Issues are getting bushy within the US army.
Secretary of Warfare Pete Hegseth was shocked to search out throughout a latest go to to a US Navy ship that American forces had been flouting a new Pentagon grooming coverage, CNN reported Friday.
Hegseth issued a memo this previous September limiting most service members from having beards — however a number of sailors who greeted the secretary weren’t bare-faced, as anticipated.
That prompted conferences on the Pentagon to debate the implementation of Hegseth’s conflict on what he had known as “rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles.”
“Need to carry to your consideration that the SecWar is paying shut consideration to the progress of the EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] reforms,” one protection official coping with civilian personnel coverage wrote in a June electronic mail.
“In reality, the push is to maneuver sooner … there’s a have to revamp a few of our timelines,” the e-mail said.
It’s unclear which ship prompted the redoubling of shaving efforts, although Hegseth was aboard the USS Boxer in Singapore in Might and the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego in June.
“Secretary Hegseth maintains the very best expectations for our service members to uphold the skilled requirements of look, health, and self-discipline that outline our warfighting power, and he continues to emphasise constant enforcement of hair, weight, and grooming requirements throughout all ranks,” stated chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell in an announcement.
“Commanders at each degree are anticipated to guide by instance by assembly these requirements, implementing these necessities, and they are going to be held accountable for delivering outcomes because the Division works to revive a tradition of excellence and readiness. Our Armed Forces are stronger when each service member meets and exceeds these expectations.”
Hegseth ordered a evaluation of army grooming expectations in March 2025, prompting service branches to later prohibit medical waivers for unshaven troops.
“No extra beardos,” the secretary declared in a Sept. 30, 2025, speech to basic and flag officers at Quantico, Va. “The period of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is finished.”
“Merely put, if you don’t meet the male degree bodily requirements for fight positions, can’t cross a PT check or don’t wish to shave and look skilled, it’s time for a brand new place or a brand new career,” Hegseth warned.
The identical day, a signed memo from Hegseth listed “administrative separation” or being “flagged as non-deployable within the applicable Navy Service personnel system” because the ensuing penalties.
“All personnel should keep a clean-shaven face,” the memo said, mandating that sideburns can’t lengthen previous the opening of the ear; beards or different facial hair are banned until receiving some form of exemption; and mustaches must be “neatly trimmed” with out extending “previous the mouth corners.”
The foundations have been extra lax in some cases for Particular Operations Forces, who nonetheless must be totally shorn if deployed in places marked by chemical, organic, radiological and nuclear threats.
These with medical situations, like pseudofolliculitis barbae (razor bumps), can nonetheless request waivers as long as there may be an “individualized evaluation for operational influence” throughout each 12-month interval.
Some non secular lodging may also be afforded to service members in “non-deployable roles with low threat of chemical assault or firefighting necessities,” supplied they current correct documentation about “The sincerity of the non secular or sincerely held perception.”
“We don’t have a army filled with Nordic pagans,” Hegseth stated in his September deal with. “However sadly, we have now had leaders who both refuse to name BS and implement requirements, or leaders who felt like they weren’t allowed to implement requirements. Each are unacceptable.”
The conflict secretary had likened his strategy to “the’ damaged home windows’ idea in policing.”
“It’s such as you let the small stuff go, the large stuff ultimately goes, so you must deal with the small stuff. That is on responsibility, within the area and within the rear,” he added. “If you need a beard, you possibly can be part of Particular Forces. If not, then shave.”
