Posted on 01/19/2007 6:17:18 AM PST by FLOutdoorsman
A Naval Academy midshipman who was expelled after he failed a running test will have to pay the Navy for the cost of his education.
Baltimore County resident Frank Shannon had asked that the 127-thousand dollar bill be waived. But a senior Navy official rejected his appeal this month, saying the academy provided Shannon with ample opportunity to meet its minimum fitness standards.
Shannon failed 12 of 18 fitness tests, and failed in a series of attempts to run a mile-and-a-half in 10 minutes and 30 seconds. In his final test, he was 20 seconds short. He was expelled just weeks before graduation.
Shannon is hoping a member of Congress will intervene. Aides to Senator Mikulski suggested he apply for readmission to the academy, but Shannon is currently married and would first have to divorce his wife before applying.
thats how we referred to those classes. Plebe year gymspastics - balancing beam, high bar, parallel bars, uneven parallel bars, some type of floor/tumbling garbage.
"hand to gland" was a half semester of unconventional fighting. That was pretty cool, taught us some basic pressure points, how to subdue somebody, a little unarmed knife and gun defense (not that I'd trust it) No real martial arts disciplines, but a class you enjoyed going to.
Amazing that someone could go through that much physical training and not pass most of their PFTs. I cracked a couple of ribs while deployed to Kuwait in '97 and still took and passed (barely) the APFT within two weeks of the accident. It was very painful - especially the sit ups - but I refused to fail because I knew what was expected of me as a soldier and especially as a platoon sergeant.
I'd guess laziness, a trait not commonly found in any mil academy cadet. How'd he get in in the first place?
A seven minute mile ain't bad for average Joe.
Marines use a 3 miles PFT standard. Minimum for someone 17-26 is a 28:00 3 mile run. A "perfect" 3 mile run is 18:00
I understand brother, btw you guys should be able to wear your tabs too.
I know he failed the Naval requirement to Grad, but easily passed the Navy standard.
See post 28....plus, he asked to graduate and fo enlisted to pay back the academy and was denied.
LOL, stop trying to pick a fight. XD
No,separate standards or there aren't separate standards. And, if there are not separate standards, were they lowered for all and are these the standards he couldn't pass?
That's a good question. I would hope that legitimate injuries aren't treated the same as failure to keep in shape -- requiring people to pay tuition for the former strikes me as an unreasonable risk to pile on top of the risks people assume by going into the service.
It sucks. In the winter it's done in Halsey Field house (i.e., the Halsey Hack), and they schedule it so you do it the week you get back from an extended leave period (Christmas, Summer). You run like hell, blow out your lungs, and then you hack for a few days afterwards.
That said, there was a guy in my class with 1% less bodyfat than the maximum allowable for commissioning, and he always passed the HH. It can be done. This poor guy is just monumentally slow.
It's abundantly clear from his other accomplishments that that is probably not the issue.
And a 2.8 in EE at the Academy, as a lot of others have noted, is not a 2.8 in Sociology at Mediocre State U.
"Of course looking down from up there is a nightmare, and getting a 10-meter enema if you land wrong isn't fun......."
Back when I went through aviation school (68) they put a playboy centerfold directly across from the platform and you were supposed to fix your eyes on that, grab your package and step off. When you hit the water you were supposed to strip off your dungarees and make a flotation device out of them. When I took the test I hit the water so hard my pants came OFF and I had to swim around on the bottom to find them. Those were the days.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is it physically possible to keep the weapon from getting wet? Wouldn't a jump from a high board splash water all over the place?
"...in 10 minutes and 30 seconds."
Takes me that long to find the remote....
Awesome. Nowadays, that'd be a federal offense.
Did you graduate USNA in '92?
What? The run standard is 3,82 metres/second, which is 0,2 metres/second less than the run standard for the German sports badge, a not-too-difficult fitness test (also the standard for the German armed forces). You can´t tell me that the Rangers are slower!!
Ollie North, I believe, was USNA '67 until he got into a car crash, and suffered such extensive injuries that he had to hang back and graduate with USNA '68. So it does happen, yes.
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