Mark Hertling
Role at the time: Retired United States Army lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. Army Europe, as a military analyst on MS NOW
Statement summary
Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, criticised the Pentagon's attendance criteria for Hegseth's address on MS NOW. He said the military measures height and weight rather than waist-to-height, so the requirement was miscommunicated to the force, described the criteria as poor leadership, and relayed an email from a retired senior officer who said he was more concerned about soldiers going blind from eye-rolling. He added that senior officers were following lawful orders while cringing at them.
“This is the performance of a bad squad leader, a bad newly promoted sergeant who's trying to get his troops in line. It smacks of poor leadership.”
Why we used this label
Hertling rejects them as poor leadership and as a misuse of a defence secretary's time during a war, which condemns the conduct under scrutiny. The closest competing label is “Challenged the characterization”, since part of his answer corrects the terminology, noting the Army uses height and weight rather than waist-to-height. That loses because the correction is preliminary to a substantive judgment about leadership rather than the whole of his response.