Pete Hegseth

On Combat Military Occupational Specialty Standards

First Published 2 April 2025

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

Here at the Defense Department, we are restoring the warrior ethos¹ and that means we gotta be fit to fight inside all of our formations.² That starts with standards and going back to basics.

So for decades, the military I joined -- there were different male and female physical standards because men and women are different, and that's understandable.

At -- But there were certain jobs, combat MOSs [Military Occupational Specialty], that were only for men. And so you had a male standard.

Then, in 2015, under the Obama Administration, against the advice of the military services, opened up all those combat MOSs to males and females.

Fine, if that's their decision. But they never changed the standards in a lot of those roles. So, you still had higher standards for men than for women in a lot of those combat MOSs. Some changed it; but not all did.

We're fixing that.

We're ensuring that any combat position across any of the services -- and the services are evaluating that -- has the same standard for men and women; which means anybody can join, but the standard is to meet what it takes to do that combat job, rigorous physical standards, so that your sons and daughters, those that join our military, have the best possible units, the most lethal units.

So, this is a standard review looking at combat units, looking at men and women. No standards will be lowered only at the highest level. And we look forward to all our best warriors joining those units.

It's a review that's important, long overdue, and the kind of thing we promised inside the Trump Administration.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARIES OF THE MILITARY DEPARTMENTS re Combat Arms Standards

¹ Upon cursory exploration, and the SecDef's statement notwithstanding, there exists, as of this writing, no clear and commonly deployed conceptual definition of "warrior ethos" within the U.S. military. Thus, the term's meaning predictably varies across different authorities, at least according to various DoD websites. A U.S. Army website states the following dictum as falling under a warrior ethos: "I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade." [https://www.army.mil/values/warrior.html]  A U.S. Air Force website weighs in with: "Reviving the warrior ethos means letting every airman know what it means to fight as a unit, what's going to be expected of them, and focusing on the threat" [https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4099520/air-force-aims-to-instill-warrior-ethos-increase-lethality/]. Neither of these two entries is sex specific (assuming a charitably inclusive interpretation of "airman") and thus neither is sex exclusive. However, given the results of studies catalogued by Military Review, for example, there exist fairly stark operational differences on a range of physical, physiological, and psychological outcomes between the sexes in relation to combatant training outcomes and hence a need for a clearer connection between conceptual and operational definitions of the term. For additional perspectives, listen to The Art of Manliness' podcast with Steven Pressfield, author of The Warrior Ethos, for an engaging vision of the warrior ethos, albeit one moving beyond the role of military combatant. Also well worth a look is H.R. McMaster's important review this topic in Preserving the Warrior Ethos.

² An under the radar and thus capably deployed alliteration ("fit to fight...formations")

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Page Updated: 4/4/25

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