Green Beret Vet: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Earned Respect from 10th Group Special Forces After PT Session

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made it a habit to do physical training — or “PT” in military-speak — early in the morning with troops he visits on overseas trips — winning him respect from troops, according to one retired Green Beret.

On Hegseth’s first overseas trip to Germany, Brussels, and Poland, he did PT with Green Berets from 10th Group Special Forces based at Stuttgart, Germany, and then soldiers and Marines based in Warsaw, Poland.

On his recent trip to the Indo-Pacific region, he did PT with Navy SEALs at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham and with U.S. troops in the Philippines.

Hegseth himself spoke about the value of doing PT with troops when asked by Breitbart News after arriving in Germany:

I did do PT with the troops this morning. It’s not that long ago that I was right there with them. … I probably connect more with those guys than I do with four star generals. But now I get the chance of working with four stars and others who are committed to the troops, but when I can get down, do push ups and dead lifts with the troops, and just hear from them what’s working, what isn’t. How do you see your mission set? I love — I love that.

So there was never a doubt, even though we got it at two in the morning, that we were getting up a couple couple hours later to go do PT. It’s a reminder that — you guys, the press in Washington, might think I’m young, but in military terms — I’m old. And that showed this morning with these young guys who ran circles around me in that parking lot.

Matt Tardio, a retired Green Beret from 10th Group, told Breitbart News in a recent interview that after that PT session in Germany, some of the members of 10th Group called him and told him they had the “utmost respect” for Hegseth because of what he did.

“It’s hard to get respect of 10th Group guys. And he nailed it, because he actually humbled himself and went out and got down with them. So if you see him, if you talk to him, tell him 10th Group loves him now.”

“They called me the same day and the next day. They were like, ‘That’s freaking rad man.’ He’s got their respect,” said Tardio, who hosts a podcast called “Speak the Truth.”

Asked if they were amused by the photo of Hegseth running next to a gigantic company commander, Tardio said, “It’s not that it’s funny — it’s that it’s humbling, right?”

“When you’re in Group, you are at the peak of the food chain, and you’re working out like you are a professional-level athlete at that point, right? High school would be like being in the infantry, right? Collegiate-level would be like Ranger Battalion or JTAC. Once you get up to that level, you know, you’re like a freaking NFL player — your life is devoted to it,” Tardio said, adding:

So for Pete to show up and do that with those guys, he knew he was going to get his shit pushed in. And when you see the pictures of his shirt covered in sweat, and in the photos that get released, he looks miserable. That gains respect because he humbled himself.

Tardio said in the Special Forces when he graduated Q Course and showed up to his first team, he was an E-7 and already had multiple combat tours and outranked others, but he was still “the new guy on the team.”

“As somebody that outranked other people, as somebody that had multiple years of combat, I still had to fall in line and listen to people that had been on the team longer than me, regardless of where they’re at, until I had proven myself. And it didn’t take long, but I’m sweeping the floor, I’m taking out the trash. I am trying to learn and absorb everything as humanly possible, right?

“Because you need that information. You need that knowledge. You humble yourself. And that’s what he did that day. He literally did what team guys do when they show up to a team,” he said.

Asked if that was why the company commander running next to Hegseth had a huge smile on his face, Tardio said, “Yes, that’s exactly why — that’s respect.”

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