Via Allen B. West

Change for the sake of change isn’t always a good thing. I agree a Soldier’s level of fitness must be sustained — but that is a matter of the climate established by the commander. What I see happening here with changing Army fitness requirements is the creep of more social egalitarian standards.

According to a report in Military.com, for the first time in more than 20 years, the Army is gearing up to change its fitness test for every Soldier. Gone is the simple pushup, sit up, and run routine, and in its place comes a battery of sprints, jumps and rows. And the service is also introducing a grueling series of slalom runs, balance beam walks, casualty drags, and ammo carries it calls the Army Combat Readiness Test — a totally new evaluation that simulates the kind of body crush Joes experience on deployment.

To me it seems like we’re going back to the old style test with a new name, Army Combat Readiness Test (ACRT). The new test supposedly stresses readiness over fitness according to Lt. Gen Mark Hertling, Army Deputy Commanding General for initial training. LTG Hertling says that the objective of the new ACRT is to develop a “tactical athlete.” The standard for evaluation for the new ACRT will be excellent, good, or poor replacing the previous standard of passing and failing based upon a point score — hmm, this sounds fishy to me. Could this be just another means of giving everyone a trophy? No more APFT patches earned for superior level of fitness?

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