Here is the result in plain text:
The intelligence breach was bad enough, current and former fighter pilots said. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s refusal to acknowledge that he should not have disclosed sensitive information about when American fighter pilots would attack sites in Yemen, they said, was even worse.
On air bases, in aircraft carrier “ready rooms” and in communities near military bases, the news that senior officials in the Trump administration discussed plans for an impending attack on Signal, a commercial messaging app, angered and bewildered men and women who have taken to the air on behalf of the United States.
The mistaken inclusion of the editor in chief of The Atlantic in the chat and Mr. Hegseth’s insistence that he did nothing wrong by disclosing the secret plans upend decades of military doctrine about operational security, a dozen Air Force and Navy fighter pilots said.
Worse, they said, is that going forward, they can no longer be certain that the Pentagon is focused on their safety when they strap into cockpits.
detrimental to their safety, said Lt. John Gadzinski, a former Navy F-14 pilot who flew combat missions from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
We intentionally don’t share plans with people who don’t need to know, said one Navy F/A-18 pilot, who has flown frequently in missions in the Middle East.
You don’t want to telegraph that we’re about to show up on someone’s doorstep; that’s putting your crew at risk, he said.
Mistaken inclusion of the editor in chief of The Atlantic in the chat and Mr. Hegseth’s insistence that he did nothing wrong by disclosing the secret plans upend decades of military doctrine about operational security, a dozen Air Force and Navy fighter pilots said.
Worse, they said, is that military pilots can no longer be certain that the Pentagon is focused on their safety when they strap into cockpits.
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