Bitching About Fitness-Optional Soldiers

Recently I was on the phone for about a half hour with a reporter from Deseret News.  The topic was soldiers and fitness.  She is writing about how soldiers and sailors pork up after they leave active duty.  Here's the article.

Well that is their right and privilege as Americans.

We were talking because I sent her an email about how going on active duty for training causes me to work out LESS, not more.  She said I was the only soldier she spoke to with that experience.

If there is one vast difference between the military in the Viet Nam Era and now, it is the fat, out-of-shape soldiers.  There was the occasional fat supply sergeant or cook in the 1970s Army, but when our Brigade did 4-mile runs in Germany, the vast majority of the soldiers, including us smokers, stayed in formation.

The information the reporter had said that half of the men in women in Guard and Reserve units could not pass the fitness test for their branch of the military.  And every active duty unit has soldiers hanging on by a thread trying to pass the fitness test or just giving up because they are too short (of time left on their enlistment) to worry about their lack of fitness.

Currently the Army is forcing out soldiers who are out of shape.  At least they are forcing out younger soldiers who are out of shape.  The Guard still has master sergeants and warrant officers who are 50 pounds past meeting the height and weight standards, but are untouchable because they know their jobs so well and know how to get around the fitness standards.

And, of course, the vast majority of soldiers who are out of shape have as their first excuse, "I am good at my job."  Great.  Work for Boeing or Ford then.  Soldiers should be able to Move, Shoot and Communicate.  A soldier who is out-of-breath after running a mile in shorts and sneakers will never shoot straight after running three miles with full battle gear.

And because we are in the Guard, the high-ranking fat guys make of the PT Test.  I have gone to official functions with fat guys performing a skit making fun of the PT Test.  During the same month I saw the fat guys yuck it up about the PT Test, I talked to a sergeant I knew.  He was getting out because he could not pass the PT Test the next month.  He was a good armorer and supply sergeant, had 15 years in and will not be able to retire.  He did not want to stay in the Army enough to lose the weight and he was not blaming anyone.

But the porcine performers making fun of the PT Test will retire with huge pensions and a Meritorious Service Medal.

And that is sad.

Here is the Duffel blog view.

Screwtape in Iraq

This post is a repost from Iraq.  I haven't seen this post in years.  It was fun to write and mimic Screwtape.  But if you want to hear Screwtape at his best, the Audiobook is read by John Cleese!!!  No one could be a better mid-level bureaucrat in Hell than John Cleese.  The book is no longer available with Cleese as the narrator, but the letters are collected at the link above.


CLICK here for Screwtape in Iraq.

CLICK here for the book.

Who Writes About Our Wars: Matt Jones

28th CAB PAO at Camp Adder:

Me, SGT Matt Jones, SFC Dale Shade, SGT Andy Mehler

In September of 2009, I moved from the Echo Company motor pool at Camp Adder, Iraq, to Battalion Headquarters of Task Force Diablo.  I took the job of writing, laying out and shooting the pictures for a monthly newsletter for the remainder of the deployment.  But I knew that a monthly for four of five months would not get any attention.

So I asked to produce a weekly 8-12-page newsletter.  The commander and my supervisor agreed.  I had a job—and a half.  But I got it done.

One big reason I could write that newsletter and shoot the pictures was SGT Matt Jones at 28^th Combat Aviation Brigade with an office just 100 meters from mine.  Over the next several months I spent a lot of time with Matt.  I had not shot pictures since the late 1970s.  I got a Nikon digital camera and Matt showed me how to use.  And gave me feedback on the photos I took.  He also edited my stories—quickly and accurately. 

Matt had his own weekly newsletter to produce.  And he worked in a much different environment than I did.  Everyone in my office worked together really well.  Better than most places I have ever worked. 

To say that Matt worked in a hostile environment is like the temperature in Hell, if you have to ask. . .

So in between writing stories, shooting photos and producing a weekly newsletter, had to deal with more shit than a dairy farmer from a brigade command staff that did not understand or care to understand how public affairs worked. 

But he kept going, quietly producing a great newsletter every week and shooting some award-winning photos along the way.  Clearly, some of my best photos were the ones I shot just after Matt showed me something else I could do with shutter speed, ISO, lighting, or angle. 

After we returned from Iraq, I worked with Matt while he was with 28^th CAB and I still see him on drill weekends sometimes.  And he still helps me shoot better pictures. 

Most people I know in public affairs, military or civilian, are loud people that laugh, make jokes and are irrepressible gossips.  Matt has the flattest affect of anyone I know in public affairs.  After a few weeks of working with him he said, “Nice!” about a story I wrote.  That was it.  He went back to work.  If I got that from Matt, I knew the Nobel in Literature was a possibility in the future. 

Last summer, in what might be my last summer camp, I got to spend several days writing and editing in the Public Affairs Office at Fort Indiantown Gap.  I wrote about how much I enjoyed that time last summer.  I did not use any names in that post, but I can now say that part of the fun of the week was Matt laughing when I retold some of the same jokes I told in Iraq for a new group of people.  And I am pretty sure Matt said “Nice!” about one of my photos.