Recently, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered a review of all military physical fitness and grooming standards with a focus on how these standards have loosened in the last decade. Periodically reviewing standards meant to keep our force strong and unified is an important part of deliberate, strategic leadership. Military decision makers must understand the real-world effect these standards have on our ability to maintain the world’s strongest, most able-bodied military force. And military leadership must be able to enforce these standards.
Equally important — and ingrained in the very origins of American constitutional government — is the nation’s commitment to protecting the free exercise of religion, including within the Armed Forces.
As the Department of Defense executes its review of fitness and grooming standards, military leadership can and should confidently retain separate existing DOD and service branch policies — many established during President Donald Trump’s first term — that provide a path for service members who sincerely need religious accommodations involving uniform wear and grooming for items such as beards, turbans, and yarmulkes.
Fortunately, high standards and religious freedom in the military are not in conflict. Maintaining the most impeccable military standards and allowing tailored accommodations for sincere religious practice can be and have long been accomplished simultaneously.
Trump has reiterated his administration’s commitment to religious liberty during his first and second administrations. In his first term, Trump’s attorney general issued detailed guidance on federal protections for religious liberty. This guidance specified that the military cannot deny a request for an accommodation to uniform and grooming policies without a compelling interest. Just a year later, the Army made desirable improvements to support the religious accommodation process under his watch.
Congress, likewise, has repeatedly acted to protect religious accommodations in the military. For nearly 40 years, federal law has required the military to respect religious apparel while in uniform. More recently, Congress passed language protecting military chaplains who adhere to traditional religious beliefs about marriage, recommending that DOD conduct training on religious accommodation at all levels of command, and rescinding the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Congress also passed language affirming the conviction that allowing service members from different faiths to serve our country in keeping with the tenets of their faith enhances mission accomplishment.
Federal courts have also required the military to accommodate religious exemptions to appearance policies. The most recent court decision protecting religious appearance accommodations in the military provided a detailed summary of decades of congressional history requiring religious accommodations in military service. Further, there is a proven track record of religious accommodations improving military effectiveness.
Service members vow to protect our constitutional freedoms, even at the cost of their own lives. Our national values require that service members ought to enjoy those same freedoms, as long as they do not disrupt military readiness. The nation’s military history already confirms that religious beliefs do not impair service members’ ability to fulfill their mission. In fact, respecting their religious identity by accommodating religious dress and grooming standards means that we continue to recruit the best and strongest possible candidates to serve in our military — people committed to the freedoms they are called to defend. Indeed, the DOD and the service branches already contain robust processes for religious appearance accommodations to uniform and grooming standards.
As retired military chaplains who served at the highest levels of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps, it was an honor to have spent our careers serving the religious needs of countless men and women in uniform, regardless of whether we shared similar faith backgrounds. We experienced firsthand how integral faith is to sustain the combat readiness and personal resilience of our brave servicemembers and their families as they put their lives at risk to protect our freedoms.
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We also saw how having soldiers, sailors, aviators, marines, and coast guard members from many religious backgrounds strengthens the health and effectiveness of our military force. Protecting a service member’s ability to serve both God and country honorably has been a quintessential mission of the Armed Forces since the establishment of the military chaplaincy 250 years ago. It is still part of what makes America great.
Many brave members of the Armed Forces are counting on Hegseth to preserve these policies in his review, and we have faith that he will continue to support religious freedom protections in the military effectively.
Chaplain Doug Carver, who retired as a U.S. Army major general in 2011, was the Army’s 22nd chief of chaplains from 2007 to 2011. He is the executive director of chaplaincy for the North American Mission Board. Rabbi Sanford Dresin, who retired as a U.S. Army colonel, served for over 26 years as an active-duty Army chaplain. He is the director of military programs for the Aleph Institute.