In 1999, Pete Hegseth ’03 arrived at Princeton from Forest Lake, Minn. and promptly began campaigning for class senator, a position he then secured. Over the next four years, Hegseth cemented himself as arguably one of the most vocal, staunch conservatives on campus. He climbed to the rank of publisher for The Princeton Tory, the campus’s foremost conservative publication, and sparked campus debate and outrage over his comments on diversity, feminism, and homosexuality.
Now, Hegseth is in the running for U.S. Secretary of Defense after being nominated for the position by President Donald Trump in November.
Hegseth wore many hats at Princeton. In the mornings, the defense secretary nominee attended ROTC training and varsity basketball practices. During the day, he attended politics classes on presidential leadership and just societies, obtaining an A.B. in Politics. Lunchtime often found Hegseth and his friends walking to Cap and Gown Club, which he previously described to The Daily Princetonian as “sometimes the only break we would get in the middle of the day.” In the afternoon, Hegseth participated in the faith-based group Athletes in Action, and sometimes attended another ROTC leadership session. At night, Hegseth would oversee The Tory — a commitment that would often keep him in the computer room until the early hours of the morning.
An often-controversial, politically divisive figure today, many professors and students remember Hegseth as a well-respected, intelligent, and disciplined student. But some classmates see a stark difference between the Hegseth who enlisted in the military at 22 and the Hegseth who is now poised to lead it.
While Hegseth himself did not respond to multiple requests for comment, the ‘Prince’ spoke to a number of his professors, classmates, and ROTC commanders.
Cameron Atkinson ’03 expressed that the recent allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse that have surfaced against Hegseth “don’t fit” with the student-athlete he knew two decades ago. Hegseth has denied all these allegations.
As a member of the track team and a fellow Cap and Gown member alongside Hegseth, Atkinson noted that at the time, the club drew a significant number of athletes. While track and basketball players often stuck to small, close-knit groups within the club, Atkinson remembers Hegseth as someone who was “comfortable talking to everybody.” “[Hegseth] ran in the larger circle, not in his own small circle,” he told the ‘Prince.’
“He was as smug then as he is now. He sounds wicked smart because he is,” Atkinson added.
At Cap and Gown, Hegseth stood out not only for his outspoken views, but also for his deep religious faith. His commitment to his beliefs earned him a place in a group lightheartedly referred to as the “God Squad” — a circle of religious conservatives within the club who “smiled and nodded all the time,” according to Atkinson.
Atkinson, along with many former classmates the ‘Prince’ spoke to, now has difficulty recognizing the 44-year-old defense secretary nominee. “There was nothing in our somewhat shared path that would make me think of allegations of sexual assault or public intoxication,” Atkinson said. “Anything could happen … but it’s not like he was a boozer and womanizer, assaulting or being inappropriate with women even 20 years ago.”
“As [Hegseth] has stated during the hearings, nobody’s perfect,” Jeff Williams, a retired army colonel and former assistant professor of military science who taught Hegseth, said. “But it did disappoint me a little bit, seeing some of the things that he was accused of doing.”
To many, Hegseth was collegial and thoughtful, while also intensely mission-driven and unabashedly vocal about his political views.
“Interpersonally, I found him to be fair, thoughtful, intelligent, and gracious to those that he was in conversation with,” Cason Cheely ’03 told the ‘Prince.’ A member of Cap and Gown, Cheely often shared meals and conversations with Hegseth and noted that he was also well-acquainted with those on the opposite side of the political aisle. “I found him to be pleasant and respectful and attentive and cheerful to be around,” she said.
To former Assistant Professor of Government Patrick Deneen, who supervised Hegseth’s 90-page senior thesis entitled “Modern Presidential Rhetoric and the Cold War Context,” Hegseth’s diligence toward his athletics and academics, as well as his patriotism, made him a memorable student.
Reflecting on the hectic day-to-day schedules varsity student-athletes manage, Deneen wrote on X that he admired “that Pete made these sacrifices in spite of spending a fair amount of the game sitting on the bench, but was always ready and at key moments electrifying when he got the call.” Deneen, now a professor at the University of Notre Dame, declined a request for comment.
At The Tory, Hegseth first laid the foundations for the culture warrior ideology he later championed on Fox. In a regular column called “The Rant,” Hegseth and his fellow Tory editors notably argued that publishing same-sex marriage announcements could lead to a slippery slope of recognizing unions with animals, labeled the “homosexual lifestyle” as “abnormal and immoral,” and criticized Halle Berry’s 2002 Oscar win as her “accepting the award on behalf of an entire race.” Hegseth also condemned the University’s “gratuitous glorification of diversity” and opined that figures such as John Witherspoon “should never be forgotten.”
Brad Simmons ’03, who was the editor-in-chief of The Tory under Hegseth’s supervision, recalled many late nights and high-pressure situations he endured with Hegseth. “[Hegseth] had a unique leadership style because he was very disciplined; he aggressively got things done,” Simmons told the ‘Prince.’ “But he was a very kind person.”
