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Pete Hegseth has the combat leadership experience, academic pedigree, and profound love of country necessary to make our military great again. I served with him in the 34th Infantry Division and succeeded him in leading Concerned Veterans for America, and I wholeheartedly endorse his nomination to be our next secretary of defense.

President Trump knows that the Pentagon is in desperate need of reform, and the best way to accomplish that is to send a true outsider to run the show. The Make America Great Again movement has no better outsider to fix our broken military than Pete Hegseth, and he will also be a true loyalist to President Trump’s agenda. 

Hegseth’s leadership will ensure our military returns to the basics of defeating our adversaries, rather than pushing a social justice agenda. Our military is in the midst of a readiness and recruitment crisis, and reform is needed fast. Hegseth and I served as infantry rifle platoon leaders in combat. Warfighters don’t have the luxury of being distracted by frivolous matters during combat operations. We focused on what I called the Big Four: shoot, move, communicate, and stop bleeding. Transgender surgeries and understanding white rage didn’t quite make the list.

I served as the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), succeeding Hegseth, who brought this group to national prominence. Contrary to media reports based on anonymous sources, I can confirm that Hegseth was not fired. It was common knowledge within CVA that he was going to Fox News. This is nothing more than another tired media attack from an apparatus hell-bent on destroying his nomination.

The media have falsely portrayed CVA as a dysfunctional organization under Hegseth’s leadership, but the executive team and strategy I inherited from him were world-class. The proof is in the policy victories we helped President Trump deliver for veterans by reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2017 and 2018.

I personally briefed President Trump on CVA’s policy proposals during a roundtable discussion with other leaders from Veteran Service Organizations. My message was developed in part by the Fixing Veterans Health Care Task Force, created by Pete Hegseth. We wanted to bring accountability to the VA and provide veterans with a choice in their health care, and we did just that.

The president agreed with our strategy. I quickly deployed the CVA grassroots army, which Hegseth built, to pressure Congress to pass these critically needed reforms. Our volunteers made thousands of citizen contacts by knocking on doors, hosting phone banks, and calling their members of Congress.

In less than six months, President Trump signed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. This would allow the government to fire bad and underperforming VA employees, especially the ones who allowed vets to die on secret waitlists.

The next summer, President Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which provided vets with a choice in their health care.

Thanks to the policy vision of Pete Hegseth and the leadership of President Trump, these reforms brought the VA into the 21st century and likely saved thousands of lives.

That is the Pete Hegseth I know — a warfighter and visionary who loves his country. He will make a tremendous secretary of defense.

Mark Lucas is the executive vice president of the Article III Project. Lucas served as an infantry officer in the Iowa Army National Guard and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star Medal in Afghanistan during the deadliest year of Operation Enduring Freedom.