Junger questions Hegseth testosterone plan's focus on combat readiness

Author warns supplemental testosterone could increase aggression among troops

Sebastian Junger, the author who embedded with U.S. airborne infantry in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley and co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Restrepo,” argues in a Wall Street Journal essay published Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s initiative to screen service members for testosterone deficiency does not address the primary factors that determine combat performance.

Hegseth announced this month that all “warfighters” age 30 and older in the U.S. military will be tested annually for testosterone deficiency as part of their annual health assessments, with optional treatment for those found to have low levels. “Every single day you are pushed to your absolute physical and mental limits to master the profession of arms,” Hegseth said in a video captioned “The High-T Department of War.” “By addressing these health markers early on, we are keeping you on the leading edge of lethality.”

Junger, who was embedded from 2007 to 2008 with an infantry platoon in the Korengal, wrote that he watched young men carry loads of more than 100 pounds of gear, ammunition, and weapons at 7,000 feet of elevation in terrain where the Taliban moved significantly faster than the American troops. He described men so weighed down that when they came under fire — which he said was almost daily — they could practically walk only to cover on steep hills.

“There were no women in the unit I was with, and virtually no men over age 30,” Junger wrote.

He argued that the physical demands of sustained ground combat effectively serve as a continuous performance test. Men who cannot meet the demands are either removed from combat units or reassigned to rear-echelon positions, he wrote. The military’s existing fitness requirements already establish the physical baseline that testosterone levels influence.

But only a small fraction of U.S. service members perform that kind of work, Junger wrote. The vast majority serve in non-combat and non-infantry roles, he argued, and for those positions, testosterone is “predominantly a quality-of-life issue.”

Testosterone has been associated in studies with physical strength, elevated red blood cell counts, higher cardiovascular capacity, and aggression — all of which can aid physical contest, according to the essay. Men can have as much as 20 times more testosterone than women, and their levels typically begin declining around age 30. Obesity, chronic stress, lack of sleep, alcohol abuse, and close-contact infant care can also reduce levels, Junger wrote.

He identified risks the initiative does not address. Junger wrote that a 2016 study in the journal Biological Psychiatry found that dominant and impulsive men given supplemental testosterone were at risk of acting aggressively within 60 minutes of taking it. Men with those traits who also carry firearms could “put themselves and others at enormous risk,” he wrote.

Hegseth’s video announcing the program made no mention of mental health evaluations that might accompany testosterone treatment recommendations, Junger wrote.

The essay contrasted Hegseth’s policy ambitions with his own military record. Hegseth guarded detainees at Guantánamo Bay, served as a civil affairs officer in Iraq, and taught counterinsurgency classes in Afghanistan, Junger wrote. He was awarded two Bronze Stars for “meritorious service” — distinct from “valorous service” for combat — and received a combat infantry badge for coming under fire in Iraq.

As a member of the Washington, D.C., National Guard, Hegseth was blocked from serving at President Joe Biden’s inauguration after a fellow Guard member flagged him as a possible “insider threat” because of a tattoo “closely associated with violent white nationalism,” Junger wrote.

The testosterone screening initiative is part of Hegseth’s broader push to reshape military health and appearance standards. Earlier this month, he ordered a ban on beards and long hair. The Trump administration also moved separately to ease civilian testosterone prescriptions.