Posted on 12/10/2012 11:46:33 PM PST by Olog-hai
The Army’s looking for thinner men and women. The leading cause of civilians not making the cut is obesity, the Washington Post reports, and budgetary concerns are leading the Army to drop those who cannot meet its fitness standards. …
The Army kicked out 1,625 active-duty personnel for being out of shape during the first 10 months of the year—nearly 16 times more than in 2007, the peak of wartime deployment cycles, the Post reports. …
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I don’t see the problem of kicking out soldiers who are not fit enough.... provided they are given a warning and adequate time to shape up
Fat soldiers going off the fiscal cliff.
The strict enforcement of fitness requirements in the Army has cast a spotlight on its fitness test, which some soldiers say unfairly labels strong, capable soldiers as unfit. The two-pronged test involves a physical endurance portion during which troops must do sit-ups, push-ups and a brief run. The second phase is a height and weight measurement. The criteria for both vary depending on age.It isn’t just fat ones, apparently.
Some soldiers who are muscular are astonished to fail the height-weight standard. The first time he took the test, Staff Sgt. Ammiel Banayat was surprised to find that he was over the limit. He is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs just more than 160 pounds. To override the standard, he was subjected to a body-fat index test that takes into account tape measurements of the neck and waistlines. …
Make them charge up a hill all day and night till they get it right.
interesting bit from the WaPo —> a bodybuilder has a higher BMI than many overweight people, but is much fitter
A number of years ago, while I was in the Air Force....they went to the tape-method. For me, I was returning from the first Gulf War and on day two of the return to the US....they wanted to tape me. So they weighed me (I was seven pounds under my max)...but I was an inch over my tape-point, so I failed. Kind of a miserable way to introduce a guy to the program, but that’s the way they did it.
Eight years pass and I’m working in a new office. We have a young guy...22 years old...sports-nut....who is 12 pounds under his max. He fails the tape. He spends the next month losing five pounds...he’s still an inch over the tape-allowance. He spends a second month losing four pounds...still half an inch over the tape. Third month...he’s losing interest in this game and loses no weight. The leadership gets angry about this ‘attitude’. He’s sitting twenty pounds under his max. He just smiles at them and says do anything you want...he had five months left in the military and had a $90k job offered to him and this weight game had cut him the wrong way.
The tape business works good in the lab but it’s not a practical method of figuring how a guy should look. I’d say at best...it’s sixty percent accurate. It breeds the thin-look. If a thin-guy can fill three hundred sand-bags in a day...great...but I know that will never happen.
That’s non-PC!
I’ll add one other comment to this whole discussion. If you took the guys who were being discharged into a health examination...most of them have physical/emotional issues from the various deployments. They will eventually collect disability...figure thirty to fifty percent.
Should they fail to measure up there, they can become nurses as they are among the fattest in nation's history.
the new Army is gonna lose half its female troops if they start taping the single mamas AND “if” they hold everyone to the same standards (which I doubt they will)
(Do these BDU’s make my butt look big? Nah, your butt is just big)
just sayin’
This is pretty common. I don't know where the Army gets its height/weight standards, but I ALWAYS get taped. According to the Army's numbers, I'm about 40 pounds overweight. Then I get taped, and I'm well within the body fat standards. It's more of an annoyance than anything else; I've been doing it since my junior year of college.
I retired in 2011 from the Navy and glad to not have to participate in the dope a rope anymore. What a terrible way to handle fitness. There has to be other ways to find out if people are healthy and can do their job. I passed all 48 tests I took and passed the tape but it was a close call quite a few times after 35 until 42 when I took the last test.
“Gay Pride” parades show homosexuals to be “fit” in the manner being described. Is this an attempt to increase their ratio of numbers in our former military?
We're doing the same thing in the navy with the same results. Some guys who are obviously in great shape fail the "rope and choke" while other guys who are clearly obese yet blessed with fat necks pass the taping. It also depends on who's doing the taping. Sometimes the tape is cinched tightly around the neck, other times sailors scrunch their head down and the tape is held loose resulting in drastically different measurements. Taping is far from scientific yet careers are being ended (or retained) due to this practice.
The army has had a weight control policy for decades.
There is more to being fit than meeting a height/weight standard. I was often included in the overweight group until I could get a body fat measurement from a doctor. I’d return with a note allowing me to have another 20 or 30 pounds above my current weight.
I never had a problem with physical fitness tests and worked out regularly. I thought strength was more important for our mission than looking pretty.
>>>>I never had a problem with physical fitness tests and worked out regularly. I thought strength was more important for our mission than looking pretty.<<<<
It was in your old decadent, pre-GAY military....
