Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quoted from the movie “Pulp Fiction” during a press briefing regarding the ongoing conflict with Iran, and the result was that the media immediately began pushing fake news and claiming that Hegseth had fallen for quoting a fake Bible verse…whereas in reality he was just quoting from the movie.
That came on Wednesday, April 15, when Secretary of War Hegseth gave a sermon during the Pentagon worship service. During the speech, he tried to insert some humor to the conversation by quoting the famous movie line in which Samuel Jackson makes up a verse from Ezekiel during a monologue.
Hegseth introduced the verse by asking the audience to join him in a prayer that he said was delivered before the rescue mission in which two downed F-15E airmen who were stranded in Iran after their plane was shot down were rescued by American special forces and the Air Force in a massive effort that left the local IRGC in shambles and successfully extracted both airmen.
During the prayer, Hegseth said “CSAR 25:17.” That is a reference to two things: “Combat Search and Rescue,” which is what saved the pilots, and Ezekiel 25:17, the famous verse from the incredibly famous and well known Samuel Jackson monologue scene in Pulp Fiction.
Hegseth said, during that prayer, “The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil man. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.”
Continuing, Hegseth then referenced the mission name as well, saying, “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”
For reference, the actual text of Ezekiel 25:17 reads: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.” In the movie, however, Samuel Jackson claims it reads, “The path of righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”
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Predictably, the woke media complex tried to insist that Hegseth had fallen for a fake bible verse, or otherwise was a fake Christian who doesn’t know how to tell fact from fiction. And it wasn’t just traditional media outlets that did so. X accounts did as well. Amongst the most notorious and absurd was an anonymous account going by “Clash Monitor”, which said, “Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during a Pentagon sermon.”
Firing back at it, a quote-tweeter said, “Naturally, this Turkish psyop account, and the Russian state media outlet it’s quoting, omit the part where Sec. Hegseth explicitly acknowledges the reference is a riff on Ezekiel 25:17. The psyop is right in front of you. It’s not even a clever one. Open your eyes.”
Watch the incident here:
Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesman, defended the Secretary of War in a post on X in which he rebutted the ridiculous attacks. “Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” he said.
He added, “However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service. Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality.”