Army Combat Fitness Test Fiasco! Slides Reveal 84% of Women Failing ACFT

Lengthening IET is a good idea for those who are already in IET. But what about the issue of recruiting people to get to IET in the first place?

Look up the statistics, these are not meaningless statistics this is the reality of the world we live in. 71% of military aged Americans are unfit for service currently. That is under the current fitness standards of simply doing 35 push ups, 47 situps, and running 2 miles in 16 and a half mins. Once the new fitness standards are implemented that number will undoubtedly increase for obvious reasons. If folks can't pass that easy fitness standard then they sure as hell can't do the new one. Of the 29% of military aged civilians that are currently qualified for service not enough of them are signing up for service to meet the Army's recruitment goals currently.

With this information, how are we going to recruit the numbers required to fill our ranks?

As it stands right now at this very moment under current fitness standards we are losing X amount of people per year via Chapter or ETS. We are not recruiting enough people to refill those ranks which is why we have a documented recruitment crisis. Under the new ACFT we will lose MORE people per year via Chapter and we will recruit LESS than we currently are because the fitness standard will increase.

What is the solution for that reality?

 

Army high leadership is currently high fiving each other at the fact that they now have a valid excuse to shelf this thing without having to openly admit how impractical it was in the first place. Now once this is all over they will "have used this down time to reevaluate and update the new ACFT for the modern ever changing battlefield" by scrapping the leg tuck and changing those alternate profile events because they don't want to deal with JAG and/or Congress.

By the way this story leaked a couple of weeks ago well before the Army even recognized coronavirus as anything unusual and was remaining in a business as usual status. It's just now being officially reported on the news.

And gyms are still open on post around here so...yeah. If it wasn't the virus it would be a headline in July saying "The Army has suspended it's plan to have Soldiers take the new ACFT in October due to l̶o̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶g̶a̶l̶ ̶r̶a̶m̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ equipment unavailability" or something like that.

 

Same here, I have medical records going back years for a well documented injury and profile that strictly forbids me from running based on recommendations from no less than 10 different doctors both Army and civilian. Me and virtually every single one of my colleagues who is over the age of 30. Once this fiasco was creeping closer to reality our flight docs were sitting there trying to figure out how in the actual hell to write up new permanent profiles for folks with lower extremity injuries to where they somehow can't run 2 miles but they can drag a 90lb sled around. That coupled with the sheer amount of aviators with destroyed lower backs and necks who they expected to drag sleds and deadlift.

All this was was the Army trying to scare people with fake profiles and seeing who would blink first. As I've said hundreds of times already it is impossible for the Army to create a PT test to where 85%+ of women can't pass it and virtually NOBODY on a permanent profile can pass any of the alternate events. If you remember at first they didn't even want to include alternate events and tried to pull "If you're on profile you are unfit for Army service" and JAG walked up and laughed in their face. So as retaliation they made the alternate profile events impossible to pass. Then once pretty much all of the women started to fail JAG had something to say about that as well according to my buddy who's wife is a Major in JAG.

We weren't really sweating it in my neck of the woods. We're those special kind of Soldiers that the Army despises with a passion who high command knows are all going to miraculously pass the new ACFT somehow regardless of what the standards were. But for those without that luxury this was an absolute abomination of a PT test and was going to create way more of a headache for the Army than it was worth.

 

You are describing here exactly what the Army doesn't want to openly admit nor admit to itself. Yes you can do your job without being able to run....No we are not all the same and we don't all need to be able to do the same things physically. Why on Earth they won't make a different PT test for different MOS's is beyond me. I get why, too much tension, too many complaints of unfairness seeing how PT tests are tied to promotion points and schools and whatnot. Not fair that the 11B has to run and ruck while the admin clerk can get promoted without having to. There's already a lot of that going on with the females and their ridiculously low APFT score requirements.