But Hegseth’s aggressive brand of leadership often caused tension between The Tory and liberal political groups on campus, particularly the Organization of Women Leaders (OWL). In 2002, The Tory featured a cover story with crosshairs superimposed on a cartoon owl. A few pages later, the same owl appeared bloody, with bullet holes — a move OWL publicity chair Laura Petrillo ’04 described to Reuters as feeling “threatening.”
Classmates also recalled protests staged against liberal-leaning speakers and anti-Iraq-war campaigns, as well as Hegseth removing OWL’s posters to replace them with his own.
By his senior year, Hegseth had become a big name in Princeton conservatives, known even to many outside political circles.
“I think [Hegseth] saw a role to play here on campus as a conservative, and carved that out — he sort of took that role to the fullest,” Josh White ’03, who knew Hegseth from a distance, said. White and others noted that, despite their radical nature and the attention they attracted, many of Hegseth’s political views seemed to stem from a place of authenticity rather than calculation.
Hegseth’s leadership qualities and discipline also set him apart in Princeton’s Army ROTC program, which he joined as a sophomore in 2000.
“He carried himself with confidence and a natural charisma, which helps when you’re leading soldiers,” Phil O’Beirne ’02, former Army Captain and the cadet battalion commander during Hegseth’s senior year, told the ‘Prince.’
Varsity athletes also involved in ROTC were granted significant flexibility to manage their commitments to both, O’Beirne said. “But Pete never took advantage of that,” O’Beirne noted. “He was fully committed to ROTC and was a great cadet.”
According to Williams, Hegseth “participated fully” in the program, never missing a lab or training.
“[ROTC] does take a certain type of person; it requires a drive to take on the added workload and as an upperclassman, the leadership of formations and exercises,” Matt Russell ’99, who was part of the Air Force ROTC program, added.
However, concerns over Hegseth’s qualifications for the top Pentagon job — a key criticism senators brought forth in his confirmation hearing — are echoed by those who knew him at Princeton.
“Pete Hegseth is wholly unqualified from a personal and professional perspective,” Col. Matthew McCarville, a former commander of Princeton’s ROTC program, wrote on Facebook. “His nomination is an embarrassment and a disgrace to all who have served, or will serve.”
Following graduation, Hegseth entered the army reserve, as was customary for those in ROTC. Only a week into his new job at Bear Stearns, an investment bank on Wall Street, Hegseth’s unit was activated for duty; he had one month to prepare before deploying to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hegseth subsequently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge following his time at Princeton.
Since his time at Princeton, 22 years and two wars later, Hegseth has cast himself as a “change agent” for the military. Some fear that the military, in turn, may have already changed him beyond recognition.
“The majority of how people come to terms with and process that experience is unfortunate and tragic,” White, who served as an infantry officer, said.
Hegseth himself has confessed that the transition to civilian life was “jarring” and that he drank heavily after the end of his deployment in 2006, though he has denied recently that he has a drinking problem.
“I went from being in a combat zone to being in an apartment in Manhattan and without any contact other than phone calls here or an email here or there with the guys who I had served with,” he told Reserve & National Guard Magazine in 2022. “I didn’t do much and I drank a lot trying to process what I had been through while dealing with a civilian world that frankly just didn’t seem to care,” Hegseth said. “It took me a while to get my footing.”
Many of the recent questions of his leadership record and much of the scrutiny of his personal history concern events from this part of Hegseth’s path — post-Princeton, after deployment, and following his return to civilian life. This chapter of Hegseth’s life, classmates say, feels torn from a different book entirely.
“The Pete Hegseth I knew at Princeton would be a great Secretary of Defense — I’m sure of that,” Simmons said. “And the Pete Hegseth that I’m reading about in the media is not the Pete that I know.”
The Hegseth many Princetonians knew was someone who rarely drank in public, was a member of a short-lived dueling society, and brashly espoused conservative viewpoints. He has remained peripherally associated with the University, serving as a trustee of The Tory until 2021 and making several campus visits for ROTC and basketball events.
What the current defense secretary nominee liked in particular about Princeton, he recalled in a 2017 ‘Prince’ interview, is the idea “that you can civilly agree or disagree, but respect each other’s differences.”
“I always thought Princeton did a pretty good job of advancing free exchange of ideas,” Hegseth said in the interview.
Now, Hegseth has developed a more critical stance toward his alma mater — along with many other issues. Once a proud alumnus of the school wishing to bring his children to basketball games, he now describes Princeton and the Ivy League as an “educational cartel” that “indoctrinates” students. An outspoken advocate against women in combat roles as late as November 2024, he appears to have altered his position during last week’s confirmation hearing. A devout Christian during his Princeton days as part of the “God Squad,” Hegseth has admitted to being a “serial cheater” but claims to have changed through his wife Jennifer Rauchet and his faith in “my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Hegseth’s views — and he himself, perhaps — seem to have changed.
Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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