Hegseth had called military leaders to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, near Washington, without publicly revealing the reason until this morning. In keeping with the nonpartisan tradition of the armed services, the military leaders sat mostly stone-faced through Trump’s politicized remarks, a contrast from when rank-and-file soldiers cheered during Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg this summer. That was echoed by Trump, who said “the purposes of America military is not to protect anyone’s feelings. It’s to protect our republic.″″We will not be politically correct when it comes to defending American freedom,” Trump said. “But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” he said.