{"id":40762,"date":"2025-10-02T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40762"},"modified":"2025-10-02T09:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T16:39:20","slug":"where-george-washington-would-disagree-with-pete-hegseth-about-fitness-for-command-and-what-makes-a-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/where-george-washington-would-disagree-with-pete-hegseth-about-fitness-for-command-and-what-makes-a-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"Where George Washington would disagree with Pete Hegseth about fitness for command and what makes a warrior"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maurizio Valsania<\/a>, Universit\u00e0 di Torino<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he paced across a stage<\/a> at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, on Sept. 30, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals he had summoned from around the world that he aimed to reshape the military\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten new directives, he said, would strip away what he called \u201cwoke garbage\u201d and restore what he termed a \u201cwarrior ethos<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrase \u201cwarrior ethos\u201d \u2013 a mix of combativeness, toughness and dominance \u2013 has become central to Hegseth\u2019s political identity. In his 2024 book \u201cThe War on Warriors<\/a>,\u201d he insisted that the inclusion of women in combat roles had drained that ethos, leaving the U.S. military less lethal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his address, Hegseth outlined what he sees as the qualities and virtues the American soldier \u2013 and especially senior officers \u2013 should embody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On physical fitness and appearance, he was blunt: \u201cIt\u2019s completely unacceptable<\/a> to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then turned from body shape to grooming: \u201cNo more beardos<\/a>,\u201d Hegseth declared. \u201cThe era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a historian of George Washington<\/a>, I can say that the commander in chief of the Continental Army, the nation\u2019s first military leader, would have agreed with some of Secretary Hegseth\u2019s directives \u2013 but only some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington\u2019s overall vision of a military leader could not be further from Hegseth\u2019s vision of the tough warrior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Sept. 30, 2025. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

280 pounds \u2013 and trusted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For starters, Washington would have found the concern with \u201cfat generals\u201d irrelevant. Some of the most capable officers in the Continental Army were famously overweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His trusted chief of artillery, Gen. Henry Knox<\/a>, weighed around 280 pounds. The French officer Marquis de Chastellux<\/a> described Knox as \u201ca man of thirty-five, very fat, but very active, and of a gay and amiable character<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others were not far behind. Chastellux also described Gen. William Heath<\/a> as having \u201ca noble and open countenance.\u201d His bald head and \u201ccorpulence,\u201d he added, gave him \u201ca striking resemblance to Lord Granby,\u201d the celebrated British hero of the Seven Years\u2019 War. Granby was admired for his courage, generosity and devotion to his men<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington never saw girth as disqualifying. He repeatedly entrusted Knox with the most demanding assignments: designing fortifications, commanding artillery and orchestrating the legendary \u201cnoble train of artillery<\/a>\u201d that brought cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he became president, after the Revolution, Washington appointed Knox the first secretary of war<\/a> \u2013 a sign of enduring confidence in his judgment and integrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beards: Outward appearance reflects inner discipline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As for beards, Washington would have shared Hegseth\u2019s concern \u2013 though for very different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He disliked facial hair on himself and on others<\/a>, including his soldiers. To Washington, a beard made a man look unkempt and slovenly, masking the higher emotions that civility required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beards were not signs of virility but of disorder. In his words, they made a man \u201cunsoldierlike<\/a>.\u201d Every soldier, he insisted, must appear in public \u201cas decent as his circumstances will permit.\u201d Each was required to have \u201chis beard shaved \u2013 hair combed \u2013 face washed \u2013 and cloaths put on in the best manner in his power<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Washington, this was no trivial matter. Outward appearance reflected inner discipline. He believed that a well-ordered body produced a well-ordered mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To him, neatness was the visible expression of self-command<\/a>, the foundation of every other virtue a soldier and leader should possess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why he equated beards and other forms of unkemptness with \u201cindecency.\u201d His lifelong battle was against indecency in all its forms. \u201cIndecency,\u201d he once wrote, was \u201cutterly inconsistent with that delicacy of character, which an officer ought under every circumstance to preserve<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More statesman than warrior<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By \u201cdelicacy,\u201d Washington meant modesty, tact and self-awareness \u2013 the poise that set genuine leaders apart from individuals governed by passions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For him, a soldier\u2019s first victory was always over himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA man attentive to his duty,\u201d he wrote, \u201cfeels something within him that tells him the first measure is dictated by that prudence which ought to govern all men who commits a trust to another<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Washington became a soldier not because he was hotheaded or drawn to the thrill of combat, but because he saw soldiering as the highest exercise of discipline, patience and composure. His \u201cwarrior ethos<\/a>\u201d was moral before it was martial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington\u2019s ideal military leader was more statesman than warrior. He believed that military power must be exercised under moral constraint, within the bounds of public accountability, and always with an eye to preserving liberty rather than winning personal glory<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his mind, the army was not a caste apart but an instrument of the republic \u2013 an arena in which self-command and civic virtue were tested. Later generations would call him the model of the \u201crepublican general<\/a>\u201d: a commander whose authority rested not on bluster or bravado but on composure, prudence and restraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That vision was the opposite of the one Pete Hegseth performed at Quantico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Washington formally taking command of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775, in Cambridge, Mass. Currier and Ives image, photo by Heritage Art\/Heritage Images via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Discipline and steadiness, not fury and bravado<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cwarrior ethos\u201d Hegseth celebrates \u2013 loud, performative \u2013 was precisely what Washington believed a soldier must overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 1778, after Marquis de Lafayette<\/a> abandoned an impossible winter expedition to Canada, Washington praised caution over juvenile bravado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery one will applaud your prudence in renouncing a project in which you would vainly have attempted physical impossibilities<\/a>,\u201d he wrote from the snows of Valley Forge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Washington, valor was never the same as recklessness. Success, he believed, depended on foresight, not fury, and certainly not bravado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first commander in chief cared little for waistlines or whiskers, in the end; what concerned him was discipline of the mind. What counted was not the cut of a man\u2019s figure but the steadiness of his judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington\u2019s own \u201cwarrior ethos\u201d was grounded in decency, temperance and the capacity to act with courage without surrendering to rage. That ideal built an army \u2013 and in time, a republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maurizio Valsania<\/a>, Professor of American History, Universit\u00e0 di Torino<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maurizio Valsania, Universit\u00e0 di Torino As he paced across a stage at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, on Sept. 30, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals he had summoned from around the world that he aimed to reshape the military\u2019s culture. Ten new directives, he said, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,42,827,10,47,296,36,4,38],"tags":[3321,16968,4029,885,891,886,860,15832,2013],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40764,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40762\/revisions\/40764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}