First U.S. Army Female Infantry Officer Not Happy with Changes to ACFT
Captain Kristen Griest became the Army’s first female infantry officer in 2016 after becoming one of the first females to finish Ranger School. Now she is getting heat for demanding that females meet the same standards as men:
“I’m here saying, ‘Women can do more than we think.’ I have learned this,” she said in an interview, explaining her thinking. “Your gender is not as much of a limitation as you think it is.”
Griest, 32, has received a frosty response from some female service members and veterans, and was accused of “internalized misogyny.” Others have taken her side, or said that they understand her motivation. (……)
“To not require women to meet equal standards in combat arms will not only undermine their credibility, but also place those women, their teammates, and the mission at risk,” she wrote.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but she believes that women should meet the same standards as men on the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT). The problem with the test was that over 50% of women were failing it largely because of one event, the leg tuck. Because of this Congress forced the Army to relook the test and the leg tuck was changed to allow anyone to take an alternate plank test. The plank is easier for people struggling to do the leg tuck to pass.
Another change was in the scoring; before there was three scoring tiers based off of one’s duty description. For example if you were combat arms you had to score in the highest tier of the test; now everyone just has to pass the minimum scores to pass the ACFT. CPT Griest is unhappy about all of this and wants to go back to a test that over 50% of females fail in order to motivate them to get fit.
The way I look at this is that very few females want to join combat arms. Do I really care if for an example an Army nurse or a truck driver cannot do a leg tuck and instead does a plank? No I do not, so why kick this person out of the Army? The Army could not function if it kicked out the amount of females that the ACFT in its prior format would have removed from the force.
I read the opinion piece CPT Griest wrote and agree with most of it. There is a debate that she was given special treatment to pass Ranger school but at the end of the day she worked very hard to earn that tab, just like every other candidate. The ACFT is flawed on several levels : amount of equipment needed, training needed for graders, time consumed in setup/teardown & the events themselves. Also an 18 year old male is held to the same standard as a 55 year old female, that begs the question is it too easy or too hard. SMA Grinston & GEN McConville will no doubt pass this test with no trouble, but I hardly believe we will see them take the test. The APFT may not be an accurate assessment of combat ability but neither is the ACFT. Congress stepping into Army matters is also problematic; they need to stick to getting cushy assignments for the grandson of a senior senator’s administrative assistant (saw that first hand in AIT, guy was assigned to Korea, called grandma, next morning new orders were hand delivered to him for a post very close to home.) not trying to “fix” a flawed test. I have always seen the APFT & the ACFT as a way to trim the numbers of a garrison army because once there are combat deployments by the big army (to Iraq & Afghanistan recently) how shiny your brass is or what your PT scores are isn’t very important.
Doc, regarding the little boy who called his gram, the unit capability probably went up with that transfer. Folks with that silver spoon stuffed up their tailpipes just often don’t turn out like in the movies…
Now, if instead of pulling him back home his folks told him to “straighten up and fly right,” he might have had a chance to be a man. Odds are he died in a rehab hospital.
The APFT and ACFT do not measure real physical fitness or real combat fitness. They’re BS just like the other services’ testing. All military and almost all veterans should be among the healthiest and fittest people in the country while maintaining their weight in a healthy normal range. The vast majority aren’t. This is where the focus should be rather than on totally useless semi-annual tests. The military, veterans receiving pensions’/benefits, and their families should be retrained to adopt appropriate behaviors to accomplish this goal that will last a lifetime.
While Griest may be built like a man, the vast majority of women are not. Their bodies are typically smaller and less sturdy. They already have higher injury rates than the men. Woke female civilian never-in-the-military politicians/activists and cowering male senior officers are the ones who pushed females into the combat arms and much more physical jobs. IMO everyone should meet the same physical requirements specifically needed to perform at a high level in their respective MOS. One only needs to open his/her eyes to see who does and who doesn’t.
Here are some things I need to remind myself about:
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
–Robert A Heinlein
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
–C. S. Lewis
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
–Paul (Romans 14:4)