Senior Airman Nelson Salguero works on his biceps at Dover Air Force Base, Del., in February 2025. (Andrew Alvarado/U.S. Air Force)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday ordered a “rapid” services-wide review of existing standards for physical fitness, body composition and grooming, according to a Pentagon news release.
In a memo, Hegseth directed the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness to gather the existing standards. Darin Selnick is performing those duties.
While described as “rapid,” the memo does not provide a timeline for the review.
“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Hegseth wrote in the release.
“This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards,” he said.
The review of grooming standards will also include the wearing of beards, according to the memo.
The Army, Air Force and Navy all offer shaving waivers to service members diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae that allow them to forgo shaving. The condition, which manifests in painful razor bumps, disproportionately affects Black men.
1st Lt. Jean Paul Stassi Jr. shaves in the field before training at Camp Shelby, Miss., in July 2024. (Jaccob Hearn/U.S. Army National Guard)
Hegseth has long been a critic of physical fitness standards in the armed forces, in particular saying that the inclusion of women in combat has led to lowered standards.
The ban on women serving in combat roles was lifted in 2013 by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and women were fully integrated into those roles by 2016.
The review will look at how standards have changed since Jan. 1, 2015.
“The review will also provide insight on why those standards changed and the impact of those changes,” the memo states.
Hegseth wrote in his most recent book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published last year, that women are not fit for combat because they “cannot physically meet the same standards as men.”
During a Feb. 7 town hall meeting at the Pentagon, Hegseth described soldiers as “standard bearers.”
“What are the standards?” he said. “I mean, and it starts with the basic stuff, right? It’s grooming standards and uniform standards and training standards, fitness standards.”
Hegseth compared lax standards to the broken windows theory of policing, in which unpunished small misdemeanors embolden greater lawbreaking.
“[I]f you violate the small stuff, and you allow it to happen, the big stuff, it creates a culture where big stuff you’re not held accountable for,” he said. “I think the same thing exists inside our services.”
In recent years, some services have loosened regulations around hair styles and tattoos. The changes have come as troops pressed for grooming standards that match the current era.
Some service branches see the changes as essential to successful recruiting for America’s all-volunteer armed forces.
Not all services see it that way.
In January, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told a group of reporters that the service would not allow beards.
“We’re Marines, and we’re different,” he said. “We don’t have beards.”
The Marine Corps is meeting its recruiting goals, and “what we don’t want to do is tinker with the ethos” of the service, he said.
Services approach physical fitness in varying ways.
The Army in 2022 launched its Army Combat Fitness Test, which is designed to better prepare troops for what they would experience in combat as compared to the previous test.
The test focuses on measuring a wide range of physical capabilities — strength, agility, reaction time and endurance.
The Space Force is experimenting with doing away with fitness tests entirely.
Thousands of guardians have participated in a two-year study ending this year that tracks routine workouts in lieu of using fitness tests to gauge capability.
