On Tuesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth traveled to the Dayton, Ohio, area for a stop on the “Arsenal of Freedom” tour, addressing the workforce at Sierra Nevada Corp.
“We’ve gone around the country in this ‘Arsenal of Freedom’ tour, meeting with great companies and innovators and sending the signal to our great companies and innovators that when they are unleashed, they’re allowed to run fast—the Department of War is open for business,” Hegseth declared. “Not for show, not for peacetime, but with urgency and for victory, a lasting victory, one that will secure the freedom that we so cherish for generations to come.”
The secretary notably called out Washington, drawing a strong contrast with the work of President Donald Trump’s administration and the Sierra Nevada Corp. workforce.
“Washington, D.C., the folks that operate there, the lobbyists, political types, they don’t understand what you do. They couldn’t do a day in your shoes,” Hegseth said. “They don’t know what it means to build what you build.”
“You see, before President Trump instilled the kind of urgency in American manufacturing … Washington was full of folks who understood the art of sitting back and collecting a paycheck and leeching off the labor that built this great country of ours, producing nothing. Worse than that, Washington was content to outsource our jobs, outsource our supply chains, outsource our industrial base in the name of globalism or anti-American trade agreements,” he added.
Hegseth also praised the workforce for how they are builders “of that very arsenal that guarantees our freedoms.”
Hegseth promoted the tour in many ways throughout his remarks, saying “it’s critical” not to rely on other countries.
“That’s why the ‘Arsenal of Freedom’ is American-made; it’s American-manufactured. It’s American jobs. It’s American muscle. It’s American power. It’s these great American citizens in front of me. Because if we don’t prepare now, we will not win in the future,” he said.
The secretary said that Trump reversed the “backward status quo” of outsourcing military preparedness and set a new course of “unleashing a great American revival, a reawakening of our industrial spirit and our national confidence, a new Golden Age for America.”
While touring the facility of the American aerospace, defense, electronics, and engineering company, Hegseth hailed Sierra Nevada Corp. as a business that “can and will lead the way in helping the War Department.” He praised Sierra Nevada Corp. in particular for developing capabilities to “counter-disable” roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices.
“Many of our warriors came home because of the innovation championed by the people here today and this corporation, and you all should be proud of that theme,” Hegseth said to applause.
He added that he continues to fight a “nonstop war of attrition with the Pentagon bureaucracy, with our own building, to cut the red tape, to speed up the processes, to ensure that you can run fast, to ensure that what a warfighter needs arrives when they need it, before they need it, not after.”
The secretary called for a $1.5 trillion investment in the American military and said those investments would “translate directly into high-paying jobs for American manufacturers like the Sierra Nevada Corporation.”
He also said the department must be required before 2028 to “pass a full audit of the Department of War to know where every dime is coming from,” as is mandated by Congress.
Continue reading...
[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
