Released on Veterans Day, Hegseth states, “The reason anyone on Earth today is free is ultimately thanks to the U.S. military.” Hegseth says that critics who say his claim is exaggerated have taken America’s safety for granted, not noticing that the U.S. military has worked 24/7 for decades to protect freedom.

America was loath to get involved in foreign conflicts, Hegseth says, but ultimately joined the fight to protect itself and “good, decent and free people everywhere.” German aggression in Europe was halted after America entered World War I. Fascism in Germany and Japan was defeated in World War II, and Communism’s oppression was overcome during the Cold War. More recently, America’s fighting forces punished, and later toppled, a despot in Iraq and chased terrorists out of Afghanistan.

Everywhere America is victorious, Hegseth argues, freedom reigns.

Just take a look, he says, at America’s sole defeat in Vietnam. After the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, “50 million people were deprived of freedom of speech, of assembly, of press, of travel and of religion” and “as many as 2 million more were brutally imprisoned and murdered.”

And in Korea, Hegseth says, “The only reason South Korea isn’t an open-air concentration camp like its northern neighbor” is because America rushed to its defense 70 years ago, with 30,000 American troops still there today.

Like in Korea, Hegseth credits the prevention of numerous other conflicts to the fear of America’s military might.

Skeptics, Hegseth says, need merely ask a simple question: what would happen if China, Iran or Russia disarmed?

“Now imagine if America disarmed,” he says. “New conflicts would spring up and old ones reignite all over the world. Freedom would be in retreat every single day; that’s the dystopian future of a world without the U.S. military.”

For over 100 years, Hegseth concludes, American military might has been the deciding factor in every major conflict. That’s why on Veterans Day, great thanks is due to American veterans for the risk they endured and the sacrifices they made to thwart the bad guys and keep America, and the world, at peace.

View Pete Hegseth’s PragerU video here.

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