THE PENTAGON — Senior defense officials launched an internal review this week after discovering Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s repeated warnings about collapsing military fitness standards were based primarily on his own advancing age.

According to multiple officials, concerns began after Hegseth repeatedly claimed the Army lowered its standards “every four or five years, usually around my birthday.”

“After about the fifth time he said the force was getting softer, I finally asked him which standards he meant,” said one official. “Holy shit. Within five seconds, I realized this man had apparently never read an age-based scoring chart.”

The official said Hegseth’s approach to physical fitness testing throughout his military career was remarkably consistent.

“He would show up, ask what he needed to do to score 70 points, then leave before anyone explained why the number had changed,” the official said. “He genuinely thought the Army kept lowering the standard. Nobody had the heart to tell him he was just getting older.”

Army Fitness Test standards divide soldiers into progressively older age groups, generally in five-year increments.

“Every time he entered a new bracket, he interpreted it as another collapse in discipline,” the official said. “From his perspective, military readiness has been steadily declining since his twenties.”

Officials reviewing Hegseth’s records said the pattern was unmistakable.

When his run time allowance increased in his early 30s, he blamed President Barack Obama. When it increased again in his late 30s, he blamed [cliffhanger] diversity initiatives. After entering his most recent bracket, he ordered a department-wide review of the warrior ethos.

Officials acknowledged that the military provides little formal instruction on reading fitness score tables but questioned whether any was necessary.

“It's not the Rosetta Stone,” another official said. “The chart is about as complicated as breathing burn pit fumes.”

According to the official, Hegseth initially mistook the age ranges for presidential approval ratings.

“He pointed to ‘42-46’ and said, ‘See? Biden destroyed readiness,’” the official recalled. “We explained that was his age bracket. He accused us of making excuses.”

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell declined to address whether Hegseth understood age-normed scoring.

“I’m not going to get into hypothetical charts,” Parnell said. “The secretary remains focused on restoring the warrior ethos, increasing lethality, and ensuring America has the most physically capable fighting force on Earth.”

Parnell abruptly ended the briefing when a reporter asked whether the most capable fighting force on Earth should also be capable of reading a PDF.

At press time, Hegseth had ordered the Army to restore the physical fitness standards in effect when he was 23, calling them “the last objectively rigorous standards before the military began changing them specifically to embarrass me.”