Hegeth’s reforms do not seem (yet) to have resulted in substantial attrition of female Marines:

Marines take two fitness tests annually: a physical fitness test in the spring and a combat fitness test in the fall. In January, the Marine Corps began sex-neutral grading for combat Marines on the annual physical fitness test, which consists of a 3-mile run, a choice between pushups or pullups, and an abdominal plank. Since January, Marines in combat specialties have been required to score at least 210 out of 300 points.

The Marine Corps spring physical fitness test data obtained by The War Horse shows that more than 90% of female Marines who have taken the test have met or exceeded the standard.Women serving in combat specialties have always been required to meet the same job-specific standards as men, based on the physical demands of their chosen field, such as infantry or artillery. But the broader physical fitness tests taken by all service members once or twice a year serve a different purpose: measuring overall fitness. Those tests have historically been scored using age- and sex-based standards.

While Hegseth has argued that scoring women against a male standard will preserve the level of fitness required for combat, the new policy still allows standards to vary by age, with benchmarks declining for older service members.

According to the Marine Corps, 422 women currently serve in combat specialties, 400 of whom have taken the test under the new scoring standard. Experts caution that those results cannot predict how women in combat roles across the military will fare, given the small sample size.

“Women are a small part of the Marine Corps. Women are a smaller part of combat arms within the Marine Corps,” said Kyleanne Hunter, a Marine veteran who leads Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Making generalizable conclusions from this is very, very difficult.”

But, she added, “It still tells the story that the vast, vast majority of the women who are in this career field are doing just fine.”

However, because physical fitness scores are part of the overall assessment for promotion, many women will now be at a disadvantage because their perfect and near-perfect scores now look mediocre. Whether you think this was intended probably depends on how smart you think Pete Hegseth is.

FWIW, evidence from Ukraine makes clear that physical fitness really is an important part of combat capability, but not really in ways that Hegseth is testing for. Older bodies can meet high performance metrics but they tend to break down rapidly under strain and recovery takes more time and often greater degrees of medical intervention, a major issue for a force where tours often last six months or more. Female bodies tend to perform quite effectively on these metrics. The main reasons that Ukraine hasn’t employed more women on the front line are demographic considerations and concerns about sexual assault in prisoner of war situations.

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