A decent military record is table stakes, if he did not have a reasonable military record at all he would not have the position - so that’s his primary qualification. People that were close to the administration that didn’t have a military record would not have been eligible for the job.
Not you, but many others were arguing at the time that his primary qualification was ‘being a Fox News anchor’, which is infuriating. It’s not - it’s his military service. There are many people that are Fox News anchors, none of them were eligible for the job because they do not have a military record.
I have no argument with claiming he won the job because of his connections.
It's actually not table stakes nor a matter of eligibility. We've had several SecDefs, all dramatically more competent than Hegseth, who did not have any military experience.
William J. Perry (94-97, 2+5yr Army)
William Cohen (97-01)
Robert Gates (06-11, 2yr AF)
Leon Panetta (11-13, 2yr Army)
Chuck Hagel (13-15, 1yr Army)*
Ash Carter (15-17)
* To be fair, Hagel's year was volunteering to be drafted and sent to Vietnam as an infantry squad leader
> We've had several SecDefs, all dramatically more competent than Hegseth, who did not have any military experience.
Who do you have in mind? Carter, Cohen, and Cheney were the only confirmed secretaries from the past 40 years who fit "no military experience".
There are a handful of recent secretaries with < 5 years of military experience who did not even reach the rank of Captain (e.g. Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Panetta, Perry).
To be clear: I agree with you that military experience is not really a qualification for the job, unless the individual has achieved high enough rank (i.e. General) to be involved in strategic planning. And certainly most secretaries of defense don't have that (Austin and Mattis are quite rare on that front, doubly so because they needed congressional waivers to serve in the position while still being active-duty military).
Not you, but many others were arguing at the time that his primary qualification was ‘being a Fox News anchor’, which is infuriating. It’s not - it’s his military service. There are many people that are Fox News anchors, none of them were eligible for the job because they do not have a military record.
I have no argument with claiming he won the job because of his connections.