Army women flunking first try at ‘gender-neutral’ fitness test
Apr 8, 2021
The U.S. Army, currently stuck in a quagmire over a rigorous new physical fitness test, needs to get its act together and make sure soldiers are ready for combat, says a national security expert.
The rollout of the Army Combat Fitness Test in 2019 hit a roadblock when initial test scores showed 65% of women failed it compared to 10% of men.
The new ACFT replaced the Army’s three-event Army Physical Fitness Test, which graded soldiers according to sex and age, but the alarming failure rate caused an uproar among Democrat lawmakers who used a 2021 Pentagon spending bill to order a halt to scoring soldiers according to the new physical test. A study of the test is being done by the RAND Corp.
According to Stars and Stripes, the fitness exam is a six-event test that is patterned after the grueling CrossFit program with weights and barbells, medicine balls, kettle balls, and a 90-lb. sled to simulate dragging a wounded soldier.
The new test, which is meant to better simulate combat, includes a “leg tuck” station that 72% of women failed when they couldn’t raise their legs to to their chin. That failure rate forced the Army to subtitute a plank if a soldier failed at the leg tuck.
National security analyst Bob Maginnis of the Family Research Council says the new fitness test was designed to be a gender-neutral test, with the same requirements for both men and women, but four out of five women were failing it.
“This, of course, runs contrary to what Barack Obama put in place: Removing all exemptions for women in direct ground combat and some of the physically tough military occupational specialties out there,” Maginnis tells One News Now.
Obama ordered the Pentagon to open up front-line combat roles to women, including grueling infantry units and tip-of-the-spear special operations, sparking fears the armed forces would weaken its combat readiness to accommodate less-qualified females and thus get soldiers killed during grueling, exhausting combat.
During the phase-in period, the U.S. Marine Corps was the only branch to publicly speak out after its own testing showed female Marines were failing to keep up with males during rigorous combat simulation such as loading artillery shells and carrying a wounded Marine to safety.
According to Maginnis, the Biden administration is rolling out a far-left agenda for the U.S. armed forces at the same time the Army is attempting to get its soldiers, males and females, better prepared for combat.
“This is loony stuff,” Maginnis warns. “These people clearly have a radical agenda and it’s not in our best interest.”
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This is going to cause a lot of angst among the Baizuo. They'll lie down, just begin REM, and shoot awake with a start thinking that Boxen are coming for them. Then they'll realize they left the Ryoku on & it's just a re-run from
Babes in Toyland.
Quelle horreur! The political weaponizing of the foibles of one of the 2 biological genders in the battle against the Wokers.