One of the interesting things that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are doing is returning the U.S. military to being a lethal fighting force, not a community outreach project with guns. Once, Americans understood that we fight wars to win. However, after Vietnam, we started to fight with an eye toward what the Iraq War came to call “winning hearts and minds.” I would say that if you want the enemy’s hearts and minds, you are in the wrong war, and you’re sacrificing your troops for nothing.

My father was a veteran of two wars: World War II and the Israeli War of Independence. Both were unbelievably brutal wars against enemies who belonged to antisemitic death cults. That’s why he was so baffled by the Gulf War. As best as he could tell (and he was right), America wasn’t fighting to win as he understood it. Instead, it went in with a limited objective that fell short of total victory.

Had Dad lived long enough, he would have been equally baffled by the Iraq War. “You fight wars to win,” he always said. He also said, “You can’t want to be friends with your enemy because your enemy wants to kill you.” The Rules of Engagement imposed on the troops made both things impossible.

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The ROEs rose from the post-WWII theory that the people laboring under a tyrannical government are victims, too. It’s wrong to kill them. They can’t help it. So, just as Israel does, you desperately try to kill only combatants while trying to spare civilians. The problem, though, as in Gaza, is that the civilians are often aligned with the combatants and giving them aid and succor. The result is a halfhearted American effort that draws out conflicts and increases casualties.

When a conflict could be fought swiftly, with maximum lethality against the enemy combatants, yes, civilians will be caught in the crossfire. However, dragging that same conflict out for months or years is more cruel, whether for civilians or our own troops—and the latter, after all, should be our primary concern.

That’s why the historian Paul Fussell said, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb.” The Japanese population, imbued with the cult-like Bushido ethos, would have fought to the last man, woman, and child had the Allies invaded the mainland. That is, they would always have died as victims of their own government. By dropping the bomb, Truman saved hundreds of thousands of American troops and, quite possibly, millions of Japanese civilians. The process was painful but necessary.

Pete Hegseth was one of the troops in Iraq who was hampered by the new American approach to war, which required valuing the enemy over our own military. Hegseth understood, as my dad did, that it’s impossible to fight a war this way.

And so, with Trump’s blessing, Hegseth is returning the American military to its intended lethality. This lethality says that other countries should not engage in activities that put them in America’s crosshairs because, while America will never condone war crimes, it also will not allow its troops to be lambs sacrificed to a politically correct battle plan.

In that spirit, the following tweet comes from someone who served in the infantry during the Iraq War, witnessed the price paid for enemy-friendly rules of engagement, and appreciates Trump’s and Hegseth’s approach to the Houthis. The takeaway, which Hegseth understands, is that if your enemy fears and respects you, wars are shorter, and they die more than you do. However, if your enemy knows that you fight with both hands tied behind your backs, the war is endless, and you will die in droves:

Let’s talk about ROE, and why our forces killing terrorists now are doing it fast, decisively, and without apology.

Because we’ve been the ones with our hands tied. And it damn near broke us.

Back in 2008 Iraq, I had a PL buddy escorting a SOF convoy down Route Predators, one of the most dangerous roads in east Baghdad. His platoon took 15 EFPs to the face. Withering enemy fire. Total chaos.

And not a single shot fired in return.

Why? Because our ROE at the time said we couldn’t engage unless we saw a weapon and intent to shoot. That’s right. Intent. In Baghdad. At night. During a war. He watched shady figures sprinting back and forth from the road. No visible weapons. Grainy optics. No green light.

They were likely placing IEDs in real time, but they got to walk away. Because our rules said: better let them live than risk doing it wrong.

His Bradley got shredded. His turret lost comms. The driver panicked and bolted, driving for miles to FOB Falcon with no orders. My buddy had to crawl outside the vehicle mid-movement and kick the hatch until the kid stopped. They lived. Somehow. But it could’ve ended very differently.

Later, a SEAL team (including Chris Kyle) set up overwatch on that same road with our guys. They had no such restrictive ROE. They killed EVERYONE who moved near the road. Day or night. Body count skyrocketed. The enemy fled. Marketplaces later reopened and it was safe for the rest of the tour.

I remember a tribal elder telling us he didn’t believe Americans were capable of that kind of violence. He assumed we were too weak. Too soft. He was a malign actor and told me it must be another sectarian force, and that it was not possible for Americans to have done this. That moment stuck with me.

So when you see today’s @SecDef or other senior leaders authorizing quick, lethal strikes, understand what you’re watching:

You’re watching men from our generation, the ones who bled under cowardly rules, finally unleashing the kind of justice we were once denied. Their memories aren’t haunted by the bodies they dropped, they’re haunted by the ones they weren’t allowed to.  And the brothers and sisters we lost as a result.

Final thought:

Never chain our warfighters again. Not with politics. Not with fear. Not with lawyers in the loop when bullets are flying. War is ugly, but hesitation is worse. Let the pitbulls off the leash when it’s time to throw down.