WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a sweeping military reorganization this week creating two separate branches of service, a move officials say will reward excellence while ensuring lower-performing personnel are placed somewhere they can do less damage.

“We're simply aligning the force with realities we've observed,” Hegseth said in a prerecorded video. “The people I put on promotion lists keep succeeding, while the people I remove from promotion lists keep failing to get promoted. The data speaks for itself.”

According to Hegseth, one branch will consist of the military's highest-performing personnel, while the second will be composed of service members who have allegedly benefited from diversity initiatives, failed to meet warrior standards by lacking testicles, or were unable to swim.

“This is purely merit-based,” Hegseth said. “Any suggestion otherwise is dishonest.”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell rejected accusations that the restructuring was based on race, gender, religion, or any other protected category.

“The demographic outcomes are entirely coincidental,” Parnell said. “For example, there are women who don't say no in the superior branch. If other women want to be a part of it, they shouldn’t say I choked them.”

Asked how those women were selected, Parnell said the Pentagon ran extensive war games.

“The force we expected to win initially performed worse than anticipated," he said. "Since we knew that result couldn't possibly be correct, we refined the assumptions until the appropriate force won.”

A draft planning document Hegseth accidentally leaked to reporters appeared to identify the two organizations as the 'Superior Service' and the 'Tards.'

Under the proposal, members of the superior branch would receive newer equipment, renovated barracks, larger budgets, and priority assignment consideration. Members of the other branch would receive opportunities for early discharge.

At several bases, personnel assigned to the superior branch have already moved into renovated housing while members of the other branch were relocated to older facilities pending what officials called “future excellence opportunities.”

Officials noted that in situations where separation is impractical, including military flights, buses, and movie theaters, members of the superior branch will receive priority seating. But they cautioned that the policy did not imply one branch was better than the other.

“The branches are equal,” Parnell said. “One is simply more equal.”

At press time, Pentagon planners confirmed that in the event of war, members of the lower-performing branch would be deployed first in order to gain valuable leadership experience.