Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meets with the senators during tour; a ceremony ahead of the tour triggered emotions in one senator.
Wednesday’s American Legion Boys Nation schedule included the longest scheduled offsite visits, with the senators spending more than nine hours at various stops in the Arlington area.
The bulk of that time was spent at the Pentagon, where the senators were given a tour of the second-largest office building in the world and the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Toward the end of the tour, all of the senators took their seats in the Hall of Heroes, a room dedicated to honoring Medal of Honor recipients. And at a little after 4 p.m. they delivered a collective gasp when they realized who had walked into the room: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
None of the senators had been given any clue that their guest speaker would be the man in charge of the Department of Defense. Hegseth spoke for around 15 minutes and then spent the next 30 minutes being peppered with questions from the senators before receiving a standing ovation from his audience that was similar to his reception when he entered the room.
“I want you to know how motivating it is to us to see this kind of enthusiasm and commitment to serve,” Hegseth told the senators. “While we're in the business here in the Pentagon of wearing uniforms and making sure we're as strong and ready as possible to defend the United States of America, I know … the precursor to that job is ensuring we have young people who understand what a special country we live in. The United States of America is the exception to the rule in human history."
A member of American Legion Post 225 in Forest Lake, Minn., since 2005, Hegseth said the United States provides opportunities for its citizens not seen in other nations.
"Most men and women who've grown up, grew up under autocrats or kings or dictators or command-and-control economies didn't grow up with the kind of opportunities and freedom that we have in this country, where anybody from any background, regardless of where you grow up, it doesn't matter,” he said. “You have an opportunity in America to achieve the American dream and succeed."
Hegseth said he hoped members of this year’s Boys Nation would consider a career in service to others, which includes the military. "I'm a little biased in believing that military service is a pretty damn good route to go,” he said. “It is about the purest manifestation of selflessness, of testing yourself and of giving back to your country. I hope you'll think about the Army, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Space Force, or the Navy, any one of them. They're all fantastic."
Hegseth said the senators in the room will have an important role to play in the nation’s future.
"One of the missions I've appreciated of the American Legion for a long time is the mission of Americanism, of love of God and country, of fostering that spirit amongst the next generation," he said. "I'm looking out at an incredible group of young men here who have a chance to be a part of shaping that next generation.
“Thank you for taking the time to come to Washington and learn about our incredible country that is still leading the way for the world. And it's going to be your job when I'm long gone to continue to lead the way for us and keep us good and free and strong."
The tour prior to the time with Hegseth took each of the four Boys Nation sections along different routes that shared areas dedicated to all five branches of the federal armed forces. During its tour, the Jefferson Section was able to briefly meet with the highest-ranked enlisted servicemember in the U.S. military: David Isom, a former Navy SEAL and Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Isom spent a few minutes chatting with the senators about the Boys Nation program and then took a picture with the group.
A Connection Made at the 9/11 Memorial. Before heading inside the Pentagon, the senators took part in a wreath-laying ceremony that included speeches by both Boys Nation President Luke Lawson and Vice President Nick Frazier. The latter’s remarks, along with a chance encounter with one of the cantilevered benches that are a part of the memorial, triggered emotions in one senator. Even tears.
Wade Stohlman wasn’t born when planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 – the latter crash taking the lives of 184 people. But the Montana senator’s parents were both in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in Ramstein, Germany, on the day of the attacks.
The speeches delivered during the ceremony “really put things into perspective for me,” said Stohlman, a senior at Gallatin High School in Bozeman. “I may not have been alive at that time, but it still impacted every American. I was thinking about the stories my parents were telling me. They were telling me everything that was going on at Ramstein Air Force over there. And I was thinking that’s just crazy to think that was happening overseas.”
After the ceremony, Stohlman and the other senators began walking around the memorial. And that’s when things became a bit emotional.
“I never really had a connection to it back in the U.S. My sixth-grade history teacher made a really big deal out of it, but that was the closest thing I had,” he said. “And then I was walking through the gardens with all the benches, all the beautiful trees … and one of the benches had a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force. And that’s the exact rank my dad is.
“I’m not sure exactly what it was about that moment, but it just had that connection for me. This is no longer just a bench with a name on it. This is no longer just a grave. This is somebody who I can relate to. This is somebody I can relate to. This is somebody who went through the things that my dad went through to get where he is today. This is somebody who served their country, and by no fault of their own had their life taken by something they couldn’t control.”
In other Wednesday happenings:
· The senators’ day started with the inauguration. President Luke Lawson and Vice President Nick Frazier were sworn into their respective offices by David Bobb, president of the Bill of Rights Institute and a nationally recognized expert in civic education.
· In the evening, the senators joined their counterparts from the American Legion Auxiliary Girls Nation at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall for Twilight Tattoo. The weekly event throughout the summer features soldiers from the U.S. Army Military District of Washington’s ceremonial units, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) and The U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own”, as well as performances by The U.S. Army Blues, The U.S. Army Band Downrange, The Commander-in-Chief’s Guard, The U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, and The U.S. Army Drill Team. It’s a combination of pop, military and patriotic music, combined with soldiers wearing the uniforms of various times in U.S. military history. The Boys Nation senators stole the show, regularly being shown as they danced, clapped, cheered madly and occasionally broke out in chants of “USA, USA, USA.”
· The evening closed with a visit to the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in D.C. Often referred to as the Iwo Jima Memorial, it’s an impressive 78-feet-tall recreation of the 1945 photograph of six Marines raising a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi. Boys Nation Supply Manager Jim Davis, a Vietnam War Marine Corps veteran, shared the history of both the battle and the memorial with the senators.
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