Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently dragged his knuckles out of his cave to make U.S. warfighters fit again, returning to the highest male physical fitness standard only for people to serve in all military branches. Catastrophe doesn’t begin to describe how sales will dip at military commissaries regarding nail polish remover.
Reverting to such paleolithic standards ensures that only the strongest, ablest men and women will serve.
Reverting to such paleolithic standards ensures that only the strongest, ablest men and women will serve. In other words, any male or female resembling Jared Fogle from Subway won’t shout Hoorah anytime soon.
“If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is,” Hegseth said, according to Newsweek. “It will also mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.”
Unlike Hegseth, a decorated soldier who served in Iraq, Newsweek had the common sense to get a response from political analyst Thom Hartmann, who got kicked out of high school for protesting the Vietnam War.
“What Pete Hegseth has done by imposing almost exclusively male standards on all combat roles is nothing less than an assault on the very ideals of democracy,” Hartmann said. “A military that reflects the population of America, women, men, people of every race and background, is essential to both fairness and strength.”
Jack LaLanne couldn’t have said it better himself. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 40 percent of American adults are obese. If we eliminate 40 percent of military recruits who cannot do at least one pull-up or even reach the bar, we most certainly will lose a land war to China.
As for assaulting American democracy by insisting its warfighters perform at least 42 pushups to carry a rifle, Hartmann correctly implies this physical fitness heresy equals or eclipses the near overthrow of the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021.
Intellectual luminaries Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin of The View were equally vexed by Hegseth’s salute to the trim patriarchy. “Why is he obsessed with fat?” Behar asked as Hostin added, “And fitness.”
The last thing the man (of course) heading our Defense Department should worry about is whether our uniformed men and women can do 10 squat thrusts after putting on a few pounds over Thanksgiving.
“All of these people from different backgrounds come together and fight for the American values,” View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said. “So, I don’t understand why we have to denigrate the military to try to talk about doing better.”
There’s wisdom somewhere in those words, perhaps best illustrated by Farah Griffin’s assertion that Hegseth’s abusing our military by demanding its members be tougher and stronger — all right, I have no idea what she’s saying.
Hegseth’s likely unconstitutional decree relies on the problematic and outdated idea that men and women are somehow physiologically different. Despite 300,000 years of biological evolution indicating that’s true, everyone knows there’s literally no difference between Vice Admiral Patricia Ann Tracey (Ret.), the first woman promoted to that rank, and Admiral Rachel Levine, who technically isn’t a biological woman or a military admiral but famously dressed as both.
Today’s modern warfighters need not be in shape or, frankly, grasp reality to serve and protect the United States of America. A tenuous foothold on right versus wrong, as dictated by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, suffices.
If anything, having morbidly obese soldiers storming beaches will help absorb multiple rounds of machine gun fire to allow the physically fit warriors to scooch by them and destroy the rifle nests. Just get a few extra medics to help carry the stretchers.
But that’s not the way modern warfare works. Outside of Saving Private Ryan, when was the last time you saw anyone storming beaches and getting mowed down by enemy fire?
Most 21st-century warfighting takes place by drones that hover over targets and fire missiles to kill them. And who launches those missiles? Someone behind a desk 5,000 miles away whose face reflects off a computer screen. You don’t need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to hover a finger over a keyboard and push “Enter.” Anyone cramming that third jelly donut down their throat could just as easily blow up the next leader of al-Qaeda.
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusion, no more debris,” Hegseth said.
If the U.S. military cannot be relied upon to fight that hole in the ozone layer or socially engineer its sailors to not wear white after Labor Day, why bother having one?
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