By: Hell Cats · Produced by Public Square Media in partnership with VALOR Media Network.
Brought to you by Meidas Defense.
This week on Hell Cats, the conversation is about service, and what a country owes the people it asks to sacrifice. Kris Goldsmith frames it in the open: the real measure of honoring service isn’t what politicians say at parades, it’s what they do when service actually costs something. Maura Sullivan and Rebecca Bennett hold that against a hard news week, and Maura’s line becomes the spine of the episode: a nation that cannot afford to take care of its veterans cannot afford to go to war.
The news is heavy. A costly war with Iran that Congress won’t vote on. A Defense Secretary sidelining some of the Navy’s most qualified leaders. Lawmakers floating cuts to benefits veterans already earned. Then they dive into the heart of the episode: service has never belonged only to people in uniform. It happens in classrooms, hospitals, nonprofits, and neighborhoods too, and rebuilding a culture of it, in any of those forms, might be one of the few things that could actually bring us back together.
Key Takeaways & Critical Insights
Blocking women from the top ranks makes the country less safe. Hegseth blocked a group of senior Navy officers from promotion, most of them women or people of color, so for the first time in more than a decade no active-duty woman is on track to make admiral, including the first woman ever to command an aircraft carrier. Both hosts insist this isn’t about identity, it’s about readiness. You can’t be what you can’t see, and in a Navy that’s twenty percent women but only seven percent women at the admiral level, sidelining proven leaders sets the whole force back. Downrange, Maura says, no one cares what you look like, only whether you’re competent and have their back.
Testosterone testing in the middle of a war. Both assumed it was fake when they first saw it, and one Army veteran told Maura he thought it was an Onion headline. But it’s real: every service member over thirty now has to be tested for testosterone, per Pete Hegseth. Their reaction is blunt. It costs money and time, it does nothing for readiness, and it sends an ugly signal to women in the ranks, all while the country is at war. If the Pentagon’s Tuesday morning is about testosterone tests instead of strategy on Iran, Maura says, the priorities are backwards. Rebecca names the double standard underneath it: the VA still won’t cover fertility treatment for women veterans, but it covers erectile-dysfunction medication.
Don’t cut the benefits veterans already earned. A bill that would have reduced disability compensation for conditions like tinnitus and sleep apnea was pulled from the House floor, but both note how alarming it is that it got that far. Rebecca, who carries a VA rating for tinnitus after years around helicopters and carriers, keeps it concrete: we must take care of our people when they come home.
Climate change is a national security threat. The Canadian wildfire smoke and flooded parks are the visible part; the deeper part is the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and roughly a hundred billion dollars in coastal defense assets sitting in the path of rising seas. Maura’s throughline runs from her Pentagon years, when climate first entered the National Security Strategy, to the Navy’s Great Green Fleet, which she helped launch and which Rebecca, it turns out, flew with at RIMPAC.
Expand national service, and everyone wins. Maura’s pitch is three payoffs at once: the individual is transformed and can earn money for school, communities gain a generation of young leaders, and the country rebuilds a habit of civic responsibility. City Year, the largest recipient of AmeriCorps funding, is her proof, and she notes the entire AmeriCorps budget is a rounding error at the Pentagon. Both stress it’s one of the few ideas left that still draws real support from both parties.
Both find their hope in people who show up. Maura points to the young people on her team who answer a discouraging week by getting involved instead of tuning out. Rebecca points to Democracy Summer, and the “man in the arena” idea that the credit belongs to the people in the fight, not the critics on the sidelines.
What Service Leaves You With
The back half is lighter and more personal, built around listener questions. Asked which military traditions the civilian world should borrow, they land on a few: physical training built into the workday, the celebration that comes with a promotion, and above all the debrief, the after-action review Rebecca has carried into every job since. Both keep the pre-mission discipline too, the convoy brief and the pre-flight checklist, because that attention to detail is how you keep people alive, and it doesn’t switch off when the uniform comes off. They trade what they miss, the camaraderie and the honor of wearing the flag, and what they don’t, dry suits and five a.m. briefs and the eternal hurry up and wait, and make a genuinely convincing case for two pieces of gear the rest of us are missing: the flight suit and the Marine Corps ISO mat.
Two People Who’ve Served
What carries the episode is how much these two share without having to spell it out. One helped stand up the Great Green Fleet from the Pentagon, the other flew with it off Hawaii, and neither knew until now. One ran convoys in Iraq, the other landed helicopters on carriers at night. Different services, same instincts: seek feedback, own the outcome, and never lose sight of the people beside you.
Coming Up Next
This is a six-part limited series, and next week is the finale, Episode 6. The hosts are still taking listener questions, so drop yours in the comments and they’ll fold them in. Subscribe so you don’t miss the last one.
Actionable Takeaways for Listeners
Ask where your representatives stand on the war. A decision to keep American troops in combat is Congress’s to make. Ask yours whether they’ll vote on it, and why.
Protect what veterans earned. Disability compensation isn’t a line item to trade away. Tell your representatives that cutting it to pay for anything else isn’t acceptable.
Look at national service, and back the people already doing it. Whether it’s AmeriCorps, City Year, or a local nonprofit, these programs change lives on shoestring budgets. Support them, and consider a year of service yourself.
Get in the arena. However you serve, showing up is the thing. You have more agency than the moment makes it feel like.
Mentioned in This Episode
The unauthorized war with Iran and Congress’s Article I war-powers role
Pete Hegseth’s blocked Navy promotions and the new testosterone-testing mandate
The “Taking Benefits from America’s Veterans Act” and the Major Richard Star Act
The VA’s fertility-coverage gap for women veterans
Canadian wildfire smoke and climate change as a national security threat
The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and coastal defense assets; climate in the 2015 National Security Strategy
The Navy’s Great Green Fleet (biofuels) and the RIMPAC exercise
AmeriCorps and City Year
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Democracy Summer and the “man in the arena”
Where to Follow the Hosts
Watch Hell Cats here and on Meidas Defense YouTube, where you’ll also find shorter clips and highlights from each episode, and listen to full episodes on Substack. Follow the hosts on their own Substacks, Maura Sullivan and Rebecca Bennett.
Production
Hell Cats is a production of Public Square Media in partnership with VALOR Media Network.
Executive Producer: Kristofer Goldsmith
Producer: Lauren Hust
Brought to you by Meidas Defense.
Editorial Note
Hell Cats is an independent production of Public Square Media in partnership with VALOR Media Network, created for journalistic, educational, and public-interest purposes.
Public Square Media and VALOR Media Network exercise sole editorial control over the program’s content, production, and distribution. While some hosts or guests may be candidates for public office, Hell Cats is not produced by, authorized by, requested by, or coordinated with any political campaign or candidate committee. Participation in the program does not constitute an endorsement by Public Square Media or VALOR Media Network.
