War Secretary Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals Sep 30 in Virginia

[BCP1928]

...or the generals could declare such a loyalty oath illegal carry out a Coup d'etat : )

Those with any moral character (the ones we would want to keep) would just quit.

 

[wing2000]

Those with any moral character (the ones we would want to keep) would just quit.

I suspect many of the Sr officer corp are revisting their retirement plans.

Who wants to serve a commander-n-chief who orders the military to blow up civilian boats and patrol American cities? This dog and pony show in D.C. will just give them more reason to leave....

 

[essentialsaltes]

I'm hoping they will enhance the virility and lethality of the brass with a mass beard and mustache shaving.

Also, no fatties.

Hegseth rails against 'woke,' lays out standards in speech to top generals​

"We must be prepared," he said. "Either we're ready to win or we are not."

the meeting appeared -- at least as of now -- to be more of a "rally the troops" speech similar to what Hegseth frequently gives in public venues and in Fox News interviews.

He demanded no more "fat generals," saying all service members would need to meet fitness tests and grooming standards. "No more beardos," he said. "The era of unacceptable appearance is over."

 

[Servus]

Shape up, or ship out.

 

[durangodawood]

Seems like a lot of fuss and a ton of expense for not much.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Seems like a lot of fuss and a ton of expense for not much.

It's all theater and distraction.

 

[Servus]

Seems like a lot of fuss and a ton of expense for not much.

Or that's what they want you to think...

 

[essentialsaltes]

Or that's what they want you to think...

What do you want us to think? What necessitated the physical presence of the generals and admirals to tell them to stay fit, lose the beards, hold combat troops to a high physical fitness level, get more lethal and less woke?

 

[Servus]

What do you want us to think? What necessitated the physical presence of the generals and admirals to tell them to stay fit, lose the beards, hold combat troops to a high physical fitness level, get more lethal and less woke?

Are you sure that's all that happened? Not a chance there was also a secret meeting?

 

[wing2000]

He demanded no more "fat generals," saying all service members would need to meet fitness tests and grooming standards. "No more beardos," he said. "The era of unacceptable appearance is over."

...a reference to his order last month: "troops who need an exemption from shaving their facial hair for longer than a year should get kicked out of the service."

"Most shaving waivers are for troops diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, a condition in which hair curls back into the skin after shaving and causes irritation. It is a condition that disproportionately affects Black men."

Pentagon says troops can only be exempt from shaving their facial hair for a year

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that troops who need an exemption from shaving their facial hair for longer than a year should now be kicked out of the service.

apnews.com

 

[Servus]

It was very reminiscent of:

 

[rambot]

Huh... another republican leader who doeant want to take responsibility foe their actions.

I wonder who would be surprised by that....maybe the people who believed trump would extricate the US feom conflicts.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Are you sure that's all that happened? Not a chance there was also a secret meeting?

I didn't get a Signal chat about it, so no.

 

[essentialsaltes]

"We are the United States military. The best, the boldest, the bravest that the world has ever seen," [Trump] said, adding "we will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win."

"The Department of War is going to stop wars," he said.

 

[wing2000]

...just when I thought I had seen the most ridiculous comparisons.

A WW2 4-star General's speech, delivered to the Third Army on June 5, 1944, before the invasion of Europe, is compared to a former Army captain and Fox News talk show host's speech...

Say, are we now ready to invade Venezuela!?

 

[seeking.IAM]

...just when I thought I had seen the most ridiculous comparisons.

A WW2 4-star General's speech, delivered to the Third Army on June 5, 1944, before the invasion of Europe, is compared to a former Army captain and Fox News talk show host's speech...

Say, are we now ready to invade Venezuela!?

But Greenland, What about Greenland?

 

[Servus]

I didn't get a Signal chat about it, so no.

Of course not. The reason why they all got together in person is because the meeting was too classified to be transmitted.

 

[Servus]

But Greenland, What about Greenland?

All in good time. Rome wasn't built in a day.

AI really delivered lol.

 

[RDKirk]

...a reference to his order last month: "troops who need an exemption from shaving their facial hair for longer than a year should get kicked out of the service."

"Most shaving waivers are for troops diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, a condition in which hair curls back into the skin after shaving and causes irritation. It is a condition that disproportionately affects Black men."

