Ukraine and Gaza. China and North Korea. Iran and Russia. There was a lot to handle Tuesday when 800 generals, admirals and their senior enlisted leaders within the U.S. navy had been ordered into one location from all over the world on brief discover.
The sudden assembly in Quantico, Va., was referred to as by Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth. And it was an unprecedented occasion for unprecedented instances, however not in the best way that anybody imagined. Hegseth took goal on the packed room’s waistlines, proclaiming that he not wished to see “fat generals and admirals,” or chubby troops.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he mentioned to the 800 doubtless surprised souls within the room. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world.”
Flanked by a portly President Trump, he proclaimed, “It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”
President Trump joined his Protection secretary in urging his high navy brass to form up.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Photographs)
That new “positive” messaging? Terminating restrictions on hazing for boot-camp recruits, toughening grooming requirements (no extra “beardos”), taking out racial quotas and elevating bodily requirements for everybody in uniform to a “male level.”
“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat-arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best,” Hegseth mentioned Tuesday.
He added that troops should meet “gender-neutral, age-normed, male standard, scored 70% ” health ranges. “If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it,” he mentioned. However all will likely be fat-shamed on an equal foundation.
“Today, at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required to take a PT [physical training] test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service,” he mentioned.
Hegseth’s obsession with showing ripped and manly is nothing new. The 45-year-old has challenged 71-year-old Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to health exams wherein the lads do 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in 10 minutes or much less.
The “Pete and Bobby Challenge,” as Hegseth calls it, was posted on the official HHS YouTube account and circulated extensively on social media.
Hegseth’s deep message to the troops preserving America secure: “It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.”
Hegseth has repeatedly emphasised that the up to date health necessities for troops are half of a bigger effort to attain a “warrior ethos” within the U.S. navy. Uncle Sam needs YOU! However not till you drop that BMI beneath 24.9.
