As calls grow for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to be out of his job as the Pentagon’s top leader, more military veterans are saying they don’t believe that Hegesth resigning or being fired is enough.

Groups of veterans and some of the senior military officers who were purged by Hegseth say they want to see the new Congress take steps to hold him accountable — by impeaching him.

“There is no pathway back to an effective and respected DOD with Hegesth as the secretary of war,” one of the purged military leaders told MS NOW. “Many military leaders blame Congress as much as they blame Hegseth. The government has failed the military. Impeaching Hegesth is the first step of restoring faith and confidence.”The former senior military officer spoke on the condition of anonymity over concerns about retaliation from the Pentagon.

Several veterans groups spoke out this week and pointed to Hegseth’s failure to evacuate families from Bahrain prior to the beginning of the Iran war, which left many spouses of service members and their children in danger as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against the U.S. Navy’s largest base in the Middle East, as one example of his leadership lapses.

They say they are also concerned about the administration ignoring the poor conditions that were reported by families of the servicemembers on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and the firing of many senior military officers who are women and people of color as other examples of Hegseth’s policies and priorities that need to be investigated through an impeachment process.

“The impeachment of Hegseth is not just about the war,” said retired Rear Adm. Michael Smith, the founder and president of National Security Leaders for America. “It’s other things too. We have to investigate the strikes that are going on in the Caribbean — those are war crimes, and Congress needs to pull the people in and find out why did the Southern Command commander resign? Was it because he was given an illegal order and he didn’t want to follow that? That’s the honorable thing to do, but what happened?”Hegseth’s executive office in the Pentagon as well as the White House launched a coordinated social media blitz this week in his defense against the effort to impeach him.

In a video promoted on Pentagon social media accounts on Thursday, Hegseth stood in front of the Pentagon and called the articles of impeachment a “sham.”“It’s all about the politics of personal destruction, didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me. You can rest assured of that,” Hegseth said.

The Unite for Veterans Coalition, a group of veterans organizations that doesn’t support any political party or elected leader, say that it wants to see Hegseth impeached, even if he leaves his job on his own or is fired.

“We, as a coalition, believe that Pete Hegesth needs to be impeached, needs to be removed from his position, needs to be convicted and disqualified from holding future office. He has shown us that he is willing to put Americans’ lives at risk,” said Kristofer Goldsmith, an Army veteran and founder of Veterans Fighting Fascism. “It is not enough simply to remove him from that position. He needs to be held accountable and the constitutional method for holding someone like him accountable is impeachment.”Veterans groups plan to gather in Washington on Veterans Day — Nov. 11 — to reaffirm their goals that the military operate within constitutional limits and preserve a professional and nonpartisan foundation.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who’s retiring at the end of this year after losing his 2026 primary, is expected to force a vote on impeaching Hegseth next week.

Earlier this year, Massie introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth that ranged from waging a war on Iran that was not congressionally authorized to violating the War Powers Resolution, using lethal military force against suspected drug traffickers instead of maritime law enforcement procedures, retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

The articles also addressed Hegesth’s alleged failure to minimize civilian casualties in military operations, and his conducting a military campaign against Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen without congressional authorization.

Hegseth defended the boat strikes in the Caribbean as part of a campaign to kill “narco-terrorists” and deter drug smugglers. He said Maduro’s capture to face drug charges in the U.S. is an effort to address the Maduro government’s role in drug trafficking and threats to U.S. energy interests in the hemisphere. Hegseth has also said that an earlier ceasefire in the war reset the requirement to ask Congress for war powers.