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Posted on 10/05/2025 2:28:12 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Doesn’t Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth realize that push-ups are passé?
His speech to an audience of generals he’d summoned to Washington has mystified and outraged critics who think his obsession with physical fitness is out-of-date at best and ridiculous at worst.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” Hegseth told the assembled brass. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”
“Today, at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required to take a PT test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service,” he continued.
Cue the eye-rolling.
A piece in The Atlantic observed that Hegseth’s “dream world is the world of Ranger school” — an Army training program — “not the actual world of complex military operations involving land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.”
He was accused of fat-shaming, and the ladies on “The View” didn’t get it.
Joy Behar called him out for “his very retro vision for our armed forces,” and asked, “Why is he obsessed with fat?”
Her colleague, Sunny Hostin chimed in, “Yeah, and fitness?”
There’s no doubt that physical fitness is very personal to Hegseth, who said on the day of his confirmation hearing that he’d done five sets of 47 push-ups that morning.
“If the secretary of war can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force,” he told the generals.
But you know who’d agree with him about the centrality of fitness to the military profession? The great 20th-century statesman George C. Marshall.
In a 1920 letter, Marshall called being “physically strong” one of the foundations of the military profession.
As he said of military leaders in 1940 congressional...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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“outraged critics”
“Critics” — is there anything they don’t know? They are right up there with “experts” on knowing everything.
Yes it’s bizarre that the Dems would take issue with Hegseth wanting the military to stay in good physical condition. Seems that would be a minimal requirement for the job.
Good for him! Glad to hear it!
It will be good for the generals and admirals for them to get their weight within the acceptable range. And try some exercise, lard ass.
1920 letter?... No credibility.
G I Jane movie, 1997 a little more credible.
Physical ability required of the MOS a little more credible in 2025.
One doesn’t need super-strength to be a computer screen jockey . But they still need to be healthy, mentally alert. The biggest de-qualifier is alcohol and drugs.
Even in Vietnam alcohol and drugs were a bigger problem than physical strength. But strength was needed for most, but not all MOS.
Broken windows: problems with crime.
Out of shape service personnel: problems with readiness.
The fallacy of the left’s strawman argument is that every MOS, like, for instance, drone pilot, doesn’t “need” to be physically fit.
The right answer is, every armed serviceman SHOULD be fit enough to serve, anywhere needed, at any time needed, and fight if necessary. History is replete with examples of so-called rear echelon troops being called upon to fight in emergent circumstances.
For every marshmallow soyboy soldier, we could and hopefully will have a FIT soldier eager to do the same job and fill the position well. Build a credible force, lead it well, make service tough and honorable again and we won’t have any problem attracting the right kinds of recruits. If we build it, they will come. Thus it has ever been.
The exercise, the runs, being fit and being tested for it twice a year, those are all part of the military culture, the military identity, part of the team and group identity.
How unmilitary and civilianized are these people getting, is the military becoming just another federal job?
Well, that won’t hold them together when they are in the mud and filth, cold and hungry as supply lines are harassed and broken and the supply ships being sank and everyone in the region or on the island is facing a Wake island situation and suddenly there are no front lines and no one is safe, no one is sleeping, no one is eating enough and life is hard, and intestinal fortitude and military purpose is the most important trait that everyone should have.
Preach it, brother. I couldn’t agree more.
Still randomly giggling over the “ Nordic pagans” quip.
😜
I hope that is will also apply to the Leo’s.
The only category that can be "discriminated" against in the military is fat/lazy.
This was a brilliant move.
Another fringe benefit of the new policy is that vast numbers of females will be unable to meet a single, gender-blind standard of fitness tasks. They will choose to leave the service rather than try to get that fit, or they will be separated due to inability to meet the standards. Our combatant forces will become mostly male, and vastly stronger, and we will be far better for it.
PRESIDENT JFK 50 MILE WALK
President John F. Kennedy sparked a wave of interest in fitness and 50-mile walks in 1963 by reissuing a 1908 Theodore Roosevelt challenge for Marines to hike 50 miles in 20 hours and inviting his White House staff to take on a similar, one-day challenge to promote national physical fitness.
This public campaign led to a “50-mile frenzy” across the country, with many people, including high school students and the President’s brother, Robert Kennedy, undertaking the hike.
The initiative directly inspired the formation of the JFK 50 Mile ultramarathon in Maryland, the nation’s oldest, which continues to this day.
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS POLICY
“Every Marine is a Rifleman” is a foundational ethos in the U.S. Marine Corps.
That means that all Marines receive basic training in rifle marksmanship and are expected to be able to fight and operate effectively in a combat situation,
regardless of their specific Military Occupational Specialty (MOS).
This principle, emphasized by the Rifleman’s Creed and regular annual marksmanship training, ensures that every Marine can contribute to combat readiness.
US MARINE CORPS RIFLEMAN’S CREED
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true.
I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.
I will ...
My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make.
We know that it is the hits that count.
We will hit ...
My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother.
I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel.
I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage.
I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other.
We will ...
Before God, I swear this creed.
My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace!
“anywhere needed, at any time needed, and fight if necessary.”
I suppose a person’s personal experience colors the perspective. When I was finally accepted into the army in ‘66 I could run 10 miles faster, every day than after 6 weeks of boot camp where were did “calestenics” for 10 minutes, cleaned a rifle for 45 minutes and sat around waiting to do nothing the rest of the day in my artillery unit.
We never learned how to shoot the rifle. We never saw amunition and thus had no idea how to put it in a rifle.
Then, in ‘nam I did personnel clerk work for 1 hour and sat around bored for 23 hours a day.
Not at all like Hollywood movies.
I heard a Vietnam Veteran say on a podcast that the most realistic Vietnam movie he had seen was the 1979 Australian Film The Odd Angry Shot. Australian SAS soldiers spend long, boring, days in mildewing tents, with nothing to do but treat their athlete's foot, with the tedium occasionally interrupted by patrols, where landmines and ambushes take their toll.
Sorry to hear that. All the more reason whe should embrace these changes and never let those days return.
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