Lee Zeldin says Army’s 250th anniversary parade made him ask Pete Hegseth if he could rejoin

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin says he was so stirred by the esprit de corps of the US Army’s 250th anniversary parade in June that he asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth if he could rejoin its ranks.

“I’m coming off of the grandstand with the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and I turned to Pete, I said, ‘Pete, that was awesome. I regret getting out of the military, sign me back up,’” Zeldin revealed on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out now.

“And he looks at me,” the EPA leader told The Post’s Miranda Devine. “He’s like, ‘I could change that. I could get you right back in.’ And then we just kept walking. I didn’t run with it, just there, because I think I was happy … But in a brief moment there, during that great military parade in Washington, I was ready to sign back up.”

The Army’s 250th birthday fell on Flag Day, June 14, 2025, which also happened to be President Trump’s 79th birthday.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans flooded into the nation’s capital to watch more than 6,000 troops and hundreds of vehicles and aircraft process along the route.

The celebration, marking the military branch’s founding a year before the Declaration of Independence, also featured drum and fife players in Revolutionary War-era costumes.

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Other soldiers wore Civil War, World War I and World War II, Vietnam War and Gulf War-era uniforms as they marched down Constitution Avenue near the National Mall.

The Army’s Golden Knights parachute team also made an appearance, drifting down into the Ellipse near the White House.

“Every other country celebrates their victories,” Trump said in a post-parade speech that month, calling the Army “the greatest, fiercest, and bravest fighting force ever to stride the face of this earth.”

“It’s about time America did too,” he added.

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Zeldin served 22 years as both an active-duty and reserve officer in the Army, before retiring at the rank of lieutenant colonel in May.

“A lot of what I learned inside the military relates here,” Zeldin noted of his public serve. “I wore around my dog tags seven Army values, the acronyms, leadership, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage.”

Zeldin also remembered as a young ROTC cadet getting some straightforward advice from a staff sergeant about how to be a well-liked platoon leader.

“He said, ‘Drive a nice car, chew tobacco, smoke them on their PT [physical training] test.”

Between 2003 to 2007, the future member of Congress was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and deployed to Iraq in 2006.

“When you’re single as a 20-year-old, going out the back of a plane, nothing about it makes any sense, but you’re not overthinking it,” Zeldin recalled to Devine.

“When you’re married with kids and you’re walking out the plane … ” he added, before saying he’d recite his wife and twin daughters’ names each time he jumped.