A letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth:

I am aware you may never see this letter but I hope you do. With today’s news that you are further restricting the Pentagon press corps, I feel tremendous sadness that you and your staff simply can’t see a way ahead to do your part in keeping a vibrant, diverse and savvy Pentagon press corps at full operational capability so it can report on the troops. After all, those troops swear an oath to defend the Constitution and the press is the only occupation mentioned in that document. The modern era of war correspondents began at Normandy and continued through Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon press corps of today, in particular the one’s you have publicly and angrily labeled legacy media and fake news have been there all the way. Side by side with the troops they have been under fire, away from home for extended periods, been grievously ill and wounded. Always, but always, reporters, like the troops, keep one foot in front of the other, rise to the challenge and report the news. And every reporter will continue to do that as you know. Ok…nothing says you have to like us. Ask any one of your predecessors and I guarantee they will be able to tell you every reporter they didn’t like, stories they didn’t like, and news they wish had not been reported. None of them ever hesitated to undertake leak investigations and all of them sought to protect information. That is why inside the Pentagon of course doors are locked in sensitive areas and nobody enters without permission. But to be very candid, the level of anger, the insults on social media from your staff, and the absolute lack of transparency serves no national security purpose. Your folks like to say they are transparent. I believe you are well aware that is a standard that for now has not been met with only one press conference in the Pentagon since you took office. Posting videos from the press office is just not transparency. It is always good that you stop and speak to reporters as you come and go on trips. Your military experience and your ability to connect with the troops can be such a plus. More than 30 years of covering the Pentagon has long convinced me that bad stuff will happen to troops in the field in combat and the last thing troops care about then is politics. It’s so important the entire press corps has a productive relationship with you so when that 3 am phone call comes everyone can report the news. You may not like us, you may not like the questions, you may not like the stories but Mr. Secretary you are the one Cabinet official for whom freedom of the press is indeed a life and death enterprise on the battlefield. I know you are well aware of that. What you choose to do, or not do, on the way ahead, becomes part of American military history. It’s a legacy that can only be enriched by the notion that a free and open press corps benefits all of America.