My noggin is ill-equipped to handle many mysteries, and one of them lurks like a devil creature in the dark.

It involves Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s fixation with the term “war” to define the position he occupies with the Donald Truomp administration. He refers to our servicemen and women as “war fighters.” He calls his department the “War Department.” He refers to himself as the “secretary of war.”

The name of the Cabinet post remains the Defense Department and it cannot be changed just because the commander in chief wants to change it by decree. But good ol’ Pete parades around touting himself as the war monger in chief.

Trump floated the idea of the war department when he took office the second time in January 2025. Hegseth jumped all over it. That’s right boss, he said, let’s just advertise what we’re all about here. It’s not enough to just keep the peace and “defend” the nation against enemies abroad. Hell no! Hegseth, who served for a time in the Army, wants to remind the planet that he’s in charge of the most lethal fighting force in world history.

It’s an act of stupidity. Nothing more than that. This is the same dipshit who summoned general-grade officers to the Pentagon to tell ’em to get in physical shape. No boiler bellies allowed at the top of the chain of command, he said.

Trump plucked this clown off the Fox and Friends Weekend couch to run roughshod over the Pentagon. He’s exhibited zero leadership ability and currently is headed for some seriously rough sailing as Democrats prepared to assume control of Congress. I normally would demand Hegseth quit … except that Trump can find hardly anyone with serious defense credentials to fix what this clown has wrecked.