The Pentagon issued several memos this week that impose strict fitness and grooming standards, lessen education requirements and upend the Defense Department’s processes for reporting discrimination and fraud, waste and abuse.
“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” Hegseth told hundreds of military leaders during a rare gathering of top brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Tuesday. “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops.”
According to one memo with the subject line “Military Fitness Standards” released Tuesday, active-duty troops are now required to take two annual fitness tests, in addition to working out every duty day.
The first test requirement is the existing service fitness test. The second will be either a combat field test for combat arms personnel, or a combat readiness test or second service fitness test for non-combat arms forces.
Members of the Reserve or National Guard must compete one annual fitness test based on their combat or non-combat designation.
Height and waist circumference will continue to be used as a fitness standard. The memo states “high performers on fitness tests may be granted exemptions, but only within defined limits.”
The new guidance is expected to be released within the next 60 days and take effect starting in January.
“High performance does not excuse non-compliance with body composition standards,” the memo reads.
Back to the 1990s
Hegseth is also ordering a 60-day review of the military’s education system curricula and training-school standards to identify any changes to the standards since 1990.
Leaders are then expected to make recommendations on whether standards should be restored to those of 1990, or kept the same. It remained unclear Friday why that particular year — before most of those serving in uniform were even born — was chosen.
“1990 seems to be as good as a place to start as any,” Hegseth said during his Tuesday speech to military brass.
Hegseth also ordered a reduction in mandatory training requirements that service members must complete each year. The Pentagon will relax the frequency for cybersecurity training, eliminate some training requirements through automation and remove Privacy Act training.
Hegseth wrote that the Pentagon will also relax the frequency of training on Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). In a memo, the secretary asked to consolidate training topics as appropriate and championed “test-out” options for refresher training.
“These critical efforts to eliminate, reduce, and consolidate focus topics advances my emphasis on warfighting,” Hegseth wrote.
Changes to Equal Opportunity, hazing
Complaints submitted under Military Equal Opportunity and civilian Equal Employment Opportunity, programs that aim to prevent discrimination, will be addressed within 30 days and dismissed if they “lack actionable, credible evidence,” according to new guidance.
The option to report anonymously to those offices is being replaced with a “confidential complaint reporting option.”
“Those who knowingly submit false complaints or repeatedly submits frivolous complaints are held accountable, pursuant to applicable laws and regulations,” the memo adds.
In another memo released Tuesday, Hegseth said the definition of “hazing, bullying and harassment is overly broad” in department policy.
The two-paragraph memo orders a 30-day review of the definitions of hazing, bullying and harassment because “undue administrative burdens” on commanders “distract” from their core mission of maintaining a ready and lethal force, according to Hegseth.
“This review aims to strike a balance,” he wrote.
Overhauling a military watchdog
Another memo issued Tuesday addresses reforms to the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, which investigates cases of fraud, waste and abuse inside the agency, as well as misconduct, command issues and violations of law.
The memo calls for the office to complete a “credibility assessment” of every complaint within seven days of receiving them.
“At that point, the complaint must either be closed or the investigation initiated,” Hegseth wrote.
Hegseth instructed “artificial intelligence with human oversight” to help speed up the process.
The investigating agency will need to provide a written update about each investigation every two weeks to the subject of the complaint, his or her commander and the complainant.
The IG must also establish and enforce procedures to “identify and manage complainants who submit multiple complaints without credible evidence, that are frivolous, or that knowingly include false information,” according to the memo.
Hegseth told military leaders Tuesday the IG process had been “weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat.”
The IG’s office is currently investigating Hegseth for his use of Signal to share classified or sensitive information about an attack in Yemen earlier this year. Hegseth’s office has called it a “sham” review.
It was unclear Friday how this overhaul could affect the investigation.
Demands for clean-shaven troops
Hegseth followed up his comments Tuesday — when he called for “no beardos” in the armed forces —with a memo on strict grooming compliance.
“This is critical not only for defense against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, but also for firefighting, disaster relief, and other hazardous mission sets where respiratory protection may be required, often on short notice,” he wrote in a memo titled “Grooming Standards for Facial Hair Implementation.”
Service members must be clean-shaven, with no facial hair other than mustaches that do not extend past the mouth corners. Sideburns must be above the ear opening.
Special operations forces may ask for modified standards as part of “validated mission-essential requirements.”
Exceptions to this rule include service members with medical waivers for conditions such as pseudofolliculitis barbae, a skin condition characterized by inflamed hair follicles that disproportionately affects Black men. Waivers are limited to 12 months and must include a treatment plan.
Religious accommodations will revert to pre-2010 standards, when facial hair waivers were generally not recognized.
“Approvals will be limited to non-deployable roles with low risk of chemical attack or firefighting requirement,” the memo said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has called on the Pentagon to affirm that the department would maintain the religious rights of all service members.
“The First Amendment guarantees military personnel the right to practice their faith — including the right of Muslim, Sikh and Jewish personnel to grow beards or cover their hair — as does established Pentagon policy,” CAIR said in a statement.