US Army Recruitment Standards. (You've got to be kidding me....!)

[TheCorinthian]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/09/03/1663860/making-soldiers-fit-to-fight-without.html

 

COLUMBIA Dawn breaks at Fort Jackson, the Army's largest training post, with the reliable sound of fresh recruits marching to their morning exercise. But these days, something looks different.

 

That familiar standby, the sit-up, is gone, or almost gone. Exercises that look like Pilates or yoga routines are in. And the traditional bane of the new private, the long run, has been downgraded.....

 

....Although the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by a reduction in gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert.

 

 

What the hell are they smoking? It's the damn recruiters and then the First Sgts not doing their jobs!!!

[TheCorinthian]

.....

[Steve]

I'd imagine being in a war makes it easier to relax prior standards. I wouldn't doubt that when we were in Iraq full tilt we took anyone and anything. The military as desperate then remember.

 

Flash would have far greater insight that I would but I'd imagine the same in Vietnam as well. In fact, in all wars. How many folks would have been seen as unfit for ww2?

 

Just to be a little fair. A lot of warfare nowadays is technilogical. Its kid with a joystick stuff with a lot of it: drones, etc.

 

Still, you ALWAYS need bodies in the ground. Somebody has to go into the village, jungle or what have you.

[LizardKing]

LOL! The *worst* part is is that I *know* that's a real picture from the sandbox...

[Flashermac]

WTF? In the 1990s the Army PT test was push ups, sit ups (both within fixed time periods) and a 2-mile run for time. The run was tough ... you really had to haul ass. I worked with a former Marine who told me - much as he hated to admit it - that the Army PT test was actually a bit tougher than the USMC PT tests he had taken.

 

If a soldier - male or female - couldn't achieve a passing score on EACH event in the '90s, it was a swift boot out of the service.

 

I realise standards get cut in wartime, but this is totally bizarre.

 

During the VN War days the PT test was the 50-meter low crawl, the horizontal ladder, the run-dodge-and-jump, and the 100 meter man carry ... all followed up by a one mile run for time. If you couldn't pass the PT test by the end of training, you got recycled to a "special platoon' - where they worked you butt of getting you into shape. We ran everywhere in BCT. The beach ranges at Fort Ord were from 5 to 7 miles from the barracks, and we ran each way in loose sand. They told us the first day, "You don't walk in this company." I trained with a guy who had gone through Camp Pendleton. He said Army basic wasn't any easier than Marine boot camp.

 

God help you if you are out of shape and have to go into combat. You won't last very long.

 

 

 

 

[TheCorinthian]

USMC Physical Fitness Test since 1996 has been:

 

(For perfect Score of 300)

100 Sit ups in 2min

20 Dead Hang pull ups in 2min

3 mile run in 18min or less. (6min miles)

 

This summer I mannaged...

 

100 sits

16 pulls

3 miles in 22 min.

 

And it kicked my ass!

[sanddawg1]

Probably a reservist or National Guard? They also have some grandpas and grandmas running around too not just heavys . They never go outside the wire their entire tour.

 

S1

[acockasian]

I am sure there is still a "low crawl", a "ladder" and a "dodge", but since Don't Ask-Don't Tell the meanings are probably different.

[USVirgin]

Obviously, without the draft, we're desperate for recruits, so I don't blame the recruiters any more than the subprime mortgage lenders. OK, I blame the recruiters, but they are still desperate.

 

Anyway, my army VN vet buddy blames this situation on the lack of physical education in schools that was mandated under JFK and that we all enjoyed (like it or not) until recently.

[Flashermac]

The NG and Reserve were cushy jobs for years, though not aany more. I'll bet a Biah Chang that tub of lard in the photo is an NG. He is way over the weight standards and wouldn't even be allowed to enlist at that size. Any recruiter that signed him up would be in deep doodoo over it.