Military organizations have to have standards.
In fact, every organization must have some standards. Even your corner McDonald's (ugh) has standards, for cleanliness, for food-handling, for the hygiene and attire of the employees. But a military organization is tasked with protecting the nation and the people to which it belongs. In the case of the United States, our armed forces are tasked with protecting and defending the Constitution, and in so doing, the liberty and property of the American people.
Some of those standards seem unrelated to those goals. They aren't. Case in point: In the summer of 1989, I was at Ft Eustis, Virginia. My oldest daughter - then my only daughter - was five, and regularly spent summers with Daddy. So I flew to Iowa, picked her up, and flew back to Virginia the next day. It was while awaiting a connecting flight in Minneapolis that I saw three young privates, by their haircuts, recent graduates of Basic, playing arcade games. One of them had his Class A jacket unbuttoned, his tie loose in an unbuttoned collar.
Unacceptable. I was in uniform, and when I walked over and caught the kids' attention, the three of them came to rigid attention; to a recent basic trainee, a Second Lieutenant is a person of significant proportions, after all. I corrected the private with the unbuttoned jacket, told him in no uncertain terms why his rag-bag appearance was unacceptable, and that if he was to be in MY Army, he'd better keep his feces cohesive.
He straightened himself up. The standards were upheld.
Standards unevenly enforced, or not enforced at all, are not standards. That applies to uniform standards, to physical fitness standards, and to personal behavioral standards. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gets this, as a recent Real Clear Defense piece points out:
So on September 30, Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. The brass flew in from around the world, and sat as still and stone-faced as buck privates at the final formation of boot camp. Hegseth lectured them—about standards. He wants them to enforce grooming standards again: “no more beards, long hair, superficial expression.” He wants them to raise standards for combat arms units. And he wants standards for physical fitness that are tough, uniform, and gender neutral.
“If not, they’re not standards,” Hegseth said. “They’re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.” Most importantly, Hegseth said he wants a culture where leaders enforce standards. No more “walking on eggshells” for fear of retribution from disgruntled troops. No more anonymous complaints undermining a leader’s authority. “These directives are designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back in the driver’s seat,” Hegseth said. “Move out with urgency because we have your back. I have your back, and the commander in chief has your back.”
That's a bit of a relief to an old soldier.
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The physical standards are of particular importance. A soldier has to be able to carry out the mission. Secretary Hegseth wants all combat soldiers to be fit to fight. All special operations types must pass the very highest physical fitness standard. No more will the standards be compromised to allow to meet woke DEI polices. Warriors will be warriors, fit to fight, at all times, regardless of rank.
That's how standards work.
Of course, there are other schools of thought - mostly from people who have never served.
Out in real America, people live with the consequences of reckless choices and ill-conceived plans hatched in places like California, New York, and Washington, DC. People see the decline in standards for the military but also in other segments of American society. In standards for education. In standards for customer service. In standards for public behavior. In standards for family life. In standards for religious leadership. Wherever progressives have found a standard, they have worked tirelessly to lower it – or negate it entirely.
Because a standard is, after all, a reflection of a collective value. We create standards to ensure that the values of our culture are upheld: indeed, so that a shared culture itself can be maintained. Yes; standards exclude some people from certain benefits and opportunities. But certain exclusions are necessary, if only to maintain the integrity and functions of our institutions. The political Left hates standards for all of these reasons. But more than anything, they despise standards because they imply the existence of a norm, and justify judgments based on the norm.
A collective value, yes, among service members. Civilians may dress as sloppily as they please. (Honestly, I spend most of my days bumming around our Alaska homestead in bib overalls and a sweatshirt.) Civilians can be fat. Civilians can grow beards (Again, guilty) and long hair. Civilians can be slobs. There may be professional and personal repercussions for being a slob, but they belong only to the civilian.
Military organizations aren't like that. They can't be like that. We can't afford for them to be like that. Standards are there for a reason: to ensure cohesion as a force, to ensure discipline, to instill pride, to establish readiness, for any conflict, at any time, anywhere on the planet.
Discipline and readiness are key, because like it or not, there's always going to be a next war.
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Oh, and maybe, Secretary Hegseth, do something about expected travel uniforms? I had to travel in Class As or Bs. Now I see soldiers traveling in battle dress. Maybe I'm being a little too picky - but that doesn't seem right. Put them in their service uniform, with a tie. Pride in appearance, pride in spirit, pride in service.
