Maj. Gen. David Hill was standing a few feet from where the Black Hawk helicopter en route from the Defense Department would soon be landing, at the lush green fields of the Army War College. Hill is the commandant of the prestigious military institution and had been preparing for days for something rare around here: a visit from the secretary of defense.

“I’ve been here for four years as the commandant of the Army War College. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to host the secretary of defense,” Hill said with a broad smile, adding, “It is pretty cool.”

Hill said that having Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth come to rural Pennsylvania is important because of the history of the Carlisle Barracks, where the campus is located. “This is a really special place,” he said. “It’s a 268-year-old military encampment that predates our nation, and it’s been an integral part of our Army and our nation’s history since 1757. And since 1951, the United States Army War College has been housed here.”

When Hegseth was minutes away, Hill left to greet the defense secretary and his team.

The handshake between Hill and Hegseth was warm. They motorcaded through the Claremont Gate and toward the Wheelock Bandstand, where 800 seats were set up outside for the defense secretary’s speech. The overflow crowd exceeded 1,000, leaving several hundred standing in the grass as Hegseth took to the podium just in front of the old bandstand.

Whoever was running the sound turned up the volume for AC/DC entrance music. The senior military officers in attendance approved.

“Who dialed up ‘Thunderstruck’? I didn’t choose it, but I like it. Please take your seats. It might have to become SOP,” Hegseth said as everyone in attendance, a sea of camouflage and uniforms, laughed. Hegseth was in his element: confident, assured and far from Washington, D.C.

Hegseth was there to mark the first 100 days of the Trump administration and share what he has accomplished at the Department of Defense. He bluntly acknowledged it had been bumpy in the wake of a series of leaks that have resulted in resignations and firings, not to mention unsubstantiated rumors that President Donald Trump is about to fire him.

Afterward, in the same room where Army War College graduate and former five-star Gen. and President Dwight D. Eisenhower once gave a talk, Hegseth sat down with the Washington Examiner. He spoke about his recent controversies, his mission to reshape the military, the robust growth each service branch has seen since Trump took office, and how faith has kept him grounded.

Hegseth said coming here and being able to articulate the department’s focus at a hundred days while looking out at a group of men and women who are the future leaders of our formations meant a lot to him.

Hegseth said he spoke to those in attendance about restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence. He said that these men and women were on board despite having come up in a military filled with a woke quota mindset.

“They don’t know how to react to it or whether to fully embrace it, and whether their commanders will support them in fully embracing it. So our job is to change the entirety of the culture so that they can truly lead with a warfighter ethos,” he said, adding he could see their heads nodding in agreement as he spoke.

Hegseth said what the military looks like 10 years from now will be a direct result of what they do today.

“So we need to make some hard choices right now. What is our forced posture in Europe? How do we ensure we don’t get bogged down in Middle Eastern wars that keep wanting to pull us back so we have clear, limited objectives?” he continued. “How do we prioritize the defense of our own homeland? And you see that on the southern border and Iron Dome. How do we protect our own backyard in the Southern Hemisphere? And all of that is in service to saying, ‘Communist China, we want to be friends with you.’ We don’t want war, but we’re going to be the strongest nation on Earth to ensure that that never happens.”