Gym owner backs Hegseth’s get-fit mantra for troops

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — There’s a certain “Be All You Can Be” vibe at the Train Hard gym in Virginia Beach. Owner Tony Thompson, a former 82nd Airborne soldier, backs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments made this week before the nation’s highest-ranking military officers.

“It’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” said Hegseth in a made-for-teleivsion address Tuesday in northern Virginia.

Thompson says forward march to any plans to get the troops in shape.

Hegseth declares war on ‘fat’ generals, troops

“My reaction — it actually kind of motivates me a little bit,” Thompson said in supporting Hegseth’s address. “You know, they got me back motivated because, being in the 82nd, I was in an infantry unit, and we took pride in ourselves as being soldiers. Like one of the comments he said, when you go in a war, if I’m going to war, I don’t want nobody stand[ing] beside me who can’t do their job because they can cause you to get killed. In order to produce good fruit, you have to prune.”…

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