Just over one month after his landmark meeting with the military’s top brass, War Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered an explanation for his crusade against the “beardos” who did not adhere to the military’s personal grooming standards.
Hegseth, who mentioned the “beardos” in his speech to the gathered military leaders in late September, said on Wednesday that he was referencing the rapidly growing number of men at the Pentagon who had claimed affiliation with the Nordic Pagan or Old Norse religion in an apparent attempt to skirt the military’s shaving regulations.
WATCH:
🚨WATCH: @SecWar goes NUCLEAR on ‘beardos’: “Do you know how many troops claim to be Nordic pagan?” https://t.co/AYUKc6zJbr pic.twitter.com/eQnss2q0Sn
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 12, 2025
“I also said we don’t need to be a military of beardos anymore,” Hegseth said. “Do you know how many troops claim to be Nordic Pagan?”
Over laughter from around the room, he continued, “No, suddenly it’s become this real religious, fake religious affiliation inside the Pentagon where troops claim to be Nordic Pagan so they can grow a beard — and no one challenges them on it because no one has upheld standards for a long time. So now a quarter of the platoon is sporting beards because they’re now suddenly Nordic Pagans. We’re not doing that stuff anymore.”
“There will be some people that say, well, Pete, why would a secretary care about beards and PT standards?” he added. “When you let the small things go inside your formations, you create a climate of a lack of discipline, where standards cannot be enforced. If you can’t enforce them on the small things, it gets far more difficult to enforce them on even more meaningful things … the entire command structure is flipped upside down.”
While many men who practice the Nordic Pagan religion do grow beards in order to honor specific gods or simply to express masculinity and status, they are not required to.
Military men are expected to keep their faces clean-shaven both for the uniform appearance and because the issued protective masks — designed to protect service members in the event of a gas attack — may not seal properly if the wearer’s face is not smooth.
