\u201d of the 9\/11 attacks while taking…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":219515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-219514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115188522381554628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Defense](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/ap25254500822255.jpg?c=original&q=w_1280,c_fill\/f_avif\")
<\/p>\n