Pentagon Calls Emergency Summit to Address Alarming Surge in Generals Who Can’t Remember Why They’re Meeting

Washington, D.C. – Faced with a sharp increase in reports of senior military leaders entering conference rooms only to stare vacantly at each other, the Pentagon convened an emergency summit Wednesday to discuss what officials are calling “a sustained cognitive disengagement event” among top-ranking officers.

Sources at the Department of Defense confirmed that, over the past six months, as many as 73 percent of generals have exhibited symptoms of “Acute Directive Amnesia,” as defined by the recently-established Joint Forces Commission on Meeting Intent. These symptoms reportedly manifest within 10 minutes of entering secure facilities, with side effects ranging from compulsive schedule-checking, repetitive throat-clearing, and an uptick in requests for coffee despite the presence of full thermoses.

Lieutenant General Graham Slattery, spokesperson for the commission, explained to reporters that the summit was called after last Friday’s high-level briefing devolved into a 90-minute debate over the correct spelling of “quorum.” Slattery recounted, “By the time we’d agreed on ‘q-u-o-r-u-m,’ we realized none of us knew why we were there in the first place. It’s becoming operationally unsustainable.”

Defense analysts say the phenomenon began as isolated incidents in the spring but has since ballooned into a force-wide concern. In May, Army Chief of Staff General Cecilia Marks reportedly interrupted her own briefing to ask, “Who assembled this PowerPoint, and what day is it?” Official minutes from the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s June session later recorded, “Twelve generals present. Purpose of meeting unclear. Consensus: regroup tomorrow.”

Attempts at remediation have yielded mixed results. A 112-page Pentagon report from the Center for Meeting Optimization recommended physical reminders such as neon Post-it notes and more robust badge-mandated agendas. Yet, attendance at “purpose recall drills” fell sharply after multiple four-star officers began intoning the phrase, “We must maintain readiness, but for what?” in unison. Experts have deemed PowerPoint slide transitions “ineffective stimulus,” and existing mnemonic devices, such as meeting-room acrostics, were replaced after participants instead started using the word “MEETING” as the answer to all agenda items.

An anonymous source close to Secretary of Defense Lydia Furlong expressed concern over a recent classified wargame simulation, during which generals paused for over an hour at “Scenario: Imminent Threat” to speculate whether they’d already neutralized the danger or were just supposed to be on lunch break. White House liaison Dr. Kenneth Lubb maintained, “We are monitoring the situation. Right now, the purpose is to locate the purpose.”

As the summit adjourned, participants offered feedback on whiteboards, ultimately circling back to a single, unresolved query: “What were we discussing again?” While the Pentagon insists operational readiness remains unaffected, a spokesperson confirmed that all future meetings will now begin with a 20-minute session titled, “Why Are We Here: A Refresher.”