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13 May 2021
Christine Wormuth, the Army secretary nominee, said Thursday at her confirmation hearing she is concerned about the implications of the Army’s test for combat fitness for retaining women.
The latest iteration of the test, officially known as the Army Combat Fitness Test, was launched earlier this year and a recent report showed nearly half of the women who take it fail.
“Internal Army figures from April show 44% of women failed the ACFT, compared to 7% of men since Oct. 1. ‘Female soldiers continue to lag male soldier scores in all events,’ according to a United States Army Forces Command briefing,” Military.com reported.
(Robin Trimarchi/Ledger-Enquirer via AP)
Some of the training numbers coming out of the United States Army this year aren’t looking as good as we might like and that’s particularly true of our female soldiers. All of the troops are required to pass the Army Combat Fitness Test, requiring the completion of six challenging athletic events. For the past decade or so, the test has been applied equally to both male and female troops. But while all but a small fraction (seven percent) of the males are making the grade, almost half (44%) of the women are failing. This is once again raising questions about whether or not this test is truly suitable for female soldiers and potentially eliminating some otherwise highly qualified candidates. And any honest assessment of this situation should also have us asking why we continue to insist that men and women meet the same physical standards when there are obvious differences between them. (Daily Caller)
Two-Mile Run: 22%
The pass rate for women is up 12% from last year, yet enlisted women continue to struggle the most, with a 53% fail rate. Female officers have only a 23% fail rate, but that s still significantly higher than the fail rate for men, enlisted or officer.
The data attributed most of that progress to a change in late March that added a two-minute plank as an alternative to leg tucks. FORSCOM found 22% of women failed the plank, a substantial decrease from the average 41% fail rate for the leg tuck. The pass rate for men went up by 1%.
Average Scores (360 needed to pass, 600 is the max)
The Army Wants To Pay You to Stomach MREs in the Name of Science
Oh, yes. I am so all for this. As the child of a former member of the United States Army who will proudly admit to having eaten her fair share of MREs and okra and whatever else my dad would challenge me to eat, I am for this all the way.
I vividly remember when my dad would talk about those who were not part of the military family and he would call them civilians. And, I remember all the times my dad and his buddies would bring home mysterious looking green metal containers and tan-colored packages filled with food that smelled anything but appetizing and how they d joke about how big, bad, and tough they were for being able to stomach the contents of their tins and packets and how civilians would turn up their nose and turn down bets to try the stuff.