Defense Secretary Hegseth: ‘Our troops will be fit — not fat’

In a recent post on X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got right to the point regarding his vision for America’s armed forces:

“Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas.”

Bottom line, he added, “our defense department will make standards high and great again — across the entire force.”

Hegseth’s bellicose statement on the fitness, appearance and capacity of the country’s men and women in uniform was posted in conjunction with his Department of Defense memo ordering a department-wide review of existing standards set by U.S. military branches pertaining to physical fitness, body composition and grooming — including beards.

“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’ s most lethal and effective fighting force,” wrote Hegseth. “Our adversaries are not growing weaker — and our tasks are not growing less challenging.”

The Defense secretary followed his military fitness memo with another days later clarifying that shipbuilding and medical treatment facilities were exempt from a department-wide hiring freeze. That direction follows President Donald Trump’s announcement to establish a new office of shipbuilding to boost production and keep pace with China and other global rivals.

Re-examining fitness standards

In his memo calling for a review of military standards, Hegseth said high standards are what made the U.S. military “the greatest fighting force” on the planet.

“The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. We are made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards.”

Hegseth ordered senior Pentagon leadership to gather the existing standards set by the branches of the military “pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming — which includes, but is not limited, to beards.”

The review, the memo added, will examine how standards have changed since Jan. 1, 2015 — and the impact of those decade-old changes.

The year specified in the memo — 2015 — is significant in recent U.S. military history. In December of that year, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the military to open all combat jobs to women.

During his recent Senate confirmation hearing, Hegseth was grilled on his past comments regarding women in the military.

In one appearance on Fox News in 2013, the Deseret News reported, Hegseth said women don’t measure up to men in the military, and that women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in combat roles because it forces the military to lower the bar.

The secretary has since backed off that view, saying he now supports women in combat roles and that his primary concern is the lowering of standards.

Currently, the Army combat fitness test, for example, is scored based on different requirements for men and women, depending on age, according to a CBS News report.

For instance, a man who’s 17 to 21 years of age must, at a minimum, be able to run two miles in 22 minutes, while a woman would need to run the same distance in 23:22. The minimum requirement for hand-release pushups — which involve lifting your hands off the ground at the bottom of the pushup — is the same for men and women of any age: 10.

But anyone in uniform who wants to qualify for special operations — such as Army Rangers or Navy SEALs — must meet gender-neutral standards.

What about beards?

Currently, U.S. military personnel can only grow beards with a waiver for medical or religious reasons. Some members of the military, for example, can grow out their beard if they have a medical condition such as razor bumps that make shaving painful.

Others have been allowed to grow a beard for religious reasons.

Army Capt. Simratpal Singh, a West Point graduate and Bronze Star recipient, was the first to win Army approval to continue on active duty while maintaining his religiously mandated beard and turban.

Some services have signaled that they might be more receptive to loosening those rules, according to Navy Times.

The Air Force, for example, granted five-year medical waivers for beards in 2020, whereas previously it had only given one-year waivers, and has weighed establishing a pilot program that would allow participating airmen and guardians to grow out their facial hair.

Hegseth’s fitness and grooming memo comes as the recruiting in the U.S. military appears to be upticking.

The Army and Navy, the two largest services and the most ailing from recruiting challenges, both say they’ve recruited at promising rates in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which began on Oct. 1.

However, neither the Army nor the Navy could readily point out a reason, and the Navy said it is too early in the fiscal year to evaluate, according to ABC News.

Hegseth: No shipyard hiring freeze

Last month, the Defense secretary imposed a moratorium on civilian hiring within his department.

In his most recent memo, Hegseth clarified that “mission essential” positions directly contributing to “warfare readiness” are exempt from that civilian hiring freeze — including shipyards and medical treatment facilities.

The DOD exemptions drew praise from lawmakers.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and Co-Chair of the U.S. Senate Navy Caucus, released a statement on Hegseth’s announcement exempting the shipyard workforce from the civilian hiring freeze:

“I’m relieved that the administration heard our calls to protect jobs that are vital to national security at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and at shipyards across the country from ill-considered hiring freezes.

“While I’m glad that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth now understand our shipyard workforce to be an essential component of our national defense and preparedness, it should have never come to this in the first place — and the uncertainty that has swept through shipyards in the last two months has done real damage.”

During his recent speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump announced the formation of a maritime industrial office.

“To boost our defense industrial base, we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” he said.

“And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new Office of Shipbuilding in the White House and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America, where it belongs.”

Trump added that the United States was once a prolific shipbuilder. “We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”

Trump’s plans to create an “Office of Shipbuilding” comes weeks after a Biden-era Congressional Budget Office report outlined the U.S. Navy’s proposed plan to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades to boost the fleet.

Calls for aggressive shipbuilding in the United States come as the American fleet faces expanding global threats from China, Russia and other nations.

The emerging “Fleet Race” pitting the United States and China is expected to be a defining element of the global military landscape in the coming years and decades.