Army Combat Fitness Disaster: Units Refusing to Take Test, Medics Bailing

This ACFT is the brainchild of the old SMA. This was his personal baby and gift to the Army that he was willing to dedicate the latter part of his career to making work prior to his retirement. So the genius who started this is already gone now. I liked the old Sergeant Major of the Army, most of us did. He was a great Soldier and highly respected but this was a stupid decision that he really didn't think through and refused to back down from. The new SMA is the same way, this WILL WORK somehow in spite of the odds. He was fussing at us on Twitter a few weeks ago because something like 2/3rds of Army units hadn't even taken a diagnostic ACFT yet because units think it's stupid. He was saying in order to fix it we need more data and units aren't providing that and screwing up his plans to implement this thing next year.

Or he could you know...take a hint and realize that if over half of the Army isn't even taking the time to conduct your new PT test because they think it's stupid then it's probably stupid and you should scrap it. But as always with the military the High Brass is smarter than "you" and knows what's best for "you" which is why they are High Brass and you aren't.

This is nothing more than the product of the military ideology of "Make it happen". That is drilled into your head from the day you show up to Basic Training. Commanders and Leaders at all levels come up with ridiculous **** all the time and you are supposed to "make it happen". Even if it's completely unrealistic saying you can't do it is a big no no. Army leaders have that scene from the Pearl Harbor movie entrenched in their brains where President Roosevelt magically stood up from his wheelchair and gruffed "Don't you tell ME it can't be done!". That's not necessarily a bad thing and I of course understand why they beat that stuff into your brain as a Soldier, but it's a double edged sword too.

The Army does dumb **** like this all the time, I've spent many years now at this point being a senior advisor to Commanders so I know full well how this works. Each of us area specific advisors spend half our days in our shared office banging our heads on the desk fussing to each other trying to figure out how to make often completely unrealistic Command directives somehow work. "Lets make it happen gentlemen, I'm not going to be the Commander who tells General so and so it can't be..."

Yeah whatever guy, that was a ****ing movie, some things really CAN'T be done. But instead of acknowledging that the Army instead "Army's" everything up and "exhausts all resources and goes above and beyond and makes every possible effort to complete the mission". And then wastes millions of dollars and years of time and then finally admits that OK this actually can't be done, but you can't say we didn't try!

While us advisors sit in our office and say "We will continue to engage this matter Sir and work to secure the training and necessities required to revisit this again in the future with better success". Which translates to "We ****ing TOLD YOU THIS years ago"

This is a daily routine in the Army, only reason this ACFT is a big deal is because the civilian population is seeing this particular bright idea in the news. We deal with this sort of stupid thing on a daily basis which is why nobody in the Army is surprised that this new PT is a **** show. High Brass is the bright idea factory who sends out asinine directives on an hourly basis and refuses to ever back down and listen to any logical response to their directive outside of "Yes Sir".

But he's the Boss, so....thy will be done.

 

That's how the Army rolls. Make no mistake about it as rational as it sounds that this should have been easy from the get go because science says so...the Army once again does this all the time. The Army is very good at selectively choosing which "science" it wants to listen to depending on the situation.

We had this laughable scenario not too long ago. Brass wanted to toss a bird in the field during dead of winter with some troops and see if it would work out to test our "expeditionary capabilities". Once again I sat around my infamous table with the other senior advisors...

Boss: "Gentlemen can this be done?"
Advisor 1: "No Sir"
Advisor 2: "No Sir"
Advisor 3: "No Sir"
Boss: "Don't tell me it can't be..."

Why couldn't it be done? ENGINEERING. As briefed by the senior maintenance advisor the actual hydraulic fluid of the machine that allows it to operate literally FREEZES at temperature X. It was currently colder than temperature X outside. We needed portable storage and heaters to keep the thing warm enough to operate. No portable storage because "that's not expeditionary and we need to be able to move rapidly and on the fly." So what do we do? Of course! Lets go! Thy will be done.

Boss: Gentlemen, hows it going out there? Status update why isn't this on the move yet?"
Advisors: "It's broke Sir"
Boss: "Fix it!"
Advisors: "Can't Sir"
Boss: "Why not!?"
Advisors: (Because the mother ****ing hydraulic fluid is frozen and the ****ing thing can't operate without it like we ****ing told you 3 days ago before you ****ing sent them out there!) "Sir, they've had multiple component failures and lack the logistical capabilities to perform the necessary repairs on site, we require a depot repair facility at this time".

The Army listens to the science it likes lol. We don't exactly scientifically devise and test anything before we roll out. And if we do and the science says it's impossible we ignore the science and try anyway and then bitch when it doesn't work like the science said it wouldn't lol.

 

The problem isn't the integration of women. The problem in this particular case is these dummies buying into the modern narrative that men and women are physically equal and expecting women to be able to perform the same strength based tasks as men with equal success.

 

As military brass I'll say to you don't hold your breath. As you said before we are the most powerful fighting force in the history of planet Earth, and we still are even in the wake of the nonsense going on.

But if we were a civilian company we'd be Enron. The main problem is that we are a Federal organization beholden to Federal flavor of the day bullshit. The days of the military being able to escape the stupidity of civilian society are over. In modern times, whatever cooky nonsense society comes up with will follow suit within the military within a matter of months.

 

How exactly is Biden being old and frail relevant to the Army? He's the Commander in Chief via the way our Republic is organized...he's a civilian. It'd be different if it were one of the Joint Chiefs or something.

 

https://www.army.mil/article/254875...mentation_of_revised_army_combat_fitness_test

I'm just going to go ahead and leave this here.

Read through this thread and see the discussion from a year ago. Told you they'd change the leg tuck. Told you they'd separate the genders. Told you they'd add alternate events for profile Soldiers.

No I am by no means psychic I just know how the Army works.

So taxpayers, the Army just wasted MILLIONS of your dollars on "researching" this stupid PT test only to come to the same conclusions that normal dummies like myself told you they would in the first place. But High Brass needed "X amount of time and data (and wasting of money)" before they could come to the same conclusion. Because they are smarter than "you", that's why they are High Brass.

This is why our Defense Budget is so high, it's not because we are constantly receiving state of the art equipment and training it's because they waste a huge chunk of the money they are given on stupid **** like this.