Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gathered hundreds of the US's top admirals and generals in a Marine Corps base in Quantico yesterday to announce a sweeping series of reforms ot the armed forces.
"This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris. As I've said before and will say again, we are done with that s---," he began.
"When it comes to combat arms units, and there are many different stripes across our joint force, the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings leadership ends right now. At every level, either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job, either you are disciplined, fit and trained, or you are out," Hegseth warned.
"And that's why today at my direction -- and this is the first of ten Department of War directives that are arriving at your commands as we speak and in your inbox. Today, at my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard only," Hegseth declared.
"If the Secretary of War can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are."
Hegseth announced that as part of the reforms, he was discontinuing several services that had allowed for soldiers to file complaints, including anonymous, frivolous, or repeat complaints. He insisted that the reforms were not intended to allow discrimination, saying "Being a racist has been illegal in our formations since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal, and those kinds of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced. Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral, and high, or they are not standards, just suggestions."
Other reforms included strict standards of grooming, including banning beards except for specific waivers, and shifting assessments from theoretical to practical. His department will also be conducting a review of "'toxic leadership,' bullying and hazing" definitions and instituting a new promotion plan that he beleives will be more heavily based on merit than the existing regulations.
Another section of the reforms focused on limiting liability and penalties for past infractions and changing the role of the Inspector-General's office to prevent 'weaponization' by poor soldiers. The reforms, he insisted, would provide greater operational freedom to the military's leaders to be 'not perfect, but good and competent' and allow them to reassert leadership "without a monkey on their back."
President Trump spoke at the meeting as well, saying that the reforms were "A historic re-assertion of our purpose, our identity and our pride."