In official statements, Pete Hegseth calls the first one, “Lethality.”
Usually it’s a dry, abstract word. A term that’s launched a thousand PowerPoint slide shows. It’s ideal for air-conditioned classrooms, lit by rows of long tubular fluorescent bulbs. Under the lights, as it is repeated, rows of men in uniform listen, many taking notes, or (if it’s shortly after lunch, struggleto keep their eyes open).
Or at a crowded congressional hearing. “If you’re confirmed as Secretary of Defense,” asked a U. S. Senator, “what would be your mission, Mr. Hegseth?”
It’s the first significant noun he emits (after, of course, the name Trump), in a crisply-memorized litany:
“He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, war-fighting, accountability and readiness.”
A year ago last Saturday, the Friends Meeting I’m part of took a big step, for us: we rented a booth at the Alamance Pride Festival, held in a large park in downtown Burlington NC.
Chris Kerr was 12 when he first observed a deathbed vision. His memory of that summer in 1974 is blurred, but not the sense of mystery he felt at the bedside of his dying father. Throughout Kerr’s childhood in Toronto, his father, a surgeon, was too busy to spend much time with his son, except for an annual fishing trip they took, just the two of them, to the Canadian wilderness.