What military units did Pete Hegseth serve in and what were his roles?

1. Service branch and commissioning — Guard infantry officer

Hegseth was commissioned as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard after graduating from Princeton in 2003 and spent the bulk of his military career in the Guard rather than active‑duty Army units ^{[1] [3]}.

2. Early deployment — Guantánamo Bay, 2004–2005

As a junior officer Hegseth served with a New Jersey Army National Guard unit at Joint Task Force Guantánamo in 2004–05, a posting cited in multiple profiles of his service ^{[2] [5]}.

3. Iraq tour — 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne, 2005–2006

Hegseth deployed with the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division to Baghdad in 2005, where he is reported to have served as an infantry platoon leader; toward the end of that tour he was assigned as a civil‑military operations officer in Samarra in 2006 ^{[2] [5] [6]}.

4. Afghanistan — counterinsurgency instructor

Hegseth later returned to active service and in 2012 (reported accounts vary on exact dates of return) served in Afghanistan as a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul, working with Afghan forces and training U.S. and partner units ^{[5] [4]}.

5. Rank, awards and deployments — what sources say

Multiple sources say Hegseth rose to the rank of major (or major/major‑level rank in public biographies), completed deployments to Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, and earned combat decorations including two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

6. Units and commanders — reporting that adds detail and controversy

Contemporaneous reporting places Hegseth under commanders in the 3rd Brigade / 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne while he was a platoon commander; The Guardian and other outlets note that soldiers who served under brigade commanders in that period faced later criminal charges, and quote chain‑of‑command relationships relevant to those incidents ^[7].

7. Gaps in the public record and contested details

Available sources show consistent core facts (Guard infantry officer, Guantánamo, Iraq platoon leader, Afghanistan instructor, rank of major), but sources differ on some minutiae — for example precise dates of every active period, whether he topped out at captain or major in earlier profiles, and the number/timing of deployments — and several private or partisan biographies add color that is not corroborated in other reporting ^{[8] [9] [10]}.

8. Why these service details matter now

Hegseth’s Guard service is repeatedly cited in news coverage of his later roles in government and as a media figure; recent scrutiny of his conduct as defense secretary has led outlets to re‑examine his wartime leadership and the context of decisions he recounts from his tours ^{[11] [12] [7]}.

Limitations and competing viewpoints

• My summary relies solely on the provided sources; those sources present a consistent core narrative but vary on rank timing and some dates ^{[3] [2] [4]}.
• Some partisan or promotional biographies emphasize decorations and leadership roles more positively than critical news accounts, which examine actions and orders linked to subordinates during his Iraq tour ^{[5] [7]}.
• Available sources do not mention every specific unit designation for every tour (for example, exact company or battalion designations beyond the 3rd Brigade/101st references are inconsistently reported) — not found in current reporting ^{[2] [6]}.

Bottom line: public records and mainstream biographies consistently identify Hegseth as an Army National Guard infantry officer who served at Guantánamo Bay, in Iraq as an infantry platoon leader and civil‑military operations officer with the 3rd Brigade/101st Airborne, and later in Afghanistan as a counterinsurgency instructor, rising to the mid‑field officer ranks and receiving combat awards ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.