On Tuesday morning, almost every U.S. general was summoned to Quantico to be lectured by Donald Trump about the dangers of Democratic governance and why he’s always careful walking down stairs, and by Pete Hegseth about the “warrior ethos.” According to one estimate, the uniformed men and women in the room had some 25,000 years of military experience between them. Yet in a rigidly hierarchical institution where the chain of command is sacrosanct, everyone understood that despite their medals and ribbons, they were subordinate to the two men onstage: the president, who famously evaded service in Vietnam and reportedly called fallen American soldiers “suckers” and “losers,” and the secretary of Defense, who served three overseas deployments (including one at Gitmo) and topped out at the rank of major in the Minnesota National Guard before becoming a Fox News personality and, subsequently, the civilian leader of the world’s most powerful military.