WASHINGTON DC — Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth invoked religious language to frame recent U.S. military operations in Iran as divinely sanctioned during a worship service at the Pentagon on March 25 in Washington, D.C. Hegseth repeatedly invoked "God's almighty providence" and expressed certainty that God is on the side of the U.S. military.

During the service, Hegseth prayed, "Overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy." He also cast the rescue of a crew member from a downed F-15 fighter jet in southern Iran in explicitly biblical terms. "Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn," he said.

The worship service took place weeks after a preliminary U.S. military investigation indicated that the United States was responsible for a Feb. 28 school bombing in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 175 people, most of them children. Neither President Donald Trump nor Hegseth has publicly taken responsibility or expressed remorse for the bombing.

The F-15 downing came weeks after Hegseth had claimed the U.S. had achieved "total air dominance" over Iran. The rescue mission resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aircraft.

Hegseth, 45, is a U.S. Army veteran who served multiple tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. He pursued officer training at Princeton University and was born and raised in Minnesota. He has a tattoo on his right biceps reading "Deus Vult," a Latin phrase meaning "God wills it" that was chanted by Christian warriors in response to Pope Urban II's 1095 call to march to the Holy Land and reconquer it for Christendom. Hegseth is a member of a Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity that rejects the pope's authority and holds a belief in predestination.

In 2021, Hegseth left the military after being reported by fellow service members for his Crusader tattoos, which have been associated with white supremacist and extremist groups. He was also forced out of leadership roles at two veterans advocacy groups following allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. In 2017, he paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of rape, an allegation he denies.

Hegseth became a host at Fox News in 2016 and later ran a campaign to secure presidential pardons for convicted war criminals, which drew the attention of Trump. He has described his early life as having a Christian veneer but a secular core. He was twice divorced and married his third wife in 2019; he is raising seven children with her.