Hegseth went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts in politics at Princeton University in 2003.[6][7] While there, he wrote for The Princeton Tory magazine[8] and played basketball for the Tigers under coach John Thompson III.[9][10] Their team made the NCAA tournament in 2001.[11][12]
In 2013, he received a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[13]
Military career
Early career
After graduating from Princeton in 2003, Hegseth joined Bear Stearns as an equity capital markets analyst and was also commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard.[14] In 2004, his unit was called to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, under the operational control of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division, where he served as an infantry platoon leader and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Shortly after returning from Cuba, Hegseth volunteered to serve in Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq, where he served first as an infantry platoon leader and later as civil-military operations officer. During his time in Iraq, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, and a second Army Commendation Medal.[15][citation needed]
Return to active duty
Hegseth returned to active duty in 2012 as a captain.[16] He deployed to Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard and acted as a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul.[citation needed] In 2014, Hegseth was promoted to the rank of major and left active duty to be assigned to the Army Individual Ready Reserve.[17][18]
National guard service
In 2019, Hegseth rejoined the National Guard after five years in the Individual Ready Reserve.[18]
Biden inauguration controversy
Hegseth was one of 12 troops who were removed from the group of National Guardsmen providing security for the inauguration of Joe Biden after he was discovered to have a tattoo that has been associated with some white supremacist and nationalist groups.[19][20][21]
In 2020, he volunteered to be one of the up-to-25,000 Guard troops authorized by the Pentagon to be put on active duty to help safeguard the January 20, 2021, inauguration. On January 14, 2021, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team sent an email to the unit’s leadership notifying them of a tattoo on Hegseth’s bicep reading “Deus Vult”, a phrase the security manager determined was associated with the Crusades and, in the 21st century, with white supremacists who use it to invoke the idea of a white Christian medieval past.[19] Shortly thereafter, Hegseth was told to stay home from the event.[19]
Hegseth has said that his National Guard superiors removed him because of his Jerusalem cross tattoo,[20] which they determined was connected to extremism but which he said is simply a Christian symbol.[22] He wrote in his book that this caused him to resign in disgust, and his last day in uniform was March 31, 2021.[18]
In January 2024, he officially separated from the National Guard’s Individual Ready Reserve, he said in his book.[23]
That sounds like a name that Clinton would have made up for a bullshit degree.