Pentagon says troops can only be exempt from shaving their facial hair for a year

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that troops who need an exemption from shaving their facial hair for longer than a year should now be kicked out of the service.

apnews.com

I had severe PFB. Had it before I went in, and knew it The secret is not to cut the hairs below the skin surface. When the hairs of most black men are cut below the skin surface--which nearly every shaving device is designed to do--they begin curling even before they reach the surface, curling back into the flesh and continuing to grow as though they belonged there. It's a matter of hair type. I knew guys of Italian and Greek ancestry who also had shaving waivers.

Back in those days, black barbers near military bases knew how to shave black men without causing the ingrown hairs. Black barbers were specifically trained in handling PFB in the Jim Crow days of segregated barber schools. They had the skill to run a straight razor over the face with such a light touch that the hairs were not cut below the skin surface. Plucking out ingrown hairs without disrupting the flesh so much as to cause a scar was also a skill tht black barbers had back then. My mother was a barber, and being a military wife--she had those skills.

The shaving waivers back then allowed us to grow the hairs no more than 1/4 inch long (long enough to get all the hairs above the skin), with no shaping or trimming. You didn't look cool with a shaving waiver, you just looked unkempt. They were only good for 30 days at a time; then the doctor would instruct us in some other method of shaving, we'd try that, then if we still had the problem, another waiver for another 30 days. I don't recall that there was a limit.

Actually, I had always known how to deal with it: A close trimmer, such as I used on the back of my neck, would handle it as long as my supervisor didn't demand an absolutely baby-smooth chin. For a closer shave, we needed something that mimicked the skill of the old black barbers: Cutting the hairs right at the skin surface. During the 80s, Remington offered the Black Man's Shaver which had slightly thicker blade guards than other electric shavers. There was also the disposable Bump Fighter razor which had a guard wrapped around the blade to keep the blade just above the skin surface. Today, Gillette offers the Skin Guard razor that has a metal guard wrapped around the blade.

The current rules are about the same as they were for black men back then...yet we were winning. I don't know of anyone who left service because he couldn't shave.

The big difference today is really "the times." Military appearance has always reflected a conservative look-- for the times. It basically takes about 20 years for a particular look to pass from "fad" to "conservative." That's about a military generation. The way it works out, if a look was the civilian trend when a young cohort entered the military and it managed to remain popular in the civilian community their entire careers, then when that young cohort becomes the senior leadership, they accept that look for the military.

That's what has essentially happened with beards. People forget the military is young. At this point, the top 5% of the most senior military leadership are X-genners. Over half of the military, including all the mid-to-higher level leadership, are Millennials. Almost half, including junior leaders, are Gen Z.

Beards have been de rigueur for men in the civilian community for over 25 years. Even the current conservative vice-president wears a beard. The push in this young military is strong to allow beards. For better or worse, the military has been making official exceptions and unofficially looking the other way for a long time.

The fact that so many exceptions have been allowed for years, not to mention the wearing of beards in the allied nation militaries that our military operates cheek-and-jowl with (remember Prince Harry's beard when he was an active duty pilot in Afghanistan?) has put to rest every "practical" excuse for requiring clean cheeks.

So, as a practical matter, it can go either way. Yes, black men can adapt to being clean shaven as we always had. And, yes, the military can adapt to broadly permitting beards.

But here is the other aspect: The push for beards unfortunately coincides with a demand that the military make every other social accommodation as well. While wearing beards would do nothing to harm military readiness, a lot of those other accommodation demands will.

So, we see people who have been pushed to that point we see in "Fiddler on the Roof" when Tevye has been pushed to the edge of the loss of traditions that he will allow, and he just waves his hands and shouts, "No, no, no!"

 

[RDKirk]

Of course not. The reason why they all got together in person is because the meeting was too classified to be transmitted.

There is no operational reason for a face-to-face meeting, and classification isn't it. The military has the most secure method of video teleconferencing, up to TOP SECRET/Special Compartmented Information. There is no such thing as military information too classified to be transmitted...a modern war could not be won if that were the case.

Nor is there any realistically imaginable operational reason for commanders from all the theater and support commands to be called into one meeting. There's no war that's going to break out simultaneously everywhere.

This was a dumb, expensive, unnecessary flex of Executive muscle. Even having a classified subtext does not make it anything other than a dumb, expensive, unnecessary flex of Executive muscle.

What it proved to any general who hadn't figured it out yet is that they are being led by small-minded martinets.

And it was more expensive than they'll ever tell you.