"Fit, Not Fat:" making the US military's standards high again

What's there for you not to agree with? It's right there in the numbers that you yourself posted. The standards are lower for women. There is an obvious and undeniable advantage built into the system, which regularly manifests itself when men and women compete for things like positions and promotions.

It seems as if you're saying men and women inherently meet the same physical standards. NY must be rubbing off on ya and getting you libbed up! (J/k)

The solution you're proposing doesn't get after the fundamental problem of "pretty fit for a woman" or "sort of fit for an old guy." The score is what the score is. Make the floor number low enough to accommodate initial entry and older troops. Make the top score challenging for the people--men AND women--who are in their physical prime. Different MOSs can have higher or lower (or different) cutoffs but if troops are doing the same jobs, they need to be held to the same standards. And right now that's not happening.

The solution is the best idea to meet "single standard for service" and "PT influences promotion". I've said it before, but if @Cookie_ was SECARMY for a day we would modify the E3B PFA into a gender/age neutral pass/fail PT event and be done with it. I'm with you in that I want one standard.

Alas, I don't think I'm friends with any future Vice-Presidents, so I have to deal with Army point bullshit in these scenarios.

The Army has set the minimum standard for the job at 60 points on the PT test. Much like how NCOES is the bare minimum for military education points, everything over that is a measurement of how much I'm willing to go above and beyond the standard.

If myself and a female service member both deadlift 200 pounds and do 28 push-ups, She has put in more effort to be at a higher level of fitness than I have, full stop.

If the army felt that physical fitness was important to my role as an enlisted 92G (or other MOS) then they can increase the baseline standard. I'm of the opinion that the PT score of my S2/4/6 OIC has never been relevant in the performance of their duties.

Going to a single standard and then trying to still count that as promotion points will make it harder for women to promote. Maybe that's the goal or maybe it'd be unintended, but that's what the outcome would be.
 
There's fit, and there's Navy fit. I know most of y'all have seen this pic at some point already, she was promoted to Master Chief.

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I remember seeing a post about this. Apparently it's a bunch of Navy nuke techs. Poster was saying the Navy has basically been giving that career field passes for body/pt/other standards for years now, because of how hard it is to keep bodies.
 
There’s good chow in the Navy. I’m not being a dick. It’s really good. And that’s why there’s fatties on Submarines. Good Navy chow and nowhere to go.

Master Chief 10x12 isn’t kicking doors and pulling triggers. She’s serving the Navy and the Navy is serving her, three or more times a day.
 
There’s good chow in the Navy. I’m not being a dick. It’s really good. And that’s why there’s fatties on Submarines. Good Navy chow and nowhere to go.

Master Chief 10x12 isn’t kicking doors and pulling triggers. She’s serving the Navy and the Navy is serving her, three or more times a day.

Meal Team 6
 

The services did this to themselves when they allowed waivers then shrugged and looked the other way when waivers were abused*. Had they just kept a reasonable standard instead of a free-for-all you might not see this pushback.

* - Which they did because it was "racism" since the condition disproportionately affects Black men and commanders/ NCOs are scared shitless of the hard R of Racism.
 
I think its generally bullshit that we still act like beards somehow affect the ability to wage war. Pretty much every other western partner force has got it figured the fuck out, so idk why we can't.

If they wanna get stricter with the waiver process to prevent the abuse that @AWP brought up I'm cool with that, but I don’t think kicking people out who actually require it is the right move.
 
The services did this to themselves when they allowed waivers then shrugged and looked the other way when waivers were abused*. Had they just kept a reasonable standard instead of a free-for-all you might not see this pushback.

* - Which they did because it was "racism" since the condition disproportionately affects Black men and commanders/ NCOs are scared shitless of the hard R of Racism.
I tried to grow a beard one time in my military career. It was a dismal failure. I'm now retired and have no desire to grow one.

I'm totally fine with letting men have beards. Between watering down the grooming standards already with all manner of exemptions, and evolving societal norms, let people men have close-cropped beards. It will be fine.
 
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