Adam Ellwanger and John J. Waters: Pete Hegseth was right

The military has a saying: “The standard you walk past is the standard you set.” Failure to enforce a standard — whether for grooming, fitness, marksmanship, or countless other criteria including performance in combat — sets a new, lower standard for the next generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. The saying is a call for basic accountability.

Because when an officer sees a soldier with an unshaven face and fails to correct him, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to skip shaving.” When the highest-ranking military officer (e.g., Mark Milley) is corpulent, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to be fat.”

And when the U.S. military fails to win wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and no general officers are fired for combat ineffectiveness, the new standard becomes “it’s fine to los