The problem is the open refusal to admit that no we are not all the same. We have hundreds of different MOS's with varying requirements both physical and technical. I can't do your job, I no nothing at all about the medical field. I tried to popsicle stick my broken fingers once years ago and to this day my hand hurts all the time lol. You couldn't do my job, you would crash and die within seconds. I can't strap 70lbs of gear on myself and run around villages anymore like I used to but due to the nature of my MOS I have no REASON to need to be able to do that anymore.

Whether the Army likes it or not the overwhelming vast majority of Soldiers in the Army are support roles that are basically civilian jobs that you perform in a military uniform. And we NEED those people in order for the Army to function properly. It's as if the Army itself thinks just like most civilians do when they hear "Army" and think that if you join the "Army" you're automatically one of those guys you see on the news getting shot at and kicking in doors. When in reality 90% of the people who deploy to "war" spend their time drinking Green Beans Coffee and playing Playstation on mega bases like Camp Liberty.

It would be absolutely ridiculous and flat out stupid if the Army decided to kick out the Surgeon because he couldn't deadlift. "So...yeah sorry Colonel Doctor we know you are a skilled and highly qualified surgeon invaluable to the healthcare facilities of the US Army but you can't pick up this 140lb bar so we're going to need you to get out. We'd rather have a young doctor who can deadlift and drag sleds over you with your 20 years experience. Thanks for your service".

How much actual sense does that even make? And that's just 1 example out of thousands which also applies pretty directly to my particular field as well.

 

According to the Sergeant Major of the Army it wasn't challenging enough and he wanted to create a new PT test that "you couldn't just roll out of bed and pass".

They wanted to make it more applicable to the real world. Which is actually a good thing because the old APFT did have some serious flaws as well as the Army height and weight standards. It basically encouraged endurance over strength and if you are short in the Army and you so much as look at a weight bench then you'll need to be taped.

We all know of the skinny little guy who could do 100 situps and 100 pushups and run the 2 miles in 8 minutes. But if you ever got wounded in full battle gear and he had to save you then you'd be screwed because although he was an APFT stud he was also the actual size of a prepubescent girl. They wanted to focus more on strength training as well as endurance this time around. The problem now is they included some exercises that were just flat out too difficult for females to do due to their genetically inferior core strength.

Admittedly the old APFT was a very poor demonstration of any applicable skills. Being able to run 2 miles fast or do a bunch of situps doesn't prove anything. We don't need to know if you can run 2 miles fast, we need to know if you can run or ruck miles in heavy battle gear. We need to know if you can physically pick up a fallen buddy and carry them to safety. We need to know if you can load 60lb tank rounds into the breach, etc. A test comprised of nothing but pushups and situps and running doesn't accurately demonstrate your ability to do any of those things.

The new ACFT was "better" in those regards. It wasn't perfect by any means but it was a better solution than the old APFT. A proper PT test should be able to be conducted anywhere with the gear you have on hand. A much better test would be one that is assigned to individual MOS's with the equipment they have on hand and have it vary based on the particular MOS requirements. Infantry should have a test involving running and/or rucking in full battle gear with plates. Carrying sandbags or ammo cans of specific weight, etc. Tankers should have a test involving picking up heavy objects such as pieces of track or loading multiple 60lb rounds into a breach within a specified time frame. Support desk job style MOS's that do none of those things should have something resembling an APFT.

Gear the testing towards the MOS, not a blanket test that actually does make sense for the Infantry boys but makes pretty much zero sense for the S1 clerks.

 

In case anyone is interested or still following this, the Army just recently changed up it's new ACFT as I said they would.

Straight from a new memo sent out by the Sergeant Major of the Army the leg tuck event has been changed to where if you cannot do a leg tuck then you may opt to do a 2 minute plank instead. The alternate bike event has also been reduced from 15k to a more reasonable 12k.

This comes as a direct result of virtually every female in the US Army failing the new ACFT due to the leg tuck event. The bike reduction is the result of legal telling the Army that it cannot make an unrealistic alternate PT event for injured Soldiers that nobody could reasonably pass.

