Reference:- The Secretary of Defense of the USA , young Peter Hegseth has been in the news a lot recently .

Reference :-   Mr Hegseth is facing a great deal of bad press .... is it justified ? 

Dear Pete , 

                        Holy cow ! The media sure has you on the back foot these days .  Here at The Sky Reply we understand that the minions of the Fourth Estate are a merciless crew . The first sniff of an erythrocyte  has them coming for you with the blood lust of a squadron of F/A 18 fighter jets targeting a village in Yemen . 

But stay calm . We offer here , gratis of course , a few strategies you may employ to cover your backside . We have kept this communication confidential , since we do not want to warn the media . Those vermin . 

( Although we did let the owner of the Kooralya pub read it , by mistake , after a few drinks , but he has promised to keep his lips zipped . ) 

Anyway , before you sink into the depths of depression and hit the bottle , or get yet another tattoo ,  look on the bright side . All this bickering about breaches of security has stopped anybody from talking about the fact that the mission was illegal , and constitutes a war crime .  That could well have saved you from facing charges by one of those international criminal courts run by the United Nations .  You should view that with great relief , believe me . Poor old George Bush junior may as well burn his passport , when you consider the number of countries that have him on their wanted list . 

I reckon if you , and those accused of this so called worst security breach in the history of the world,  just stick to the excuse that it was an unfortunate glitch with a digital device , the outrage will soon subside .  Everybody has at one time or another been frustrated by a recalcitrant digital device . You wouldn't believe what appeared  on Ken junior's laptop when I tried to look up how to replace a blown head gasket in the ute . 

As far as being castigated for the unprecedented habit of taking your wife to high level security meetings goes , you should be quick to call out the hypocrisy of your critics .  One day they accuse you of being sexist and suggest you have been guilty of sexual misdemeanors , and the next they say they don't like you hanging out with the missus at work . They can't have it both ways , can they ?  Clearly you are a family man , which is why you took the trouble to find a job in the bureaucracy  for your brother , which could not have been easy , with all the cutbacks and thousands of job losses the civil service has suffered recently . 

Lastly , the media seems unhappy with the discovery of your latest tattoo . Personally I don't run with being inked up as a form of self expression , but you live in a free country , do you not ?   Since some political statements , spoken aloud,  can land you in the slammer or see you deported to face indefinite detention in a slave prison , it behooves one to express one's ideology more discreetly via a tattoo. Even if it is only the inoffensive statement that you consider yourself a warrior in the battle against Islam . 

Ken junior reckons you would most likely get away with declaring yourself to be such a crusader in the USA , whereas folk in your country are frequently  arrested by masked anti- terrorist police for opposing genocide in Palestine and  often disappear forever to become prisoners in a sweat shop on one of the warmer continents .  He also asked why is it that you  have a Department of Defense , when it should be called the Department of Illegal Extermination ?   I told him the acronym for that would be DIE , which would be a bad look . That's the trouble with inexperienced kids , they don't think things through , do they Pete ?

Nonetheless,  why take a chance and open your gob too much . ?   When in the company of diplomats , statesmen , and other cowards , you can always have your shirt sleeves discreetly rolled down to hide the statements you have bravely roneod upon your epidermis .  (Although , be aware that when , on a bender , you swig champagne from a bottle,  your sleeve may slide and reveal a tattoo or two . )

Remember , if anybody tells you that only idiots get tattoos , you can put the loser in their place with the simple observation 

" Tattoos are not self -mutilation if somebody else does them for you.  " 

Your comrade , 

Ken . 

PS  If the International Criminal Court comes knocking , I wouldn't run a similar line and say 

" It's not a war crime if somebody else does it for you . "  

That might not wash .

The blood from your hands .