WASHINGTON ¨C National Guard Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither sent up a warning on the evening of Jan. 14, 2021, about Pete Hegseth, who on Tuesday became President-elect Donald Trump¡¯s nominee for defense secretary.
¡°This information is quite disturbing, sir,¡± he wrote to Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the Washington, D.C., National Guard, who was helping bolster security in the U.S. capital for Joe Biden¡¯s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.
Hegseth, Gaither wrote, had a worrying tattoo on his bicep with the inscription ¡°Deus Vult.¡± A search online suggested to him it was a Christian expression associated with rightwing extremism. ¡°Deus Vult¡± is a Latin phrase meaning ¡°God Wills It,¡± a rallying cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.
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