My thanks to Sen. Angus King for his astute questioning of Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearing Jan. 14.

I served four years as an enlisted soldier in the United States Army. From the start, I was impressed by the many ways in which military and civilian cultures differ. In the popular imagination, basic training is all about fitness and skills, plus a haircut. But my biggest takeaway was cultural: that, in the military, soldiers take responsibility for their words and actions.

Not only were we not allowed to provide an excuse for what we’d said or done, we weren’t allowed to provide any further explanation. If somebody asked us a question, we answered it. We said what we said, and did what we did, and that was the end of it; nothing we might say afterward could alter that.

It sounds harsh, and I suppose it is, but it’s not possible for a military to function any other way.

Some of the things Mr. Hegseth said in his confirmation hearing were terrifying: his refusal to answer Sen. Slotkin’s straightforward questions about whether or not he would disobey an unlawful order; his evasive and equivocal responses to Sen. King’s questioning about the Geneva Convention.

I heard a lot of explaining, defending, excusing, evading and equivocating from Mr. Hegseth. It was, in short, the least military presentation I could imagine.

Mr. Hegseth not only lacks qualification for the position of secretary of defense, he lacks the fundamental values of the institution itself.

William Middleton
Great Diamond Island