'Fat' Texas Guardsmen pulled from Chicago deployment for failing fitness standards

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth took a victory lap on Monday after the Texas Military Department removed several seemingly overweight National Guard troops deployed to Chicago, when a photo of them went viral over the weekend.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host with a problematic personal and professional history, has often proven to be concerned with the outward appearance of elements of his department. Among other demands, he ordered a makeup studio installed inside the Pentagon and dictated which nail polish colours are acceptable for Army soldiers to wear.

The moves are part of his and President Donald Trump's focus on restoring a "warrior ethos" to the armed forces, federal government and America as a whole, something they claim was at some point lost. It has included a purge of top military leaders whose views do not align with the president's agenda and, more recently, an attempt by Hegseth to cull "fat troops" and "fat generals and admirals."

• Family portrait exposes sick secret before dad killed all 7 in massacre
• Russia war desperation as sneaky tactic causing 'huge problem'

"Standards are back," Hegseth posted to social media on Monday in response to a report on the troops' replacement the day before. The National Guard Bureau released a statement on Thursday, seemingly in response to the viral photos, confirming that all guardsmen "are required to meet service-specific height, weight and physical fitness standards at all times."

"When mobilising for active duty, members go through a validation process to ensure they meet those requirements," the statement said. "On the rare occasions when members are found not in compliance, they will not go on mission. They will be returned to their home station, and replacements who do meet standards will take their places."

The removal of the "small group" of overweight troops comes two weeks after Trump and Hegseth lectured hundreds of top military brass, hastily summoned from around the world to Virginia, on troops' physical fitness and their loyalty to the Trump administration's anti-DEI initiatives.

They also suggested using American cities as training grounds for the armed forces and made vague references to an "invasion from within" that they said could warrant "overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a fierce Trump loyalist, sent state National Guard troops to Illinois last week in service of the Trump administration's claims that federal intervention was needed in Chicago to quell out-of-control violent crime - notions that have been denied by city and state leaders. An appeals court temporarily blocked his effort.

Trump has made similar accusations about other Democratic-led cities, including Portland, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore.

He claimed "war-ravaged" Portland is "burning down," as justification for sending in troops. But Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said, "There is no insurrection in Portland, no threat to national security."

Some critics of the mass federalisation of troops to blue cities have described the move as an attempt by Trump to create his own paramilitary force to intimidate and antagonise his political enemies in places unlikely to deliver votes to his coalition in next year's midterm elections.

Last month, Hegseth called hundreds of military leaders and their top advisers from around the world to the Marine Corps base in Quantico without publicly revealing the reason. His address focused mainly on long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by "woke" policies, and he said military leaders should "do the honourable thing and resign" if they don't like his new approach, according to The Associated Press.

• Army will spend $10m restoring torn-down Arlington Confederate monument
• Trump vows to fire military leaders 'on the spot' if he 'doesn't like' them at meeting
• WW3 fears as Pentagon ramps up production of devastating missiles

Though meetings between military brass and civilian leaders are nothing new, this gathering had fueled intense speculation about its purpose, given the haste with which it was called and the mystery surrounding it. The fact that admirals and generals from conflict zones were summoned for a lecture on race and gender in the military showed the extent to which the country's culture wars have become a front-and-centre agenda item for Hegseth's Pentagon, even at a time of broad national security concerns across the globe.

"You'd think that the purpose of that would have been something more dramatic and important than grooming standards and physical fitness standards," said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and director of the Centre for Defence Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.

Janessa Goldbeck, who served in the Marines and is now CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, said the defense secretary's speech Tuesday was more about "stoking grievance than strengthening the force."

"I had a front-row seat every day to the extraordinary training our recruits receive from the most disciplined, professional Marines in the fleet," Goldbeck said of her experience at Marine boot camp in California, while Hegseth "never served as a drill instructor and never trained a recruit."

The secretary "has a cartoonish, 1980s comic-book idea of toughness he's never outgrown," she said. "Instead of focusing on what actually improves force readiness, he continues to waste time and taxpayer dollars on He-Man culture-war theatrics."