Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a lot of basic officers and admirals to collect subsequent Tuesday on the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, in response to 5 U.S. officers. Two of them informed ABC Information they do not know what prompted this gathering of doubtless a whole bunch of the U.S. navy’s most senior leaders.
It is rather uncommon to carry such a big assembly of basic officers who’re primarily based stateside and abroad in a single location and for it to incorporate the protection secretary.
Secretary of Conflict Pete Hegseth attends an Oval Workplace assembly between U.S. President Donald Trump and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the White Home, September 25, 2025 in Washington.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs
The bizarre assembly will even happen months after Hegseth ordered a 20% discount within the variety of officers of the four-star rank, along with the 15 senior navy officers he has faraway from their posts, together with Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, Jr. the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s high admiral.
“The Secretary of Conflict can be addressing his senior navy leaders early subsequent week,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated in a press release.
Parnell used Hegseth’s casual title, which got here from President Donald Trump’s govt order renaming the Department of Defense the Division of Conflict earlier this month. The formal renaming of the division would require Congress to behave.
Total, there are 838 complete basic officers and admirals on energetic responsibility — 446 of them are from the upper two-star, three-star and four-star ranks — in response to the Pentagon’s newest statistics from June.
It was unclear to the officers if the entire basic and flag officers within the U.S. navy had been being invited to attend this assembly or if would solely apply to a section of these high-ranking officers.
The Washington Submit was first to report the information of subsequent week’s gathering.
It’s not uncommon for a protection secretary to satisfy with senior navy officers on the Pentagon or these on home and abroad journey. Twice a yr, the senior officers in command of the U.S. combatant instructions collect on the Pentagon to satisfy with the secretary.
Nevertheless, the dimensions and scope of the assembly that makes subsequent week’s gathering uncommon and certain a safety concern for planners. The assembly has additionally led to hypothesis amongst officers as as to whether it has something to do with Hegseth’s strikes to scale back the variety of officers serving as generals or admirals.
In Could, Hegseth signed a memo directing a “minimal” 20% discount within the variety of four-star generals and admirals throughout the active-duty drive.
He additionally known as for not less than a 20% discount of basic officers within the Nationwide Guard, in addition to not less than a ten% discount basically and flag officers affiliated with combatant instructions.
In a video accompanying the memo, Hegseth described it as a “Much less Generals Extra GIs Coverage.” Within the memo, Hegseth stated the order was wanted to “drive innovation and operational excellence, unencumbered by pointless bureaucratic layers that hinder their progress and effectiveness.”
“A essential step on this course of is eradicating redundant drive construction to optimize and streamline management by decreasing extra basic and flag officer positions,” he additionally wrote.
