Pete Hegseth - Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes

This book is dedicated to the real 1 percent: the warriorspast, present, and futurewho answered freedoms call.

I couldnt take it anymore. I couldnt just sit there and let the helplessness that had been building overwhelm me.

It was June 2014. Id been watching the deteriorating reports coming out of Iraq for months. A grim roll call of cities where wed shed so much American blood was falling under the black flag of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Tikrit.

Mosul.

Fallujah.

Ramadi.

Id been on Fox News shouting about this dire situation. It was clear that we had an administration at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that either didnt care or was intentionally downplaying ISIS as a jayvee team. The carnage and retreat were not what a generation of warriors fought and bled for. The country of Iraq, and nearby Syria, were rapidly falling to a group of Islamic fighters who were worse than al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Had we forgotten the lessons of 9/11 completely?

Worse, that administration didnt seem to give a damn about the impact on America or her warriors. Blinded by political correctness and distracted by domestic priorities, they simply did not believe Islamists wanted to dominate Iraq, Syria, Afghanistanthe region, the world. Americas modern warriors, of course, know better.

Somebody had to do something. Too many noble warriors had done too many good things, great things, heroic things, for all of it to be brought down like the Twin Towersor like the Golden Dome in Samarra where I served.

Samarra.

Another town that fell to ISIS. The hometown of their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

On 9/11 I was a college student. Those attacks on New York City, the Pentagon, and in the skies reoriented the trajectory of my lifeand the lives of an entire generation.

I was an infantry first lieutenant with my boots on the ground in 2006 when al-Qaeda perpetrated the other strategic attack that altered our wars trajectory. The destruction of the Samarra Golden Domea Shia mosque inside a Sunni townput Iraq in a death spiral of sectarian violence that took many more American lives. Yet, our warriors fought, surged, and overcame. We were willing to make the sacrifice, had committed ourselves to it.

Now the proverbial rug got pulled from beneath our feet. As I sat at my desk in 2014leading the largest conservative veterans organization in AmericaI was feeling more profoundly than ever the depressing effects of a premature, and political, withdrawal of US troops. Iraq was the bad war, according to the Obama administration, so we abandoned the strategic gains of the 2008 surgeundoing all the good that had been done. Iraq was lost, right before our eyes.

Earlier that week, Id gotten a call from Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, a great friend, a Silver Star guy, Medal of Honor nominee, and general badass. I joked with him that he was a man of ideaslots of them. Of the fifty he would tell me about, forty-five were crazy, four implausible, and one genius. As he talked, one of those four implausible ones began to transform into the single genius.

David had a plan for how we could turn all of the helplessness, resignation, and outrage that veterans and patriots were feeling into something positive. Like most audacious actions, the idea was drawn partly from history and partly from the one means that most veterans believed in mosttaking direct action.

I was committed to Davids notion that we form a modern-day Roosevelts Rough Riders. Wed recruit, raise, and deploy a small force (a Spartanesqe three hundred) to go help fight ISIS alongside allies on the ground. As I used back channels to connect with key people whose views I respectedwarriors I had served withI let them know that it was a crazy idea on the surface, but forming a unit like this would be neither reckless nor rogue. The moment was crying out for a movement of leaders, of men, of warriors. Sure, the actual fight was important, but we would also send a strong signal to all Americans; we could rekindle the doused fighting spirit that all Americans possess. Being on Fox News could serve as a bully pulpit. I had some connections. What did they think?

I also had a track record for unconventional approaches. Id taken a similarly audacious step back in July 2005. Id completed my yearlong deployment to Guantnamo Bay and was working as a market analyst on Wall Street. I read a story about a suicide bombing in Baghdad that had killed twenty-seven. Eighteen of the victims were kids under thirteen; one twenty-four-year-old American soldier also paid the ultimate price. As I sat at my comfy desk near the trading floor, I was inundated that day with televised images of the escalating violence. I wasnt fatigued by it; I was motivated. I reached out to one of my few military connections on a long shot, but a good one. He was a company commander in the legendary Rakkasans (187th Infantry Regiment) of the 101st Airborne Division. He had trained me at Infantry School, and nowas he emailed me back almost immediatelyhe needed a new second platoon leader. I wanted to be his man. We had to navigate through some serious Pentagon red tape, but within three months Id punched my ticket to Fort Campbell, trained up with my platoon in Kuwait, and was on to Baghdad, Iraq, where we served for four months before being moved up to Samarra.

Our unit was in Samarra when al-Qaeda blew up the Golden Dome, complicating our efforts to dismantle the insurgency, defeat the enemy, and bring our boys home. Like so many others, our unit experienced the whole gamutconducting foot patrols and kicking down doors, working with city leaders, enduring firefights and receiving death threats. Our warriors did great things on that foreign soil, as well as in Afghanistan where I was an instructor. Like the real 1 percent of my generationthose who wore our nations uniformI saw a lot of things, but I also knew that there was a much wider world beyond our platoon. There were other warriorsshadow warriorswho were the 1 percent of the 1 percent, working in the dead of night to strike fear, and death, into our enemies. Special Operators. As the years have gone by, Ive learned a lot more about who they areas we all learned their stories of gallantry and heroism. Every warrior plays their part, from rank-and-file line units like mine, to Special Operators to our eyes in the sky and ships in the sea.

As you probably have figured out, the 2014 Rough Riders brigade never formed. Hearts were willing, spirits were strong, but that wasnt enough to overcome the overwhelming inertia that had so many mired in the bureaucratic bog. We tried hard, but it wasnt to be. Frankly, just trying was therapeutic, if insufficient.

Fast-forward to my time at Fox News. Ive been blessed with a platform to share my army background and stories of my servicebut I always knew that there were so many others who didnt have that opportunity. I was, and remain, enormously grateful that I could focus on different aspects of the veterans experience on the air. Still, I wanted to do more to share the untold storiesto dig deeper and provide even more immediate and intimate glimpses into the lives of these everyday Americans who performed extraordinary things. Some sacrificed everything on the battlefield, and others suffered in silence when coming hometo an America that seemed disinterested, distracted, or too distanced from the warriors and the full spectrum of what they faced.

But largely based on reactions to segments on my showFox & Friendsit became clear to me that my view of the American publicdisinterested, distracted, distancedwasnt fully accurate. Folks did want to know more. They wanted the real story. They wanted to understand. The black flag of ISIS flew for only so long... before another crop of American warriors, unleashed by a new president, wiped them off the map. In an odd way, this rise of ISIS, followed by their defeat, crystallized even further the need to tell the long, winding, conflicted, and utterly courageous stories of the men who have been fighting since 9/11. Did we win? Did we lose? Was it worth it? The legacy of warriors is worthy of elevationa reflection of what we should really value.