STARRS and Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

The Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, gave remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast (see video below) and said some of the same things STARRS has been saying all these years, including the travesty of religious exemptions being flatly denied across the services regarding the Covid vax:

“We reinstated also service members who were thrown out of our military over religious objections. That was a big deal. They got thrown out over religious objections to vaccine mandates and all of the other things. They used any excuse they could. We restored those patriots to their former ranks with full pay. We’ve given them full pay. They were taken advantage of. And I really think it was over religion. I actually think that they used the vaccines as a way of really punishing people over religion. I don’t know how you can vote for these people. I really don’t.”

STARRS warned in a document we kept updating with quotes from military-related people that the divisive leftist agenda being pushed on the military during the Biden administration was causing people not to want to go into the military, not recommend joining the military, and making those who were already in decide to leave. See: 2,250+ comments showing CRT/DEI agenda hurts recruitment, retention and moral.

President Trump said the same thing:

“I think we’ve brought back spirit to our country. You know two years ago, you couldn’t get anybody to go into the military. . . We couldn’t recruit anybody to go into our great military. We were the worst I think it’s ever been two and a half years ago under the Sleepy Joe Biden administration. But we have now the greatest recruiting that we’ve ever had. Everybody wants to be in the military. We’re hot as a pistol.

We couldn’t get anybody to go into the–not “me”, the last administration–nobody wanted to be in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force. But they couldn’t get people to go into any of them. They weren’t proud of our nation. They had no spirit.

Now we have had the single greatest recruitment in the history of our country. There’s never been anything like it. We have waiting lists of people wanting to get in.”

Also STARRS advocacy for merit is mirrored in his remarks:

“We also won in the Supreme Court based on merit. It was a merit and we take people based on merit. Like we prefer a strong person in the military as opposed to a weak person. We prefer somebody that’s a strong, powerful person with extremely good vision that can shoot a rifle very well to a person that’s extremely weak, non-muscular, can’t shoot a rifle, has no idea where the hell he is.

We have a military where they all look like Tom Cruise, only bigger. We hire on merit now.

If you have great boards and great marks and you work and then somebody else gets in with that’s not nearly as qualified. Now it’s a merit system. It’s tough in one way, but our country was built on a system of merit and then we went away from it number of years ago. We got it back. That was a brave decision by the Supreme Court, I’ll say.

And it’s tough on some people. It actually it makes people work harder. But we have to base our country on merit or we won’t have a country. We were going in such a bad direction as a country. I give a lot of credit on that one to the Supreme Court. That took a lot of courage to do it. But they understood it was the right thing to do to be a great nation.”

And the foundation of STARRS has always been a higher purpose which drives what we do regarding DEI and the Covid vax mandate in the military. The President said:

“I’ve watched a lot and I study a lot. You have to have religion, you have to have it. You have to have faith. You have to have God. And thankfully, as we gather today, there are many signs that religion is coming back. And now it’s no longer signs. It’s just coming back. It’s coming back so strong. You know, your churches are filling up.

You didn’t have that two years ago. It was hurt by COVID, and they treated you terribly. The Democrats treated you terribly. The truth is they had pastors holding services outside. The people were standing 15 feet away from each other and everybody was arrested. This was the way they ran it.

You know, they always like to say, “Trump is a dictator,” they love that. I’m not a dictator. But they were like dictators. They were like the Gestapo. They were arresting people for going to church. They were arresting people and treating people like horribly. And I made a lot of amends to those people. Those people were treated very badly for wanting to go to church. It had a huge impact, negative impact on churches. But the churches are now coming back stronger than ever. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it actually.

. . . . There’s great such great spirit. It’s all spirit and it includes religion. I’ve always said you just can’t have a great country if you don’t have religion. You have to believe in something. You have to believe that what we’re doing there’s a reason for it.”

Watch:

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast:

“As you heard President Trump talk about, we talk a lot about peace through strength. At the War Department, we see ourselves as the strength department. But we al also need to remember that we derive our strength through faith and through truth and through the word of God. . . .

. . . In this gospel reading, we hear Christ say, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Clearly Christ was not simply sent to be a diplomat. He was a disruptor. His mission was to divide truth from lies, the things of the world from the things of God, light from darkness, good from evil. And like Christ, in earthly ways, our brave warriors are not called to appease the world. They must confront it. We know we fight a physical battle, but ultimately grounded, as the president said, and a spiritual battlefield.

Not only are we warriors armed with the arsenal of freedom, we ultimately are armed with the arsenal of faith and have been from the beginning. Just as George Washington knelt in the snow at Valley Forge, appealing to heaven for guidance and protection, so too our warriors do today. You see, we talk about 1776 in 250 years, and that is rightfully fitting to do, but at the War Department, we’re a bit of a 1775 department. We know that you can’t have the freedoms of 1776 without the willingness to fight and defend it.”

“. . . .The passage says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.” The warrior is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his creator. That warrior finds eternal life. His legacy will not be one of loss, but of glory for a cause greater than himself. And to preserve the soul of America, we must continue to wield not just the physical sword, but the sword of truth, unafraid and unabashed in this fight. We must remember every single day, especially especially in this town, that all power, all honor, and all glory belongs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Absolutely love this, thank you Mr. President.

Glory to God, forever and always. https://t.co/2Q69R3G1XL

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) February 5, 2026