Defense secretary’s latest interposition resulted in all-male, overwhelmingly white picks for promotion to admiralty
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stripped nine navy officers including women and Black service members from a promotion list last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, resulting in an all-male, overwhelmingly white slate of 22 advancing as nominees to become one-star admirals.
Hegseth’s unusual intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, the New York Times said on Tuesday, and extended the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military.
The original promotion list included three women and two Black officers in addition to the two who remained, the newspaper said.
He also removed 4 white men from the list. I’d love to know what his reasons for that. Most likely not idealogically pure.
I’m assuming his rationale related to failure to maintain physical and grooming standards. I know he wanted everyone doing the same PT tests, and at the end of the day women have always had more relaxed standards for PT, and then black servicemembers got no shave chits more than other races. It’s so fucking dumb, but this was his setup, and now he’s moving forward with it. Because some black dude gets ridiculous bumps when he shaves, he’s now passed over for promotion. Crazy.
I believe PT standards should be the same for men and women, but I also believe they should reflect your job. If you work admin, or chow hall, you don’t need to be at the same fitness level as someone in the infantry, that’s just silly. And I came from Marine land, where every marine is a rifleman, if so they say, but it’s just not true. Logistics are a huge part of any war effort, we need people in those jobs, and they absolutely do not need to be at the same level of fitness as front lines. Not saying they don’t need fitness, but a different standard is appropriate.
Overqualified?
They probably had unacceptable appearances, or were just “go along to get along conformists”.
He doesn’t like either.
they may be overweight
Probably had negative Trump social media posts or some shit