The Pentagon has explained Hegset's controversial "prayer"
The Pentagon denied allegations that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hagset had allegedly quoted a fictional “prayer” from the movie *Pulp Fiction*, stating that he was referring to a different text of military origin. The department called such claims fake news and insisted that the speech had been misinterpreted. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote about this on his X account.
The scandal surrounding U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hagset’s speech erupted after claims began circulating online that he had allegedly used a passage resembling a quote from the movie “Pulp Fiction” and linked to a biblical text from the Book of Ezekiel under the guise of a prayer.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell stated in a post on social media platform X that such claims are untrue and called them misinformation, emphasizing that the secretary intended a completely different meaning for his speech.
According to him, Hegset recited the so-called “CSAR prayer,” which is said to have been used by the U.S. military during a rescue operation involving the evacuation of a pilot who found himself in Iranian territory after a fighter jet crash. “However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue from ‘Pulp Fiction’ were reflections of the verse from the Book of Ezekiel 25:17, as Minister Hegset clearly stated in his speech.” “Anyone who claims that the secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is spreading fake news and is out of touch with reality,” a Pentagon spokesperson stated.
The department emphasizes that Hegset’s remarks were taken out of context, and the controversy surrounding them is the result of misinterpretation and the spread of inaccurate information in the media and on social media.
