RangerGress wrote:
Cultural thing. In the Marines, fitness is part of the culture. In the Army, fitness is not part of the culture. Excepting the Army's elite units, of course, but they are a tiny fraction of the whole.
I noted the other week that the Army's new uniform is going to have a waist belt like the Marines always had. There were those of us Army types that long pondered what impact a waist belt on the Class A uniform would have on promotions. Because with a waist belt, if you're fat, it's a lot more obvious in your promotion packet pic.
In the Marines, our PT score was a big deal in the calculation of enlisted promotions. If your PT score wasn't really good, you had little chance at a promotion. In the Army, it's really just a matter of "passing" the PT test. You could be dead and still pass the Army PT test.
So when you hear talk form Army leaders re. women in combat roles and how the women often pass the same fitness standards as the men, remember those words. Until you've actually been cremated, you could probably pass the test after death.
My National Guard wife says the same thing you do about the APFT, by the way. She's always been fit and she laughs at the event. First, the weigh-in and then the event.
I spent a lot of my Navy career with the Marine Corps -- first as a line Hospital Corpsman in a couple of infantry units and then (lotta backdoor bragging here, so stand by heh ;-), later, as what the Navy called a "special operations technician" (HM-8492 NEC, and a ballbuster of a training course) serving with Recon (swift, silent, deadly baby). I always went Marine Corps standards, whether enlisted or officer, as well. I was always a 20/80/18-minute (sub-18) man, including right up to the month before I retired (did the Navy PFT right after the Marine Corps PFT, too, and went 7:18 for the 1.5-mile run portion, embarrassing a lot of young Navy HMs and dental technicians in the process, plus a few physicians and dentists who thought they could hang, hahahaha! Fools. I was an All-Navy triathlete for several years straight). I knew I wanted to become a commissioned officer, so I sought out the tough duty assignments and actively sought out hazardous duty and hazard area stints (I even was hoping for what I and my Marines called a "light war wound." How stupid was that?). I took the business seriously (which I NEVER do nowadays, LOL!).
I always made sure I was way above standards my entire military career and that my uniform, demeanor and proficiency was sharp (don't judge me by how I am here, in other words ;-). But some of the posters here also have a point about what sea duty -- and all those weeks and months at sea, steaming and eating and steaming and eating, and then hitting liberty ports, can do to a body. We were lucky, because we were embarked and not ship's company, and the blue-jean contingent (the "skimmer pirates," or surface Navy/Sailors and officers) left us alone to do our PT and clean our weapons and otherwise prepare for what we were supposed to do when they got us to shore. So they never messed with us when we were out on deck, getting some sunlight and doing the deck-of-cards-push-ups and flutter kicks business. That was the "Green Side." The "Blue Side" was a different matter entirely.
Back in the 80s, a Navy physical fitness test (twice-yearly) usually meant you'd see overweight Sailors and Chiefs and officers in fitness gear (there was no standard Navy-issue PFT uniform back then) they only wore twice a year. If they were young enough, they'd simply gut out the PFT (it was only a minimum number of sit-ups, push-ups and that 1.5-mile run) and rumble/bumble/stumble across the finish line, take a gasp of air and then light up a cigarette. And then bitch and moan about how sore they were for the next week.
Here's the thing about the Navy, at least in the 1980s and 1990s (Mr. Slowguy can speak to today's Navy):
No one ever overtly put pressure on me, as a Hospital Corpsman First Class Petty Officer (E6) back in the mid-1980s, to shade the run time for anyone but you knew you weren't going to fail anyone in the goat locker (Chiefs mess) or the officers mess. Not if you wanted to ensure you got 4.0 evals (kind of like USMC Pros and Cons) for the next promotion cycle (especially if you were an E6 going up for CPO). This was "old Navy" practice. After Elmo Zumwalt (which was worse, as the "Zumwalt Navy") but before all that "Honor, Courage, Commitment" jazz.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
