How does the time when I, a U.S. Navy veteran, roleplayed as a nuclear terrorist relate to Pete Hegseth’s candidacy for secretary of Defense? Let me explain.
I was serving as a nuclear electronics technician on the USS Olympia, which, before its COVID-era decommissioning, was the oldest fast-attack submarine in the American fleet.
The experience started when I was briefed by a few chiefs on my role. I would be roleplaying as a mentally unwell sailor who had placed a detonator on a nuclear weapon.
To be clear, we had no nuclear weapons on board at the time, I had no detonator and the entire exercise was a drill. Military service is about preparedness, and drills are the primary method to achieve it. The most common is a fire drill, but it’s not an evacuation. On a submarine, each sailor is the fire department. Fire drills, for us, meant donning emergency breathing equipment, plugging into an air valve and unkinking hoses. Each drill is timed, assessed and serves as practice against a specific existential risk.
My instructions were simple. Stand in the torpedo room and pretend that I have placed a bomb on a nuclear weapon. Someone will try to talk me down, but I should act like a crazy person and not be pacified. This was one of the most fun things I ever did on the submarine — otherwise a place of endless monotony and mundane work. It was my acting debut!
The drill started. The weapons officer was in charge. He tried to talk me down. I was thinking, “You are annoying, you suck at talking me down.” I was fixated on him, and I rattled off my “reasons,” protesting things like the insane workload, the terrible food, etc. He was being so obtuse!
I heard a loud command shouted from right behind me — “Put your hands up!” I was so shocked I just did it. It was Petty Officer Karns, and I legitimately had no idea he was behind me. Karns bound me with a zip-tie handcuff and escorted me to the chief’s quarters for investigation. I was ordered to empty my pockets. The last thing I remember was feeling like Mary Poppins: chapstick, pens, screwdrivers, tweezers, clippers, wire brushes, notepads. I just kept emptying my pockets to a point where fiasco had arrived. The decorum of the drill fell into reality — “holy s— man, how much have you got in there?”
So what does this have to do with Hegseth’s candidacy for secretary of Defense? Everything.
All workplaces require a certain level of professionalism. A teacher curating a caring learning environment — professionalism. Automotive designers preventing risks of engine failure — professionalism. A drill apprehending me as I roleplay a nuclear terrorist without injury — professionalism.
If the drill I described exemplifies military professionalism, then what does unprofessionalism look like? This is a question I have never even considered until I read a story about John Jacob Hasenbein, who has worked as Hegseth’s personal security guard during visits to Capitol Hill.
Hasenbein, a former Army Special Forces master sergeant, reportedly brutally assaulted a role-player during a military drill.
My drill experience featured professionals preparing and protecting. Hasenbein’s drill ended in disaster — according to the New York Times, he beat a civilian roleplaying as a terrorist so badly that the man suffered “a broken nose, a broken tooth, a sprained shoulder, a scalp hematoma and blunt facial trauma.” Hasenbein left the role-player “hogtied in a pool of his own blood.”
This was harm without purpose, readiness replaced with recklessness. Hegseth, by defending and employing Hasenbein, sends a dangerous message that unnecessary violence is acceptable.
The military deals in death. There is no endeavor where the ethical repercussions of unprofessional behavior are so great as they are in the military — where such unprofessionalism is a gateway to torture, murder and massacre. Since leaving the military, Hegseth has claimed that anyone who critiques the actions of uniformed people is waging a “war on warriors.” But if there is a “war on warriors,” it is being waged by Hegseth himself.
Defending a man who committed assault prosecutable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, rather than defending and upholding that code itself, raises questions about Hegseth’s priorities. His representations of the uniform code as a “war on warriors” seems to be a radical position, and is dangerous to the military’s mission and values.
I am a U.S. Navy veteran. I will stand tall and proud and say with absolute clarity: If you do not understand the role of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the importance of good order and discipline among military professionals, you have no business being a general, an officer and certainly not the secretary of Defense.
Submarines, sometimes called “the silent service,” carry a nuclear arsenal capable of annihilating an entire country. Submarines are not about using force; they are about the possibility of force and the professional restraint of that force. Submarine warfare is a story titled, “Victory in professional restraint.” In Hasenbein, I see a story titled, “Unrestrained; unprofessional.”
In Hegseth, I see a story titled, “Defending unrestrained unprofessionalism.” Is this the U.S. military story we want?
Vincent Schutt served on submarines as an electronic technician second class (nuclear) in the U.S. Navy. He is a PhD student in education.
