Hegseth Establishing His “Own Wokeness” “Looks Over Excellence” With New Grooming Standards Memo

July 16, 2025

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No, it’s not The Onion. How do those folks make a living these days, anybody know? Mad Magazine went out of business during Trump 1.0, which made perfect sense, and I wonder how anybody who does satire makes a living. Who needs satire when you’ve got headlines and stories like these? The latest from the Department of Defense is that false eyelashes are banned. Uh huh. And that’s just the beginning.

The new grooming standards, one Army directive says, are “in support of Army readiness” — military speak for the ability to act swiftly and effectively. Far from some obscure policy, Hegseth believes that disciplined hair care will lead to a disciplined military, restoring the “warrior ethos” he often laments the armed forces have lost.

“We’re looking at overall fitness standards, overall grooming standards, overall basic standards across our formations that we believe have slipped certainly under the previous administration, but over decades,” Hegseth told Congress last month.

“It’s almost like the broken windows theory of policing: when you ignore the small stuff from criminals … it creates a culture where big stuff you’re not held accountable for,” he pontificated at a town hall meeting in February.

Here are three new grooming standards that particularly caught my eye:

Shaving, particularly for soldiers who seek waivers to standard policies due to health complications that daily shaving can cause. This is most common for black and brown folks who have curly hair; so common in fact that the directive makes explicit mention of “pseudofolliculitis Barbae,” or razor bumps, which can become infected.

The directive enumerates three phased treatment plans corresponding to mild, moderate and severe cases. A fourth phase provides the option of laser hair removal to soldiers unresponsive to the previous treatments or with chronic issues.

Eyelash extensions are now banned. No real justification is given but I’m sure it’s a coincidence that this also impacts black and brown people the most. Similarly, nail polish must now be “clear or French or American Manicure only,” a sacrifice to the gods of uniformity which feels more arbitrary than purposeful.

3. Petty changes to uniforms are being directed, from a ban on duty identifier patches, to shorter boots (“8-12 inches”), to important contingency plans on how to wear one’s sleeves (“the cuffs will remain visible, and the sleeve will rest at, or within 1-inch of, the forearm when the arm is bent at a 90-degree angle”; though “Commanders may prohibit rolling of sleeves and folding of cuffs.”)

It is a hodgepodge of “new” directives that are mostly costly annoyances but overall leave enlisted soldiers I’ve talked to feeling like the Pentagon and “leadership” are just playing a sadistic game of Simon Says.

What else would you expect from a guy who can’t do the job but who looks the part? This is what he’s going to lead people to do, naturally, because it worked for him. Presentation is all, troops. You heard it first from the Secretary of Defense. Donald Trump and Fox News taught him everything he knows. Let that sink in.