I said this would happen months ago, the writing was on the wall and I've been doing this long enough to know how the Army works. The Army likes to play the staring game until it's forced to blink, and blink they did.

So for everyone who was cheering at the fact that you believed the Army would purge itself of all females that you don't think belong there and/or disabled Soldiers then here is your reality check. As I said when this thread was first created, under no circumstances whatsoever would society, Congress, lawyers, anybody, allow the Army to create ANY policy or test that forced females or disabled Soldiers out.

Oh and the new ACFT doesn't even count for anything "until further notice". So basically if you took the old APFT within the past year then it counts indefinitely while the Army continues to tweak this new ACFT behind the scenes so that when they finally unveil it for record they aren't summoned in front of the Armed Forces Committee immediately lol. So it's being unveiled in October but it doesn't "count" until they decide it does, which basically means you have to take it but even if you fail it then it doesn't count or flag you for anything lol.

Can read the Army like a book at this point...

 

Yeah most folks who had ever served knew this was a lick of nonsense from the get go. It didn't even really get far because it was never implemented for record. When this was first announced years ago my buddies and I sat around at work and all came to the same conclusion immediately, this is the Army trying to scare people. We knew from the get go that there was no legal way whatsoever they could get away with this so none of us gave it much thought. Even when they announced it coming to fruition in October 2020 we still didn't sweat it because we KNEW they would change it.

It was all a bluff and this was the Army's half assed way of trying to address the problems with having 110lb stick figures maxing out the ACFT yet being absolutely worthless on a real battlefield because they can barely lift their own rucksack let alone lift you up in full battle armor if you take a round and need help. I agree with that premise, but I stand by the notion that ones physical strength, functional strength, and endurance, need to be tied to their MOS, not a blanket test for everybody.

The Infantry boys need a different test than the admin clerk who does my finances. Tankers need a different test than the cooks in the chow hall.

They've even changed the MOS categories with this thing as well to where basically only the combat arms folks have the "hard" category and most everyone else has the easy one. Which makes sense.This won't be the last change they make, they are going to keep tweeking this thing until they get roughly the same pass/fail ratio as the original ACFT.

Best thing the Army could do is just stop trying so hard to be "different" than other branches all the time. We are absolute MASTERS at doing the complete opposite of what the Air Force, Navy, and Marines do regardless of what it is or if it even makes sense.

 

There are many factors that play into this and it's not just a lack of good leadership. Society has changed over the years and the military has changed with it. The military has become increasingly political and businesslike nowadays as well.

In my opinion, as I've stated before, the number one problem with the military in general has always been the way we promote. It's not about how good you ARE it's about how good you LOOK on paper. I personally believe promotions should be based solely on merit and performance, not on time in grade or time in service. I don't agree with automatic promotions to the next rank after X number of years.

For example in my specialized career field and rank structure we get promoted on time based intervals. No matter how good you are, how many top block OER's you receive or awards you get you absolutely CAN NOT get promoted to the next rank earlier than 6 years. And unfortunately due to a massive shortage and a retention crisis no matter how garbage you are you absolutely CAN NOT NOT get promoted to the next rank at 6 years. So regardless of whether you are the perfect Soldier or the village idiot you WILL both rank up at the same time unless you do something VERY wrong like get arrested.

One of my old Commanders is also a very good friend of mine and he fell into this unfortunate new "businesslike" Army nonsense. As I said aloud while giving his farewell speech he is by definition "the epitome of lead from the front". The man was a LEADER of MEN, men who would follow this man into ANYTHING he ever asked of us because we all knew he had our best interests at heart and no matter what it was he himself would ALWAYS be out front leading the charge. Literally, if we were setting up tents in the rain then our Commander was the first one out there with hammer and stakes in hand while telling brass that their meeting can wait because we are setting up tents. If there was a mission then he was out front. If we were flying into a dangerous and unknown area then he was flying out front and leading us behind him. He would NEVER send us anywhere that he himself would not go first. You never saw this man in his office while his men worked, he worked with us and did what he called "Commander ****" after the work was done.

