Sept. 25 (UPI) — War Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned the nation’s military leaders from around the world to meet at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., for an unspecified reason on Tuesday.
The number of generals and admirals called to the meeting is the most summoned for a meeting in many years, according to The New York Times.
Other media outlets reporting the meeting include The Hill and CNN, which said hundreds of military leaders are expected to attend the high-level meeting.
“The secretary of War will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” War Department spokesman Sean Parnell told The Hill in a prepared statement.
He did not elaborate on the meeting’s primary purpose.
“It’s being referred to as the general squid games,” an unnamed military official told CNN.
Many in the military have suggested the meeting might regard conditions with the Defense Department, a widespread purge of military officers or possibly a major military campaign that might be in the works.
Hegseth’s directive to attend the meeting went to all senior officers holding the rank of brigadier general and higher and their counterparts in the U.S. Navy.
More than 800 generals and admirals could heed the call and arrive at the meeting, which has raised security concerns regarding having that many senior military officials gathered at the same place at the same time.
An unnamed congressional aide suggested the meeting might involve overhauling the U.S. military command structure or possibly a pending major military campaign.
When Hegseth was being vetted for his current position, he criticized the large number of four-star generals and admirals in the U.S. military and said the nation won World War II with far fewer.