Pete Hegseth

Whether we like it or not, gender differences matter in a combat situation.

It's a sense in Minnesota that we need to get back to common sense. We need to get back to taking sensible looks at positions and understanding the proper role of government.

With the winding down of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States now has an opportunity to implement real defense reforms without having a serious impact on immediate battlefield needs.

As an infantry officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, I have led men in combat and trained them on tactics and strategy. The mission of the infantry is to 'close with, and destroy, the enemy.' Our job, in a direct way, is to fight and win wars.

Political correctness is a poison to our security and defenses. It imposes a willful blindness, both at the macro level when unwilling to engage with radical Islamism or whatever you want to call it - if you're not willing to call it what it is - and at the micro level, at the street level.

As the publisher of the 'Tory,' I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.

Veterans are driven by the same frustrations that the public has with what is happening in Washington... the fiscal irresponsibility and the financial crisis that our country is facing.

In the 360-degree battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, women have served honorably and fought valiantly. Yet there is a key difference between being in harm's way and reacting to enemy contact, and being in a direct combat operations role day in and day out. They are different scenarios that require different standards.

Being a defense hawk and a budget hawk are not mutually exclusive.

Combat duty is strenuous and physically demanding, and I'm not the first person to notice that men and women are built differently. And while many will argue that women will only be allowed into combat arms units under the same requirements as their male counterparts, count me as skeptical.

Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) has called for an audit of the Pentagon, so that we finally have some transparency and accountability in how DOD spends taxpayer dollars.

The choices Israelis face and the decisions they make, day in and day out, are literally the difference between life and death. In many ways, I liken their reactions to the way I felt while serving in Iraq.