He was a leader of men, and he is one who WOULD have flown through the ranks in the era of something like the Civil War. As an advisor on his staff and his good friend he would always confide in me and would get mad at me when I wouldn't argue with him about a decision saying that he doesn't need me to always agree with him he needs me to push back. I simply said "I don't have to argue with you because I know the only determining factor in your decision making is whether or not it's in the best interests of our men, not yourself or your career. My job is to ensure that you are taking care of our men, and with you in charge I have no job. We trust you".

That's who this man was, NOTHING and I mean NOTHING was ever about him, it was about his men. And not even joking I'm pretty sure that if this guy wanted to start a coup then his men would have sided with him over siding with the US Army.

He was an excellent leader but in the eyes of the Army he didn't "look good on paper" as a Commander next to his peers. He was a fighting Commander, not an office Commander who could make themselves look amazing on paper when passed in front of a promotion board that simply reads a file and picks who looks the best. So because of that he got the short end in our career field and he left our career field for a different one. The US Army lost a asset and a weapon by allowing this man to walk away in favor of office Commanders. And when I saw who they replaced him with I was absolutely disgusted with the way the Army works in that regard.

As a Soldier and an Aviator I can tell you right now with 100% certainty that no speech or OER or anything can fire you up more than watching your Commander walk onto the flight line and hop in the lead aircraft and say we're going to Hell boys, but I'm first, follow me. Not ordering his men to go on the dangerous mission while monitoring from the command post as Commanders are "supposed to do". And not only go first but is also an extremely competent aviator that could rival those of us whose entire job is to be good at this while he has to try to be good at this AND be a "manager" as a Commander.

Yet they say he wasn't a good Commander and replaced him with one who looked good on paper.

THAT is what is wrong with the military. I'm an old salty multiple war veteran, I've had dozens of Commanders. I don't care about your career, I don't care about your OER's, I don't care about your rank. I want you to make ME want to follow YOU, not your rank, YOU. And as your senior advisor I want you to make me shut up by not having even said a word because your actions speak for themselves. That's a REAL Commander, but it's not an "Army" Commander. And that is the problem.

You want office mangers than go work for a freakin' bank. We are Soldiers, give us LEADERS of MEN who are highly respected and loved by their troops, not ones who look great in that little paper packet resume coming across the promotion desk.

 

Well I think the main problem with that is the way society is now. In spite on the way it seems we still do actually have some real quality leadership in today's military. Not all obviously but there are still a few in high brass. The problem is society, we have changed as a society and we are no longer willing to support what needs to be done to win wars.

2020 American society couldn't stomach something like WWII or Korea or Vietnam. Society expects all US wars to be like Desert Storm to where we steamroll our enemies in a matter of days without losing anybody. But even with that 2020 American society would have a hard time stomaching the destruction we caused in Desert Storm. The US military would be getting openly criticized by CNN for executing something like the infamous Highway of Death in 2020. It would be considered "cruel" or "morally wrong" by today's standards.

Plus if we ever got into a real conventional war where US troops were dying in large numbers then American society would lose their minds. I know plenty of Vietnam era chopper pilots, they are mostly who teach our flight school, and they all said the same thing. During the height of the War on Terror we were losing in a month what the Vietnam boys were losing by the day and if that were happening today then society would have lost it. We really have gotten to the point where society cannot stomach "war", not talking counter terrorism stuff but a real war. If something like WWIII broke out with todays social media and 24/7 HD media coverage then we'd see our society begging for the end of the war once the first casualty counts were tallied up.

As Reagan said, there are many in America who would rather we live on our knees than die on our feet, and in 2020 that number has grown exponentially.

Turn off the media and let the US military take our gloves off and there isn't a single nation on planet Earth that stands a chance in hell against us. It would take a coalition of world powers to stop the US military if we ever actually came after somebody without mercy. But when we turn the media cameras back on then we would end up looking like the bad guys in the eyes of 2020 society.

