Democratic lawmakers are asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to share plans for cuts to civilian faculty members at the military academies and war colleges.

The May 1 letter signed by 14 Democratic representatives asked for Hegseth to provide the timeline and scale of cuts to the institutions and the metrics used to justify the changes.

The letter drew on Gazette reporting highlighting the coming cuts to civilian faculty and staff at the Air Force Academy and it could hurt technical majors. West Point and the Naval Academy have not announced cuts and did not respond to Gazette requests about whether the schools are planning cuts.

The lawmakers sent their request as the Department of Defense is cutting 5%-8% of its civilian workforce to focus on the president’s priorities and restoring readiness, a news release said.

The letter expressed concern that cutting civilian faculty could lead to cuts to majors and minors and hurt the diversity of thought at the institutions.

“Gutting civilian faculty can harm educational quality, stretch military instructors even thinner, damage research partnerships, and limit the critical thinking skills that save lives when plans fall apart in the field,” the letter said.

The letter gave a deadline of 14 days to respond to a series of questions about cuts and their potential impacts.

The questions asked for impact assessments of the coming cuts and for details about the processes to ensure that high academic standards will continue to be met.

The letter was also sent to the leaders of West Point, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, the Merchant Marine Academy, the Naval War College, the Army War College, the Air University, the National Defense University and the Marine Corps War College.

The letter did not have any signatories from Colorado, but Rep. Jeff Crank, R- Colorado Springs said he planned to be engaged in the issue at the Air Force Academy.

“As a member of the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, I anticipate this being discussed in the coming months. I look forward to examining how any proposed changes would affect the curriculum at the Air Force Academy,” he said.

Former Army Ranger Rep. Jason Crow, D- Aurora, said he has heard about the concerns about cuts at the military academies.

“I will always fight for young Americans who have made a commitment to serve our country,” he said, in a statement.

The same day lawmakers sent their letter, the Denver Post published an opinion piece that raised similar concerns and garnered more than 90 signatures, including six retired generals. It specifically addressed the Air Force Academy.

“Civilian faculty, almost all with PhDs and deep backgrounds in both education and related research (including many experienced U.S. military veterans), bring depth, balance, continuity, and forward-looking insights to cadet education,” the opinion piece said. It also said the cuts would put the school’s accreditation in technical fields at risk.

The school employs 491 faculty members, with 308 uniformed members and 183 civilians, the Gazette reported previously. Civilians represent about 37% of the faculty.

At West Point, civilians represent 26% of the faculty and at the Naval Academy it’s a 50-50 split between civilians and uniformed instructors.

The cuts at the Air Force Academy are expected to extend beyond faculty to other civilian positions, such as child care, finance roles and communication. In January, the Academy employed about 1,360 civilians.

Since the Air Force Academy is overbudget for its civilian workforce, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind said on April 11 he is preparing to cut 240 civilian positions. He did not know at the time if 140 people who he said had resigned voluntarily or retired early would count toward the 240 positions to be eliminated.

The Secretary of the Air Force press desk said Monday it could not say how many Academy employees had currently taken deferred resignations or early retirement.

© 2025 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Visit www.gazette.com^[1]. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.^[2]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host and National Guard^[1]sman, has attempted to reframe the role of the Pentagon's top civilian leader during his first months on the job, casting himself as a relatable everyman -- "one of the guys."

Instead of the standard suit and tie, he regularly appears in khaki hiking pants, rolled-up sleeves that reveal tattooed forearms and occasionally a trucker hat emblazoned with an American flag. He often posts videos and photos of himself working out with troops^[2].

But that carefully curated image -- so different from past defense secretaries -- may not be totally landing with the rank and file. Interviews with service members and a review of hundreds of social media posts on message boards suggest the image the Pentagon chief is trying to project is seen by some as overly manufactured and desperate for affirmation.

Read Next: 'This Is Going to Be a Challenge': Service Officials Detail Fallout from Civilian Resignations Pushed by Trump^[3]

"He seems too preoccupied with his personal brand," one Army^[4] captain told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. "This is the 'vet bro' Pentagon."

Across military Reddit forums and enlisted meme pages, Hegseth has become a regular target of satire, often referred to with nicknames such as "DUI Hire,"^[5] "Whiskey Leaks"^[6] and "Kegseth." The references allude to past controversies, including alleged alcohol abuse and an incident in which he shared sensitive Yemen attack plan details in an unsecured Signal group chat that included a journalist.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

In a recent post on the Army Reddit forum^[7] that was discussing a report that Hegseth set up an unsecured internet line in his office^[8], one poster quipped that “it was hidden behind the liquor cabinet.”

“I bet he has so much booze in there it is more like a liquor walk-in closet,” another poster chimed in.

Troops also make frequent jabs at Hegseth's past infidelity – though many posts also levy serious^[9] and thoughtful criticism of his ability^[10] to effectively lead the military.

Military.com spoke with more than a dozen service members ranging from noncommissioned officers to a general. They were all given anonymity out of concerns over retaliation.

The jabs at and mocking of Hegseth, while not unprecedented for senior military officials, appear unusually persistent and pervasive. Other high-ranking leaders have been the butt of jokes and the target of online irreverence -- such as Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer, the Army's top enlisted leader who was mocked online ^[11]for his perceived preoccupation with grooming standards -- but those moments have tended to fade quickly.

In Hegseth's case, satire has become part of the daily discourse.

