2026-07-10T09:00:25.453Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/10/politics/hegseth-beard-policy-sailors-action
近期美伊战争风险再度升级之际，国防部长皮特·黑格斯瑟登上一艘海军舰艇，本应是一次与水兵的常规视察。
但此次行程因胡须问题蒙上阴影：据一名国防官员及CNN获取的邮件显示，黑格斯瑟发现多名水兵留着胡须，显然违反了他去年发布的、在大多数情况下限制留胡须的更严格政策。这些邮件还提及国防部长要求采取相关行动。
离舰后，黑格斯瑟不禁怀疑五角大楼普通官兵是否留意到他的胡须政策，以及他对军队 workforce 做出的其他政策调整。
今年6月此次视察后不久，五角大楼官员召开了多场会议，告知下属黑格斯瑟正在密切监督各机构在胡须政策及其他职场改革方面的进展，且政治任命官员施压要求加快落实这些指令。
“提请各位注意，国防部长正密切关注平等就业机会（EEO）改革的推进情况，”一名负责文职人事政策的五角大楼官员在6月发给同事的邮件中写道，“事实上，目前的要求是加快进度……我们需要调整部分时间表。”
这一事件凸显出，即便美军正在伊朗至加勒比海地区开展行动，黑格斯瑟仍高度关注人事政策——包括带有文化战争色彩的政策。这位46岁的伊拉克战争老兵还将基督教祈祷仪式引入五角大楼，并因美国童子军的“觉醒”政策威胁断绝与该组织的合作。
CNN无法确定是哪一次舰艇视察引发了黑格斯瑟的整治行动。据五角大楼消息，他6月在圣地亚哥登上了“卡尔·文森”号航母，5月则在新加坡登上了“拳师”号两栖攻击舰。
五角大楼发言人肖恩·帕纳尔在一份声明中回应置评请求时表示：黑格斯瑟“对我们的服役人员抱有最高期望，要求他们恪守塑造我们作战部队的专业外貌、体能和纪律标准，他将持续强调在所有军衔中统一执行发型、体重和仪容标准”。
帕纳尔称：“随着国防部致力于恢复卓越与备战文化，指挥官们‘将为落实相关举措承担责任’。”
黑格斯瑟对五角大楼平等就业机会政策的调整包括要求职场投诉得到及时处理，以及除非有证据证明否则推定投诉对象无辜。近期向五角大楼员工发放的一份问卷还询问了被驳回的职场投诉数量。
新美国安全中心智库学者凯瑟琳·库兹明斯基表示，这些平等就业机会改革是改善长期以来饱受拖延困扰的流程的可喜尝试。
“对于提交了经证实的投诉的人来说，漫长的流程会延误适当的干预；而对于被提起无根据投诉的人来说，在流程结束前，他们身上都会笼罩着怀疑的阴云，”库兹明斯基告诉CNN。
胡须政策已成为黑格斯瑟重塑美军的一个更受关注的体现。
去年9月，他发布备忘录收紧了对胡须以及基于医疗原因豁免留须的限制，推翻了实施多年的政策。“别再当‘大胡子’了，”黑格斯瑟在向数百名高级军官发表的演讲中说道，“肆意荒唐的剃须标准时代已经结束。”
近年来美军对留胡须的态度逐渐放宽，批准了数千个医疗和宗教豁免申请。但黑格斯瑟的备忘录辩称，胡须属于国家安全问题，因为它们可能导致服役人员在应对化学或生物威胁时无法安全佩戴防护装备。（美国陆军此前曾就胡须对防毒面具的影响开展过大量研究，并批准过相关豁免。）
该政策的批评者表示，它未能充分考虑到一种不成比例地影响黑人男性的痛苦疾病。须部假性毛囊炎（PFB）是指剃掉的毛发倒卷刺入皮肤所引发的炎症。根据新政策，指挥官可以将因该疾病需要剃须豁免权、且接受了一年治疗的军人开除军籍。
“这项政策‘在一定程度上营造了针对黑人士兵的敌对环境，因为这会让他们更容易受到高级军士的骚扰’，”非营利组织黑人退伍军人项目的联合创始人理查德·布鲁克希尔表示，“这会让他们……因一种十余年来美军一直在妥善治疗的可治疗疾病而面临纪律处分。”
“在我国正开展新型复杂战争之际，我们却要开除训练有素、爱国且作战能力强的士兵，而此前军方为训练这些男女军人花费了数百万美元，”布鲁克希尔告诉CNN。
黑格斯瑟对仪容和人事标准的调整，与他去年9月在弗吉尼亚州匡蒂科军事基地向数百名美国高级军官和军士领导人发表的演讲时间重合。在那次演讲中，黑格斯瑟强调了在体能和更严格仪容标准等方面进行改革的必要性——这类事务通常由初级官员负责执行。他当时表示，有关国土安全威胁和威慑中国的议题“留待日后再作专门演讲”。
今年2月，美伊战争打响的前一天，黑格斯瑟在社交媒体上发布了一段关于美国童子军（前身为美国童子军）的视频，表达了他对该组织多元化、公平性和包容性举措的“深切担忧”。同一天，他签署备忘录，决定停止美军军官参与部分奖学金项目以及前往耶鲁、哈佛和麻省理工学院等顶尖大学的交流活动，指责这些学校传播“左翼意识形态”。
CNN的海莉·布里茨基为本报道贡献了采访报道。
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=996330786521622
https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4417012/hegseth-says-scouting-america-support-to-continue-upon-orgs-commitment-to-drop/
Hegseth pushes for action after sailors appear to flout his beard policy
2026-07-10T09:00:25.453Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/10/politics/hegseth-beard-policy-sailors-action
As the US-Iran war risked reigniting in recent weeks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded a Navy ship for what was supposed to be a routine visit with sailors.
