Soldier who admonished Hegseth group at Arlington Cemetery awarded a medal
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attends a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day on Nov. 11, 2026, in Arlington, Virginia. Members of the Trump administration visited Arlington National Cemetery to observe the federal holiday honoring military service members. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The soldier who admonished Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s group for laughing after taking photos at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after a Veterans Day ceremony was summoned to the Pentagon on Thursday and awarded a medal.
Hegseth posted photos of him pinning the Joint Service Commendation Medal on Spc. Thomas Iglesias’ chest and shaking his hand.
The Joint Service Commendation is awarded to “members of the Armed Forces who distinguish themselves by meritorious achievement or service while assigned to a joint military staff, activity, or agency,” according to the U.S. Army.
The soldier was serving as a sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery when he barked a standard phrase to be silent to a group of people including Hegseth after they posed for a photo after a Veterans Day wreath-laying ceremony that included President Donald Trump.
The incident was captured on video and showed the group including Hegseth, his wife Jennifer and other officials posing for a photo on the steps in front of the tomb area. As the group broke up, someone can be heard laughing, which prompted the sentinel on duty to turn and admonish the group.
Standing at attention, the sentinel admonished the group, “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,” which is common to visitors who break decorum at the tomb, broadly hailed as some of the most sacred ground in the country.
Visitors to the cemetery are asked to “speak quietly so that your experience does not distract or disturb other visitors.” The sentinel’s command would be the same one issued to anyone who breaks decorum.
All visitors at the area surrounding the tomb are expected to maintain a reverent silence while there. Sentinels, the ceremonial soldiers in formal dress uniforms patrolling the area, maintain a 24-hour watch at the tomb and strictly enforce that order.
The Pentagon’s top spokesman praised the soldier for doing his job after ABC News asked about the incident on Wednesday.
“The Secretary and the entire Department have always honored — and will always honor — the sacrifices our military men and women have made to keep America safe,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. “While commemorating this solemn day, a soldier correctly and respectfully reminded everyone to maintain decorum.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
The United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Calling it a matter of “exceptional importance,” the Trump administration has filed an urgent appeal with the Supreme Court seeking the immediate removal of 29 active-duty service members who are transgender even before their case challenging the Pentagon ban goes to trial in January.
Several courts have found that the ban was likely rooted in animus and violates servicemembers constitutional rights to due process and equal protection – a conclusion the government strongly disputes.
While the justices last year gave Trump the green light to move forward broadly with a ban on service members who have a history of gender dysphoria, federal judges in a separate case, U.S. v. Talbott, last June blocked the military from discharging more than two dozen individual plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging the policy.
Solicitor General John Sauer called the ruling allowing those plaintiffs to remain in their positions “gravely erroneous.”
“The authority of the U.S. military to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces is a matter of exceptional importance,” Sauer wrote in the government’s petition. “Whether the Constitution prohibits the military from exercising that authority by adopting a policy like the one here is a recurring issue, which has arisen before and will likely arise again absent this Court’s review. The Court should thus take this opportunity to address the constitutionality of the [Department of Defense Secretary] Hegseth policy and reverse the decision below, whose reasoning cannot be squared with this Court’s precedents or deference to the military.”
The justices will consider this fall whether to hear the case at this early stage, before any final ruling on the merits by a lower court.
In the meantime, the 29 plaintiffs – who are active-duty, reservists, National Guard members and a person seeking to enlist – will remain in the force.
“As the Trump administration’s own attorneys admitted, these are qualified individuals who are meeting all military standards,” said Jennifer Levi, an attorney representing the transgender service members with the LGBTQ legal advocacy group GLAD Law. “There is no reason to waste millions of taxpayer dollars to kick out thousands of highly trained, skilled and decorated troops based on nothing but hostility and this administration’s political whims.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during an event with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on June 22, 2026, in Washington, DC. President Trump signed two orders on quantum computing. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Thursday dismissed protesters chanting “Guard go home” outside a ceremony in Washington, D.C., honoring National Guard troops as their presence in the nation’s capital approaches the one-year mark and has nearly doubled in recent weeks to roughly 5,000 personnel.
“It’s the sound of ingrates,” Hegseth told a formation of some 250 National Guardsmen gathered at a park nestled in Washington D.C.’s northwest neighborhoods. “People who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them. There’s nothing ideological about this group.”
Outside the park, dozens of protesters gathered in front of a security perimeter formed by National Guard troops and law enforcement, chanting through megaphones and blowing whistles while drums and a trombone added to the noise as they sought to drown out the speeches. The peaceful demonstration remained largely uneventful.
Speaking in front of the Meridian Hill Park fountain that was recently repaired by the Department of the Interior after years of being inoperative, Hegseth was joined by National Guard chief Gen. Steven Nordhaus, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard, commander of the District of Columbia National Guard, and senior White House aide Stephen Miller, who has been an architect of the Trump administration’s National Guard mission in Washington D.C. Each praised the troops serving in Washington.
The deployment has largely focused on high-visibility patrols through downtown corridors and major tourist areas, far from the city’s high-crime areas, along with civic support missions, including trash collection. Troops are commonly armed with 9mm SIG Sauer M17 pistols or 5.56mm M4 rifles.
National Guard troops have been deployed to Washington since last August, with states maintaining a steady rotation of personnel into the city. The broad mission has placed military personnel on civilian streets in an unprecedented domestic role, though National Guard troops retain very limited legal authority.
The National Guard also maintains its constant rotation of units to missions in Africa, Europe and in the Middle East amid the war with Iran. Troops often serve in a part-time capacity, juggling their Guard duty with typical civilian careers.
The force has been drawn overwhelmingly from Republican-led states. The D.C. National Guard itself accounts for about 500 troops, roughly one-quarter of its force, serving on the mission.
South Carolina has deployed roughly 700 troops, Georgia nearly 800 and Mississippi about 500, according to National Guard figures. Other states with sizable contingents include West Virginia, Nebraska, Florida and Louisiana.
Democratic-led states and U.S. territories have begun sending troops to D.C. in recent weeks, but only for events tied to America’s 250th anniversary celebration and an expected surge in tourism.
Earlier this week, Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer warned she would withdraw her state’s troops if they were assigned to President Donald Trump’s ongoing “Safe and Beautiful” mission rather than July 4th-related events.
In practice, however, drawing a distinction between holiday security operations and the Guard’s broader mission in Washington, D.C., may be difficult. Much of the ongoing mission is already concentrated around the National Mall and downtown transit stations, where tourists and local residents celebrating the holiday are expected to converge, one U.S. official explained. National Guard units from other states are frequently sent to Washington for major events such as presidential inaugurations.
Estimates have shown the Guard deployment is more expensive than using additional police officers or municipal workers.
An analysis from the Niskanen Center found the cost differential between troops and local law enforcement was roughly $607 per Guardsman per day compared to about $384 per day for a D.C. police officer.
The report also noted that the National Guard’s presence in D.C. has not reduced violent crime but has coincided with a decline in property crimes.
One estimate from the Congressional Budget Office found the National Guard’s D.C. footprint will cost at least $660 million this year, but it doesn’t account for the additional surge of troops for the summer.
A White House spokeswoman dismissed the Niskanen analysis and insisted the National Guard presence had driven down crime and improved quality of life in the District.
Two National Guard members from West Virginia were shot in the head while on patrol in November. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically injured and is still recovering, his family says.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 30, an Afghan national and suspected gunman, pleaded not guilty to the shootings. The Department of Justice said in June it is determining whether to seek the death penalty.