In a recent Reddit post on the Marine Corps forum^[12] that featured the reports of Hegseth setting up a makeup studio in the Pentagon^[13], one user quipped^[14] “wouldn’t this fall under gender-affirming care?”

Another simply asked^[15] “can we have Mattis back, please?” That was a reference to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who served more than four decades in the Marine Corps before taking the civilian post in the first Trump administration.

Duffle Blog, the Onion-style military satire blog, even has merchandise based on the jokes^[16], including a "Whiskey Leaks" drinking glass and a bottle of hand wash with the label "Clean on OPSEC," another reference to Hegseth's comments on the unsecured Signal chat about Yemen strikes that was inadvertently made public.

Hegseth also routinely uses the phrase "warfighter" to refer to American troops, a phrase that itself has long been met with eyerolls within the military community, which is known for its signature gallows humor and scoffing at anyone being overly serious.

”No more ‘woke’ bullsh*t that undermines commanders and command climates,” Hegseth recently told service members^[17] at the Army War College. “We are laser-focused on our mission of warfighting," he added.

The lion's share of his messaging is done on X -- a social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk and a preferred platform of the Trump administration -- while the bulk of service members spend their time on other platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

"Morale isn't built through X," one Pentagon official noted.

Much of the communication on X from Hegseth focuses on touting the president's agenda, namely cultural grievances and border security – none of it relating to the troops or their day-to-day issues. The defense chief often points out that what he's doing is a directive from President Donald Trump.

Hegseth's apparent push to make the defense secretary a public personality more than just a public figure, mostly through social media, also sets him apart from many who served in the role in the past. Almost everyone who spoke with Military.com for this story noted that rank-and-file troops shouldn't need or want to care much about someone so far removed from their daily lives.

Several service members remarked that before Hegseth, the only time they thought about the defense secretary was when they needed to brush up for a board or inspection where they may have had to answer questions about their chain of command.

One Navy^[18] officer noted that when news of former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's hidden cancer diagnosis became public last year -- a major scandal and now a talking point^[19] in Pentagon communications -- the news didn't ever register with their sailors despite significant media coverage.

Meanwhile, some of Hegseth's big policy moves, arguably done in the name of service members, have left them perplexed.

On Tuesday, Hegseth announced that he was ending the "Women, Peace and Security" program that was aimed at supporting women on security teams, especially overseas where men may run into cultural or religious barriers.

"Troops hate it," Hegseth declared in a social media post Tuesday^[20].

One junior officer said that while they knew about the program from personal connections and a previous deployment^[21], it's likely that they were the only person in an office of dozens who did.

Many who spoke with Military.com remarked that the military, especially the rank and file, don't have time to be focused on the kind of policy moves that Hegseth is making. They are more concerned with their day-to-day lives in the military -- an area that Hegseth and his team have largely been silent on in their view.

"It's a lot of 'look at me' stuff. He has said nothing about quality of life," Rob Evans, an Army veteran whose Yelp-style app Hots & Cots collects reviews of housing and dining facilities on military bases. "If he's for the troops, why has he not touched on quality-of-life challenges, whether that's food or housing?"

However, multiple female service members said Hegseth's comments and policy changes have made them sit up and take notice, because they worry that he will make their lives more difficult or even make it impossible for them to keep serving.

Quality-of-life issues in the military have been long-simmering; concerns such as feeding soldiers at dining facilities, or DFACs, is a perennial issue that has cropped up several times during Hegseth's tenure.

Just this week, soldiers told advocates like Evans and the moderators of the Army Reddit page that they were being turned away from getting food at Fort Johnson^[22] in Louisiana over an issue with their meal cards.

When a recently deployed unit returned to Fort Johnson, their cards had lapsed and they were met with signs that said they would be turned away if their cards weren't fixed.

"Why are we creating barriers to food?" one of the leaders of the Army Reddit forum told Military.com on Thursday, noting that the issue is now being seen at other Army bases^[23] as well.

The issue, as the Reddit moderator sees it, is an easy policy fix and ripe for someone such as Hegseth to tackle.

And yet the Pentagon's weekly "SITREP" videos and many of Hegseth's social media posts focus on the secretary. When Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's top spokesman, released a list of what the Hegseth Pentagon feels it accomplished in its first 100 days on Tuesday, quality-of-life issues didn't make the cut.

"You'll see a lot of pictures of [Hegseth] jogging with troops, visiting flight lines, American flag suit ... but what you won't see are ribbon cuttings for new barracks," Evans wrote in a social media post Tuesday.^[24]

"When leadership prioritizes optics over outcomes, photos over plumbing, troops notice. When DoD leadership talks about 'lethality' but ignores that soldiers are getting sick from their own living conditions, credibility suffers," he wrote.

Ultimately, several service members told Military.com they feel Hegseth's idea of what a defense secretary is expected to do doesn't line up with what the job actually requires of him.

"He'd make a great company commander," one officer said. "But that's not the job he's in right now."

Meanwhile, online, one Reddit member who is widely known on the Navy’s forum as a recently retired Navy captain, recently wrote^[25] that Hegseth and others in the Trump administration “are not the leaders we need or deserve.”

“If you are left leaning, Hegseth only serves to poke at and antagonize you. If you are right leaning, he only serves to embarrass and demoralize you with his incompetence,” they added.

Related: Hegseth Has Ordered a Combat Standards Review. It's Unclear How It Might Apply to All the Services.^[26]