War Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that all 3,860 Pentagon officials above the rank of colonel stand in the Hall of Heroes each morning at 6:00 and read aloud the words "I was never impeached" until the House resolution against him is withdrawn or expires. The order, issued on Tuesday, follows the eight articles of impeachment filed by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, whom Hegseth described as a defeated man pursuing a personal manifesto.
The Pentagon has already begun building a wooden podium in the Hall of Heroes, which the department says will be large enough to hold a single officer at a time. Facilities staff have been instructed to cut the hall's marble floor into strips so that the officers can rotate their positions in the reading order. A spokesperson confirmed that the strips will be laid out in a continuous line stretching down the Potomac side of the building.
Officers who arrive late are required to read the sentence twice and then carry a folding chair from the Mall to the Pentagon steps, a distance the department has measured at 2.4 miles. Several generals have already started practicing the route before dawn, and the Army has announced a new physical training category called "resolution endurance." Officials said the first qualifying test will take place on Friday.
"Congress can impeach a file, but it cannot impeach the reading of a file," a senior Pentagon adviser said at a briefing on Tuesday. "The secretary has asked us to show that the department is unmoved, and we are very good at standing still." The adviser added that the order will remain in place until the 11th day of the new year, when Hegseth has indicated he will personally read the full text of the resolution back to Massie in the Capitol.