An estimated hundreds of generals and admirals are expected to descend upon Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Tuesday to hear a speech from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The on this story, and has since learned that this meeting.
“No one, and I mean no one, even senior-level generals who have been directed to travel, in some cases, thousands of miles for this meeting, have been told, yet, what the purpose of the meeting is,” said Dan Lamothe, one of the Washington Post reporters who broke the story. “This is a very highly unusual meeting to bring this many generals together, all on relatively short notice.”
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WTOP national security correspondent JJ Green told 7News he, too, does not remember a meeting of this scale taking place.
“I can’t ever remember a meeting like this happening, especially when you consider that there are hundreds, almost a thousand, generals and admirals that, essentially, are part of the team,” Green said. “What also is interesting, too, is there’s no explanation for why. The spokesman for the Pentagon, Sean Parnell, has confirmed it is happening, but hasn’t said anything about why it’s happening. It doesn’t strike me as something that’s super secret. It doesn’t strike me as something that’s classified, but it also does strike me, as well, as something that could be explained if they wanted to, but they’ve chosen not to.”
According to the Washington Post, Hegseth is expected to talk about
Lamothe told 7News that a meeting with this many military leaders brings up security concerns.
“When you’re pooling this much leadership, this much talent in one place, it at least raises the concern: What if something were to happen?” Lamothe said.
There are also concerns abroad, according to Green.
“There are people from these combatant commands that are in, essentially, every single corner of the world where the U.S. has military forces. So, getting hundreds of generals into the United States for a meeting is not the problem. The problem is not putting any operation at risk, putting any people at risk in the process, putting any exercise at risk, any personnel at risk,” Green said.
7News On Your Side reached out to the Pentagon to ask how many military leaders will be there, what will be discussed, and what prompted this meeting.
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“The Secretary of War will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” said Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell.
“I hesitated to use ‘unprecedented’ in the story, but in talking to more than a dozen sources, nobody we talked to had ever heard of anything like this in their 20-, 30-, 35-year careers. It really is rare,” Lamothe said.
Green added, “It’s one of those situations where a call has been made, these people have to respond, and there’s that speculation we get into. That’s a part of what we’ve been trying to avoid.”