Members of the military attend a meeting convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) tells the Bulwark he would not sign Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s demand that military serving in President Donald Trump’s violent campaign against so-called “narcoterrorists" sign non-disclosure agreements.

“Soldiers don’t serve individuals; they serve the Constitution,” Hertling said. “They don’t conceal truth from oversight; they protect truth from exploitation. There’s a difference between secrecy that saves lives and secrecy that is based on misplaced loyalty. Our system is designed to tell those apart.”

Hertling said he knows “why businesses need NDAs,” but argues NDAs “have no place in our government.”

“They belong in corporate boardrooms, not command tents. They substitute legal fear for professional trust, and in doing so they erode the very foundation on which military leadership stands.”

Senior military officers, he said, “have a statutory obligation, when requested, to appear before Congress and report honestly on the state of their forces and their missions.” Congressional oversight of the military isn’t optional, he argued. It is one of the pillars of civilian control.

“When generals testify before Congress, they do so under oath, not as political appointees defending an administration but as professionals describing the security of the country as they see it,” said Hertling, adding that he “watched that obligation tested in 2003,” when Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki testified before Congress with honest information that contradicted then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s claim of what it would take to stabilize Iraq following the U.S. invasion.

“Shinseki was publicly rebuked and then quietly sidelined. Yet history proved him right. His testimony remains a defining example of professional integrity: a senior officer fulfilling his duty to speak truth to power, even when it carried personal cost. That is what the system demands, and what democracy depends upon,” said Hertling. “If an NDA were to restrict that obligation — to limit what a commander can say to Congress or to the American people about operations, readiness, or the use of force — it would cross a constitutional line. It would turn a protective instrument into a political one. The goal of secrecy is to protect the nation, not to protect leaders from scrutiny.”

Beyond the problems of a politicized military, the NDA itself is “counterproductive and insulting,” said Hertling, and signals mistrust in a system that “already functions with rigor, gravity, and extreme disciplinary action if violated.”

It’s not supposed to be about secrecy, in the first place, said Hertling. It’s about trust in the laws that already govern classified information, as well as trust in the officers and NCOs who have spent their careers safeguarding it and trust in the system of checks and balances that keeps our military strong, apolitical, and accountable.

“That’s why, if asked to sign such an NDA, I’d respectfully decline. Because the duty of a commander or any military officer isn’t to protect a narrative — it’s to protect the truth, the troops, and the Constitution they serve,” said Hertling.

Read the Bulwark report at this link.