• tal@olio.cafe
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    14 hours ago

    Hegseth told senior military leaders that he no longer wants to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops in combat units.

    “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country, in the world, it’s a bad look,” Hegseth said.

    For people who are actually engaged in combat, okay, but usually generals are not going to be personally engaged in physical combat. If they are, things have probably gone rather wrong on other levels. Like, we’re theoretically choosing people at that level based on ability to coordinate and plan, not to look sexy on TV.

    The Defense Secretary pointed to his own regimen as an example. “It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” he said. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT [physical training], so can every member of our joint force.”

    Every time I think the cringe bar cannot go lower, this administration manages it.

    • AxExRx@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Does he do regular exercise or just routinely skip meals and substitute ethanol and cocaine?

    • RedditIsALostCause@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      As a preface, I think this admin, and this whole meeting including the part about fitness, is/was monumentally stupid and I hate where this is going.

      However, I do subscribe to the healthy mind leads to a healthy body and healthy body leads to a healthy mind. I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to have an expectation that our military leadership be fit/healthy/in-shape and not beer-bellied pencil pushers lol. Hard to lead when you’re worried about your failing heart y’know? It is, however, SO STUPID, that they included this in the meeting and had Pete “The Alcoholic” Hegseth lecture them about health.

      Beyond just the health of the leaders for their own performance, the military certainly does have a degree of “lead by example” and “respect for appearance” by the lower ranks of the upper ranks.

      So while this whole thing is stupid and should’ve been an internal memo/order and, Hegseth and Trump are fascist cronnies — I don’t think it’s unreasonable for their to be a basic expectation that military leadership keep their weight in check (not ripped and huge with muscle, just lean and not overly fat).