Hegseth launches ‘patriot pipeline’ portal

The Pentagon launched a website this week to support a new initiative that helps servicemembers, military spouses and civilians explore jobs and career development opportunities.

The effort is part of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is calling Project Patriot Pipeline.

The new portal, which can be found at mypatriotcareer.mil, includes links to resources and information about national defense-related jobs, resume building, education opportunities, credentialing, career counseling, the SkillBridge program, and other topics.

“President [Donald] Trump and this War Department recognize the strategic alignment between military training while in service and then developing a career path when you become a civilian. And there are key priorities for this department and the nation that require a workforce with the advanced skills that our service men and women possess while in uniform. Keeping and developing talent that contributes to our priorities, like shipbuilding, or the Golden Dome, or next-generation aircraft, or munitions, is vital to our nation’s and our military’s continued success,” Hegseth said in a video released on social media Wednesday evening, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department.

“Now we recognize that there’s a gap, the need for a unifying framework that connects service members, military spouses, and federal civilians with the American defense industrial base,” he added.

In a June 3 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, Hegseth noted the need to cultivate a workforce with advanced skills in “critical fields” like cybersecurity, engineering, manufacturing, aviation maintenance and health care.

“Currently, many of the training and workforce development programs for military and DoW civilians operate in silos, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities for strategic alignment. This fragmented approach prevents our Service members from obtaining mission-critical training and developing robust post-service civilian career pathways,” he wrote.

The plan for Project Patriot Pipeline, which is intended to serve as the department’s “unifying framework” for managing workforce development, aims to address those shortcomings, including by establishing new partnerships focused on the skilled trades.

“This approach maximizes the potential for successful transitions for those transitioning from military or civilian service,” Hegseth wrote. 

“The War Department and the military departments will synchronize vital workforce development programs like tuition and credentialing assistance and SkillBridge, as well as enhanced spouse employment programs, enabling our warriors, spouses, and civilians to focus on and acquire in-demand skills tied to real-world needs,” Hegseth said in the video.

In his memo, the Pentagon chief noted the need for a new user-friendly digital platform to support those efforts.

Hegseth also directed the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to assess how new policies could incentivize servicemembers, military spouses, and civilian employees to specialize in critical skills inside and outside the DOD. He also called on the undersecretary to find expedited pathways to rescind regulations that hinder the effectiveness of programs aligned with the initiative and provide additional policy and implementation guidance “outside of the normal DoW issuance process,” among other tasks.

The SecDef added that the military departments should approve requests for participation in the SkillBridge program within the defense industrial base for troops in the last 180 days of their service, unless doing so would impact “critical readiness and operational needs.”

The project comes after the Pentagon shed tens of thousands of civilian jobs under the DOGE initiative during the second Trump administration.

Last year, the DOD reduced its civilian workforce by about 10%, or more than 78,000 employees, via measures such as encouraging voluntary resignations and reducing hiring, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

The watchdog found that the department “didn’t consistently analyze the impacts of these reductions” and “doesn’t have a plan to assess lessons learned” from those cuts.

The GAO recommended that the Pentagon develop and implement a plan for sharing lessons learned from its workforce reduction efforts that have been “made outside the programming process” since January 2025. The department concurred with the recommendation, according to the report.