Yea, “pretty” was the important thing when I retired in 1986.
I know in the Marine Corps you could get a weight lifters waiver from the corpsman. It had to be documented though that you were over your weight limit because you were a muscle bound gym rat.
It is perfectly all right, however, to f*ck your buddy up the arse in the shower, as long as you look svelte while doing it.
All hail the New Age.
I know in the Marine Corps you could get a weight lifters waiver from the corpsman. It had to be documented though that you were over your weight limit because you were a muscle bound gym rat
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
“MY” Navy didn’t have us playing such games...especially on smaller ships BUT I kind of dismissed all this foolishness back when ‘the experts’ said Michael Jordan was overweight etc when he was in his prime.
Of course my military and playing days were way behind me by then and the permanent flotation device attached to my waist was taking on a life of its own, so ‘dissing’ a ‘super star’ such as Jordan justified my opinion that the tests were faulty.
Yep, shape up or you’re out. They give them a chance. A few years back I used to work out and train with an ex Marine at my local gym. His job, when he’s was in, was to run what he called the fat farm. A program they sent overweight Marines through to shape up. So it want like they were not given a chance and expert help. Wonder if they still run that program...
This is the way that the military has always been. Every service has fitness requirements, and yes, they do enforce them.
This is a case of someone writing an article so that they could be published. Tomorrow’s article; Rain is wet.
"...I'll confess, I paid someone $5.00 to do three laps of my qualifying "run" while in Thailand. Some guy who obviously was part deer (and needed the money)gladly participated. The course was laid out around the gym and a group of barracks (4 laps). I started and the first half lap, pinned the three digit number on my deer, he ran the next 3 laps, stopped by my observation and refreshment station (grins),I got pinned (the number)and finished the last half lap. He got paid and went off happy with two beers, I went to sleep. Running wasn't high on my objectives that day after doing a 14 hour night shift and 95 degree morning....well, it showed initiative and thinking outside the box, and I slept well
It doesn't matter if you are all muscle and sinew and not an ounce of fat, because the medical department has this height, weight, body mass index chart and if you run afoul of it because of your body type, you are screwed. You will be thrown out and your career will be over. If you haven't reached the magic years of service to qualify for retirement age, you lose everything. You don't get a dime and it applies to active duty, national guard, or reservists. You will get no thank you from a grateful nation — instead you'll get a ?get lost and don't bother us again”.
That may get you in some hot water.
Now if you make them a 'permanent' road guard that would be a bit more acceptable . The road guard must double time ahead to block any cross traffic, after the unit has safely passed return to position.
They get a nice workout and a bit of rest at every intersection. If they survive.
Sgt: You are 20 lbs overweight. You are out!
Pvt: I’m gay.
Sgt: Welcome back.
I don’t know about the Army, but the Navy separates members for not meeting their standards. Those physical standards quite often have nothing to do with being “fit”.
The Army sent out a survey to all Commanders asking for their input on fitness standards. This was back in the days of the old five event PT test. I wrote back and told them to go around the world and talk to combat veterans and ask them what level of fitness was required for combat. They didn’t do that. They were expanding the Army and wanted something cheap, so we ended up with the three event test. It had nothing to do with combat fitness. It had to do with being cheap. There is no equipment required for the three event test of pushups, situps and a two mile run. So, Soldiers, your senior leaders could care less about preparing you for combat. What they cared about was cost. We’ve been fighting for eleven years in Afghanistan with skinny, fit Soldiers and we can’t win. Maybe we need smart leaders instead.
Same reason one of my daughters is getting out of the Navy ~ this stupid taping idea. She’s been under constant stress about it for the past 3 or 4 years. She’s damn good at her job. I told to work hard to comply and let the chips fall where they may. Her skills pay well outside the military.
2. What were their PT Test scores. Personally, I think anyone who passes their PT Test - legitimately passes - should be given the GO on this.
Several years ago, there was a Puerto Rican in our unit. He scored the max on the APFT every year, but could not put a sentence together that made a lick of sense. He went from E4 - E7 in about six years. He could not put anything in writing that made sense either, and we learned that someone had been doing all his online courses for him. He was allowed to resign instead of getting the boot.
If they do this how are you going to tell who the quartermasters and cooks are?
Running for the bunker.
I dunno. Back in the day a lot of Nam vets who got shot up and didn’t want out of the Army ended up in support units where they could not only do the job they were billeted to but they were experienced combat vets who could be counted on in a pinch if their support units ran into some deep doodoo. We called them “profiles” back then and they couldn’t pass a PT test or a tape test but they could do their job. I think guys like that earned staying in for their 20 but that’s just my opinion.
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