Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s last-minute call for hundreds of generals and admirals to travel to a Virginia base has current and former Defense officials scratching their heads as to what would warrant such a major in-person gathering.

The order to attend a Tuesday meeting at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va. — reportedly to hear Hegseth give a short speech on military standards and “warrior ethos” — was sent this past week to all officers with the rank of one-star general or rear admiral and above, as well as their senior enlisted leaders.

The highly unusual gathering, not seen before in recent memory in terms of its size and last-minute nature, has created more questions than answers as to what would warrant what some former military officials have labeled an “extremely bizarre” confab.

“We’re way out in terms of unusual in this one,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Active-duty colleagues “don’t know what this is about,” he added. “So it could be about a shifting national security strategy, it could be cuts to the general officer corps — Secretary Hegseth has mentioned that several times — it could be about the upcoming budget stalemate, or it could be concerns over information leaks or press leaks.”

The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that Hegseth “will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week” but has offered no additional details as to what the conversation might entail. 

The directive was reportedly sent to virtually all the military’s top commanders worldwide, including all senior officers with the rank of brigadier general or above, their Navy equivalent and their top enlisted advisers — more than 800 generals or admirals. The military leaders would come from conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa, and others from the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, leaving their stations without its top officer. 

The Washington Post reported Friday that the meeting is “meant to be an eyeball-to-eyeball kind of conversation” between Hegseth and his top officers, citing one person familiar with ongoing discussions.

But such a large, in-person convergence of top military brass has never taken place in the history of the U.S. military, according to Hertling.

“Certainly during wartime, generals commanding in a theater are brought in individually with their team or the president or the secretary of Defense visits them at their theater operation, but I’ve never seen anything like this before, and it just seems extremely bizarre and strange,” he said.

It is very rare to call for such a large meeting of top officers in person in one location and to demand such a gathering so quickly, with a smaller assembly typically taking months to plan.

While meetings of top military officials are not unusual, the sheer number of combatant commanders for this upcoming meeting has raised eyebrows, as has the limited information as to why it is taking place.  

What’s more, military leaders have long relied on secure communications to meet remotely without leaving their bases, including during times of conflict. 

Hegseth’s directive and its lack of public explanation have even alarmed some outside groups, including Democracy Forward Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that works to expose government corruption. On Friday, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records on the purpose of the meeting and any security assessments of the risks of so many top military leaders leaving their stations to gather in one place. 

“In recent weeks, President Trump has developed a pattern of using respected members of the military as decoration for his antics, and has improperly deployed the military in our nation’s cities. He has done this without the authorization of Congress and against the wishes of governors and city leaders,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement, referring to the Trump administration’s use of service members to aid federal agents in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

“Against this backdrop, Americans of all backgrounds are concerned about the President’s transparency and the misuse of the nation’s military here at home. The American people have a right to know what their government is doing and our team is taking action,” he added.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also voiced its concerns about the meeting to members of Congress, urging lawmakers to assert their “authority and influence as a member of Congress to demand transparency, accountability, and compliance with the law” by Hegseth before he meets with the generals and admirals.

“At minimum, the Pentagon must disclose the agenda for the meeting and any planned changes in policy or program. But more importantly, we urge you to obtain assurances that any changes announced or instituted at the meeting will not result in further unconstitutional, illegal, or other harmful actions,” Chris Anders, the ACLU’s director of democracy and technology, wrote in the Thursday letter. 

Trump and Vice President Vance have both sought to downplay the strange nature of the meeting; on Thursday, they accused the press of blowing the news out of proportion. 

“Why is that such a big deal?” Trump said from the Oval Office. “You act like this is a bad thing, isn’t it nice that people are coming from all over the world to meet?”

And Vance called the meeting “not unusual at all,” telling reporters, “I think it’s odd that you guys have made it into such a big story.”

Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, hypothesized that the meeting could be “a cultural thing,” with Hegseth wanting to “assert his authority.”

“It’s just a stunt, and it looks truly, truly excessive,” Haass also said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “There’s easier ways to do this. We have fought wars in recent years, by the way, without people leaving their bases. That’s why we have these secure video systems. … You don’t need to do something like this. It has to be something much more personal.”