WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has spent more than a year restoring what he calls the military’s “warrior ethos” through tougher fitness standards, stricter grooming policies and repeated use of the word “lethality.”
Now he is turning his attention to what he says may be the most serious readiness crisis facing the force: all the limp dicks he keeps seeing in the Pentagon locker room.
Hegseth announced plans this summer to screen service members over 30 for testosterone deficiency. Clinical guidance implementing the program was briefly issued this month before the Pentagon pulled it back for revisions.
Duffel Blog spoke with Hegseth about the policy, its origins, and why the secretary appears to be conducting informal visual inspections in the locker room.
DB: Mr. Secretary, why is low testosterone a military readiness issue?
HEGSETH: I've worried about this since I was a young infantry officer. Not personally, obviously. I piss testosterone. Sometimes blood. But you see guys with low energy, less muscle mass, belly fat, limp dicks. These are supposed to be warriors operating at peak performance. We owe it to them to make them whole again.
DB: You keep mentioning limp dicks.
HEGSETH: Of course I do. Have you seen one?
DB: Yes.
HEGSETH: Exactly. Now imagine seeing dozens every morning.
DB: Why would I—
HEGSETH: I hit the Pentagon gym every morning. Deadlifts. Pull-ups. PeteFit. Then I walk into the locker room and it's like somebody surrendered.
Soft packages everywhere.
Pasty staff officers. Wrinkled colonels. General officers hanging around like melted candles.
This is the Department of War. I should be seeing flags at full mast.
DB: Secretary Hegseth, are you saying you assess military readiness by looking at erections in the locker room?
HEGSETH: I'm saying you can learn a lot about an organization by walking around naked in it.
DB: Is an erection while surrounded by male coworkers actually considered a clinical indicator of healthy testosterone?
HEGSETH: RFK and I have discussed this extensively.
DB: That doesn't answer the question.
HEGSETH: Science is about observing things.
I'm observing.
DB: The Pentagon issued testosterone-screening guidance and then rescinded it almost immediately.
HEGSETH: Temporary tactical pause.
DB: So the testosterone policy went soft?
HEGSETH: Don't write that.
DB: Medical groups generally don't recommend routinely screening asymptomatic men for low testosterone, and unnecessary treatment can affect fertility and carry other risks.
HEGSETH: That's what happens when medicine gets captured by woke endocrinologists.
You know what doesn't show up on their little charts? Lethality.
DB: What about blast exposure and “operator syndrome”? There is evidence that repeated traumatic brain injury and chronic stress can affect hormones.
HEGSETH: Exactly. Combat, blast overpressure, sleep deprivation, cortisol, deployment stress. All those things can crush testosterone.
DB: You previously included Biden administration policies on that list.
HEGSETH: Have you ever read a DEI memo?
My testosterone dropped just saying the letters.
DB: Will every male service member over 30 be tested?
HEGSETH: That's the idea.
DB: Even cyber personnel? Finance? Signal?
HEGSETH: Obviously there will be risk-based prioritization.
DB: Meaning?
HEGSETH: If a guy works in signal and has spent 12 years sitting in a SCIF eating Tornados, I don't need a blood test to know we're dealing with a degraded weapons system.
But yes, we'll take care of him.
Every warrior deserves the opportunity to become extremely vascular.
DB: And female service members?