 

I don't know what would happen if we got hit with a nuclear strike. I know what would happen in prior to 1990 but I'm not sure anymore.

America "loses" wars because of our unwillingness to absolutely remove countries from the face of the earth. We expect the US military to be what they are not which are a globalized police force who operates with roughly the same restrictions against our enemies as our local police force has regarding our own citizens.

We aren't the cops, we are the US military. We can try to sugar coat it all we want and tone down the rhetoric but the bottom line is simple. Our job is to kill people and/or support those who do. Those pretty aircraft carriers that look so nice in pictures are designed to carry pretty aircraft with deadly weaponry to kill people. Those cool looking attack helicopters have no cargo space, no troop carrying space, no ability to sling load equipment. They are designed to carry beer bottle sized bullets and Hellfire missiles and rockets to shoot at people and equipment with people in it.

Everything we do is designed to make us the most deadly fighting machine in the history of mankind, which we are. The issue is that due to politics and media and public opinion we neuter the deadly war machine. We take a world class MMA fighter and tell him to wear huge inflatable gloves so that when he's bashing your head with his fists it won't hurt "that bad".

We don't "lose" because we lack the ability to complete annihilate people, we lose because doing that is considered "cruel".

This isn't just a Trump problem, as a matter of fact he is "better" than what we had before in that aspect. I was at war when Trump was elected and I can tell you with 100% certainty that things changed dramatically and rapidly after he was elected. Prior to Trump we were forced to pretend like we weren't at war, we shot virtually no missiles and we spent the majority of our time flying in circles doing nothing while even seeing the enemy. After Trump was elected the gloves were pulled off, they collapsed our "no penetration" line in the sand and we were directed to let them have it. And let them have it we did.

We ran out of missiles within 10 days in Iraq after that order came down the pipeline. And that story is 100% true.

We need to stop tiptoeing around with this sort of thing, stop caring about what the rest of the world will think of us if we want to win wars. I 100% approve of what Trump did to Suleimani and I have no shame in that. You are an enemy of the United States and you helped coordinate the attacks on US troops for years. Certified combatant or non-combatant at the time I don't give a damn. You walk out of your safe zone and we ordered a Hellfire missile strike special delivery to your forehead. And if the world has a problem with that and wants to call it "assassination" or whatever other nonsense then so be it. Go pound sand, we are America we don't ask your permission to do things.

I 100% approved of President Obama's drone strike policy as well. Damn near unrestricted drone warfare, let them have it. If they walk out of the shadows then send a Hellfire missile to their forehead. Republicans cried about that, I cheered. Democrats cried about Trump whacking Suleimani, I cheered. Do what needs to be done and stop playing politics. This is war, fight it like one.

And when we are done fighting or if we have legitimately lost any real reason to fight anymore then get us the hell out of there. That is where Trump and Mattis bumped heads. It's been 20 years, I'm tired of playing Mall Cop in that place. As horrific as it may sound you have basically 2 choices in a place like Afghanistan, extermination or withdrawal. Since we aren't barbarians then we have only one option. Lets go the hell home. I sent kids to that place last year who were literally not even born yet when we started this war. It's time to go home now.

 

That is true, but the issue isn't the fact that it requires Congressional approval but rather would Congress approve such a thing in the year 2020 or beyond? That to me is a terrifying thought because with the way our society is now and the way our government is now I honestly don't even know if Congress would approve of a retaliatory strike against a nation who hit us with a nuke.

The way I see it is simple, if you attack the United States with a nuclear warhead then you have forfeited your nations existence on planet Earth. Congress should immediately be willing to approve with overwhelming unanimity a retaliatory nuclear annihilation of whoever decided that it was a good idea to attack our soil with nuclear warheads. That is something we CAN NOT EVER let slide under any circumstances whatsoever. And it needs to be made very clear what the consequences would be if any nation ever did that to us again.