In a move that has become sadly predictable, The Washington Post has once again prioritized political theater over journalistic substance, this time taking aim at Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for the unpardonable offense of doing his job—and doing it well.
With the U.S. Army celebrating its 250th birthday in full patriotic fashion, it also has something else to celebrate: a recruiting triumph. For the first time in years, the military met its annual target of 61,000 recruits four months ahead of schedule. That’s a dramatic reversal from just two years ago when the Army fell 10,000 short. It’s the kind of success story that should be headline-worthy—but not if the success is credited to the Trump administration.
Both President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth have rightfully highlighted the turnaround as a result of deliberate policy shifts since January. Hegseth, in particular, ran on a clear mandate: restore the warrior ethos, cut bureaucratic clutter, and reignite military morale. He’s done just that. But because the success undermines the narrative preferred by legacy media, the knives are out.
Instead of praising the military’s resurgence, The Washington Post assigned reporters Alex Horton and Hope Hodge Seck to cobble together a “complicated” explainer on why the good news isn’t actually good news. The result? A feature-length eye-roll filled with quotes from a dozen “experts” floating alternate theories—delayed entries, older strategies, changes in paperwork—all to undermine the clear link between policy and outcome.
The sheer energy the Post poured into this takedown is telling. Where was this level of scrutiny during the Biden years, when military recruitment was in freefall? When retention was in crisis and morale cratered under the weight of diversity quotas, pronoun briefings, and vaccine mandates?
This is the same publication that shrugged at Joe Biden’s visible cognitive decline but rushes to question a surge in military sign-ups as somehow “suspicious” once Trump and Hegseth are at the helm. Apparently, success is only valid if it comes from the left.
Recruiters on the ground are telling a different story. They’re seeing a wave of young Americans motivated by leadership change—young men and women more inclined to enlist in combat roles, inspired by a clear command vision and a renewed sense of purpose. One recruiter put it bluntly:
“Those people are much more likely, in my experience, to be people who are coming to us to join a combat job, rather than desk jobs.”
That reality doesn’t align with the “It’s complicated” message the media wants to sell, so it’s being buried beneath a heap of speculative sidebars and bureaucratic guesswork.
