ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a video statement on social media on Wednesday evening regarding the Project Patriot Pipeline initiative. The Pentagon launched a website at mypatriotcareer.mil to support the initiative.
Project Patriot Pipeline is designed to help servicemembers, military spouses, and civilians explore jobs and career development opportunities.
He issued a memo to senior Defense Department leadership on June 3. The memo identified a need for a workforce with advanced skills in cybersecurity, engineering, manufacturing, aviation maintenance, and health care. "Currently, many of the training and workforce development programs for military and Defense Department civilians operate in silos, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities for strategic alignment," Hegseth wrote in the memo.
He directed the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to assess how new policies could incentivize military personnel and civilian employees to specialize in critical skills. He also instructed the undersecretary to identify expedited pathways to rescind regulations that hinder the initiative and to provide additional policy guidance. Military departments were ordered to approve SkillBridge program participation requests within the defense industrial base for troops in their final 180 days of service, provided it does not impact critical readiness.
"President Trump and this War Department recognize the strategic alignment between military training while in service and then developing a career path when you become a civilian," Hegseth said in the video. He noted that key priorities for the department and the nation require a workforce with the advanced skills that service men and women possess. He stated that keeping and developing talent contributing to priorities like shipbuilding, the Golden Dome, next-generation aircraft, or munitions is vital to the nation's and military's continued success. He indicated that the War Department and the military departments will synchronize workforce development programs, including tuition and credentialing assistance, SkillBridge, and enhanced spouse employment programs.
A Government Accountability Office report indicated that the Department of Defense reduced its civilian workforce by approximately 10%, or more than 78,000 employees, last year. The report stated the department did not consistently analyze the impacts of these workforce reductions and lacks a plan to assess lessons learned. GAO recommended that the department develop and implement a plan to share lessons learned from workforce reductions conducted outside standard programming processes since January 2025. The department agreed with the GAO recommendation to develop a lessons-learned plan.
No independent assessment of Pete Hegseth’s claims was available.