The trip was marred by facial hair: Hegseth noticed multiple sailors sporting beards, apparently violating a stricter policy restricting beards in most instances that he issued last year, according to a defense official and emails seen by CNN referencing the defense secretary’s requests for action to be taken.
Hegseth left the ship wondering if the Pentagon rank-and-file paid attention to his beard policy and other policy changes he has made to the workforce.
Shortly after the visit in June, Pentagon officials held a series of meetings in which they told subordinates that Hegseth was closely monitoring agencies’ progress on the beard policy and other workplace changes, and that there was pressure from political appointees to move faster on the directives.
“Want to bring to your attention that the SecWar is paying close attention to the progress of the EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] reforms,” a Pentagon official focused on civilian personnel policy emailed colleagues in June. “In fact, the push is to move faster … there is a need to revamp some of our timelines.”
The episode shows how Hegseth intensely focuses on personnel policies, including those with culture war undertones, even as the US military conducts operations from Iran to the Caribbean. The 46-year-old Iraq war veteran has also brought Christian prayer services to the Pentagon and threatened to cut ties with Scouting America over its “woke” policies.
CNN could not determine which ship visit prompted Hegseth’s crackdown. He visited the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego in June and the USS Boxer in Singapore in May, according to the Pentagon.
Asked for comment, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement: Hegseth “maintains the highest expectations for our service members to uphold the professional standards of appearance, fitness, and discipline that define our warfighting force, and he continues to emphasize consistent enforcement of hair, weight, and grooming standards across all ranks.”
Commanders “will be held accountable for delivering results as the Department works to restore a culture of excellence and readiness,” Parnell said.
The changes that Hegseth made to Pentagon EEO policies include requirements that workplace complaints be dealt with in a timely manner and that the subject of a complaint be presumed innocent unless evidence showed otherwise. A questionnaire sent recently to Pentagon employees asks them about the number of dismissed workplace complaints.
Those EEO reforms are a welcome effort to improve a process that has long been plagued by delays, according to Katherine Kuzminski, a scholar at the Center for a New American Security think tank.
“For those filing a substantiated complaint, long timelines delay appropriate intervention; those who have an unsubstantiated claim filed against them have a cloud of suspicion hanging over them until the process is complete,” Kuzminski told CNN.
Facial hair has been a more visible measure of how Hegseth is reshaping the military.
In September, he issued a memo that tightened restrictions on beards and the granting of medical-based exemptions to grow them, reversing years of policy. “No more beardos,” Hegseth said in a speech to hundreds of top military officers. “The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”
The military had in recent years gradually become more accommodating of beards, granting thousands of medical and religious exemptions. But Hegseth’s memo argued that beards were a national security issue because they could prevent service members from safely donning protective equipment in response to chemical or biological threats. (The Army has done extensive studies of the effects of beards on gas masks and approved exemptions in the past.)
Critics of the policy say it fails to adequately account for a painful medical condition that disproportionately affects Black men. Pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, occurs when shaved hair curls back into the skin. Under the new policy, commanders can kick out military personnel who require a shaving waiver after a year of medical treatment for PFB.
That policy “allows for an environment of hostility to our Black troops in uniform in part because it opens them up to greater harassment from their senior enlisted,” said Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the nonprofit Black Veterans Project. “It opens them up for … disciplinary action for a treatable condition that the military had been adequately treating for well over a decade.”
“You’re talking about getting rid of well-qualified, patriotic, lethal soldiers at a time our country is propagating new and complex wars, after spending quite literally millions of dollars to train these men and women,” Brookshire told CNN.
Hegseth’s changes to grooming and personnel standards coincided with a speech he gave in September before hundreds of the nation’s senior officers and enlisted leaders that he summoned to a military installation in Quantico, Virginia. Hegseth hammered home the need for change on things like physical fitness and stricter grooming standards — issues that typically fall to more junior leaders to enforce. The issue of threats to the homeland and deterring China, he said at the time, was “another speech for another day.”
The day before the US and Israel began their war with Iran in February, Hegseth released a video on social media about the Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) and his “deep concerns” about diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the organization. The same day, he signed a memorandum discontinuing participation by military officers in select fellowships and at elite universities like Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, accusing the schools of propagating “leftist ideology.”
CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed reporting.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=996330786521622
https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4417012/hegseth-says-scouting-america-support-to-continue-upon-orgs-commitment-to-drop/