Hung Cao said the military should be filled with ‘alpha males and alpha females.’
“What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”
After immigrating to the US in 1975, Cao and his family then moved to West Africa, where his father served as a USAID agricultural specialist, according to his Navy biography. Cao returned to Virginia when he was 12.
He then enlisted in the Navy in 1989 and became an officer after graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1996. Over a three-decade career Cao worked as a Navy diver and explosive ordnance disposal officer. His deployments included Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. He also had a stint at the Pentagon working on budgets and acquisitions.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/25/politics/hung-cao-navy-secretary
