Like I've been explaining to friends, the Physical Fitness program in the Navy is not really about fitness, it is a force management tool, which is to say something that the Navy can use to get rid of people.
I rode the ragged edge of body fat standards for 20 years. I never once made weight for my height, and had to get taped every time. The only time the unit I was assigned to did organized unit PT was on shore duty, during every deployable tour PT was done on your own, both on a ship and in a squadron.
If the Navy was serious about fitness, it would make unit PT mandatory, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, period dot, like the Marines do. The food would change, too, with a lot less processed food and few breads or pasta, and be mostly meats and green vegetables.
I could rant for hours on this subject. I am very much a subject matter expert in this, as I know intimately how the instruction behind the PT program is being used to fuck over people.
And this is true for all the services. I doubt it's a coincidence that this announcement was made a week or two after they released that they all failed to meet their recruiting numbers for last year.
Fitness standards go up when the military is full and has high retention and go down when they're desperate to fill slots.
What was always hilarious to me was it failing a fit test would prevent positive personnel actions like a PCS or promotion, but not a deployment. If they were truly concerned about fitness as a readiness issue like they say they are, all those fatties would be non-deployable.
Like I've been explaining to friends, the Physical Fitness program in the Navy is not really about fitness, it is a force management tool, which is to say something that the Navy can use to get rid of people.
I rode the ragged edge of body fat standards for 20 years. I never once made weight for my height, and had to get taped every time. The only time the unit I was assigned to did organized unit PT was on shore duty, during every deployable tour PT was done on your own, both on a ship and in a squadron.
If the Navy was serious about fitness, it would make unit PT mandatory, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, period dot, like the Marines do. The food would change, too, with a lot less processed food and few breads or pasta, and be mostly meats and green vegetables.
I could rant for hours on this subject. I am very much a subject matter expert in this, as I know intimately how the instruction behind the PT program is being used to fuck over people.
And this is true for all the services. I doubt it's a coincidence that this announcement was made a week or two after they released that they all failed to meet their recruiting numbers for last year. Fitness standards go up when the military is full and has high retention and go down when they're desperate to fill slots.
What was always hilarious to me was it failing a fit test would prevent positive personnel actions like a PCS or promotion, but not a deployment. If they were truly concerned about fitness as a readiness issue like they say they are, all those fatties would be non-deployable.
Oh yea, I know all about that, have it documented in my service record. Retired an E-5 because of it.
Like I said, I could rant (and I mean RANT) for hours on this.