I remember as a young boy attending Memorial Day ceremonies in Northwood, holding my father’s hand as we walked past rows of shadowed graves to watch men in uniform, still young, as they fired a salute to their fallen comrades over the quiet expanse of Harvey Lake. Most of the contingent consisted of the veterans who had fought in World War II, along with those recently returned from combat in Korea. They were not super-fit warriors capable of doing one-arm pushups.
Far from it.
Some were tall, others skinny, a few pudgy, all appearing as they did when they went off to war. In other words, they looked like average Americans. And that’s exactly what they were — not fearsome fighters but citizen soldiers. And we couldn’t be prouder: they were our G.I. Joes, risking everything to defend our democracy and way of life.
That’s the way it used to be when I was young. But that’s no longer good enough for our newbie Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. To set things straight, he ordered all our generals and admirals — some of them from active war zones — to attend a tongue-lashing at Quantico.
Hegseth didn’t mince words: “It’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”
As a corrective, he issued a new policy requiring all service members to participate in mandatory daily physical training and successfully pass fitness tests twice a year. Those who can’t cut muster will be ushered out of the service.
Not content to fat-shame the generals, he moved on to criticize current grooming standards he sees as slovenly. “No more beards, long hair, superficial, individual expression,” he told the brass. “We’re going to cut our hair, shave, shave our beards and adhere to standards.”
According to Politico, Hegseth was intent on “restoring a throwback vision of the military — one that could win quick, decisive wars using overwhelming force.” To restore our old “warrior ethos,” he asserted, the military must turn the clock back: “Hegseth urged military leaders to apply ‘the 1990 test’ — meaning any standard that had changed since then was suspect.”
That is an utterly baffling statement to all of us who fought in Korea or Vietnam. There was nothing quick or decisive about either of these wars. It also undermines Hegseth’s bright idea that if we were more fit and better groomed, we would fight better.
As a corrective to Hegseth’s super-soldier fantasies, I can only speak of my own experience. I served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 in an unpopular war during times at least as polarizing as now. Back then, the government had to draft young folks to go to war because so few were volunteering.
I served on the Westchester County, LST 1167, along the coast and up the rivers of Vietnam. We saw little combat. There was nothing glamorous about what we did — shuttling troops and equipment in the sweltering heat as garbage piled up on the deck. We often stood watch for four hours on, four hours off, and sometimes went three months without hitting a port where we could get off the ship.
We were the personification of DEI that Hegseth wants to eliminate. We were black, brown and white, covering the gamut from Ivy League dropouts to southern rednecks, from city dwellers to rural hill farmers. Floating around in the Mekong Delta with zero instructions on how to be fit and well-groomed, our bedraggled crew came together to function like a well-oiled machine.
Soon after I departed for home, my ship was blown up by Viet Cong sappers, killing 25 and wounding another 22. It was the Navy’s greatest single-incident combat loss of life during the Vietnam War. My ship’s tank deck was filled with ammunition and ordnance. Only the immediate actions and courage of my old shipmates prevented a catastrophic disaster.
Tears form when I think of the goodness and diversity of the men I served alongside — unfit and ungroomed as we were. We were a tight-knit clan of brothers able to overlook each other’s shortcomings and come together in camaraderie to accomplish what had to be done.
I’m appalled by Hegseth’s speech and feel confident that the generals and admirals feel the same.
Jean Stimmell, retired stone mason and psychotherapist, lives in Northwood and blogs at jstim.substack.com.