After watching “Full Metal Jacket” on video the other day, I started wondering about fitness standards, and how the military handles a recruit that struggles, like the “Gomer Pyle” character.
Of course, other questions came to mind, so I thought I’d ask the TM what they know. If you are a member of one of the branches of the US Armed Services and are answering based on your personal knowledge, please identify the branch. I have no idea if one branch has different physical requirements than another, but I would guess if there are differences, this thread will flush them out.
Also, I don’t mind if other folks answer with information about another country, but I am primarily interested in the US military. If you know about the UK Marines, for example, fine… just identify what service you are referring to.
first, can someone get kicked out of bootcamp and sent home if they cannot meet minimum physical requirements? In “Full Metal Jacket”, for example, Gomer Pyle could not do a single pull-up. If this was the case, would he eventually be drummed out, or would they pass him through bootcamp based on an aggregate score?
If there is a minimum time that a recruit has to run a fixed distance and they simply can’t, is that enough to get them sent home? Let’s say, for example, the US Army times a recruit in a mile run, and a recruit must cross the finish line within 8 minutes. In this example, no matter what shape the person is in, they are a slow runner. They cannot run a mile faster than 9 minutes. They aren’t dogging it, and they aren’t trying to get sent home, but they have legs that won’t propel them fast enough. How does the military deal with this?
same questions regarding push-ups, etc. if there is a core group of exercises that the military focuses on and measures, what are the exercises and what are the minimums (and what happens to the recruit if they cannot meet the minimum?)
is there a sliding scale based on age?
is there a maximum age a recruit can be? Could a 35-year old join the Army reserves, or National Guard? Is this age-driven or fitness (both physical and mental) driven?
The more I think about this, I cannot imagine a recruit is discharged from bootcamp just for not meeting some physical requirements… This would seem a pretty easy way for someone to get out of military service. Don’t want to be a Marine? Just run slow, do 5 push-ups, and hang on the pull-up bar without completing one.
Failing a physical test could get the recruit or their platoon a punishment, but that can’t make a recruit do something his/her body just can’t do. If they aren’t slacking, but truly giving everything they have and still cannot meet the minimum, no amount of punishment will change that. So, do they get a pass at some point?
I can’t answer for the Viet Nam era when the movie was set. We have an all volunteer force. They don’t make it too easy for you to leave otherwise some would quit that might regret it after a particularly bad day. But it is not that difficult to get out of the military in Basic Training. We had several “Failure to Adapt” discharges when I went through.
Bear_Nenno was an Army Drill Sergeant relatively recently so hopefully he will be by to answer about what is going on now.
Back in 1989 when I was in Basic Training you showed up and they put you into the Reception Station. You might recognize the buildings I was in because they filmed Stripes there (Fort Knox). At one point they made us quickly go into a room. One by one we had to do push ups. You had to be able to do 13 in order to get out of Reception. Some did not. Those that stayed behind did a shit ton of PT until they got fit enough to move on.
By the end of Basic we had to take a PT test. We did not have to pass by Army standards. We had to get 50 points in each of the 3 events. The Army minimum standard is 60 points. This was only after the first 8 weeks. After that everyone graduated on to their job training (AIT). During AIT intense PT continued and you were expected to pass the test by the end.
I was in Parris Island in 1995, and they’d stick the fatbody recruits in the Pork Chop Platoon (Physical Conditioning Platoon) until they got down to a certain weight and could pass the PFT.
My understanding is that under performing recruits were kept in the PCP indefinitely until they were able to get their weight down and pass the PFT, provided that the were not 90-day reservists. We had one recruit join our platoon after he spent over 18 months in the Medical Rehabilitation Platoon recovering from a broken leg.
Here’s the PFT requirements for the USMC. There is a sliding scale based on age.
In the late 60s, when I went into the Navy, they weren’t exactly picky. If you could march and keep your shit together, you’d get through boot camp without a problem.
As the years went by, obesity started becoming a problem in the Navy. Physical fitness standards and height/weight standards were instituted that did not take into account age, etc. If you were overweight for your height, then you ended up in the “fat boy” program, which led to stupid decisions being made for weight lifters. Failing the PT requirements, which was basically situps and a 1.5 mile run, really didn’t have many consequences. In the Seabees, you could end up running with a platoon of PT fails if you were on battalion assignment, but there were really no consequences other than perhaps a note in your annual evaluation. Nobody really bothered with remedial PT while on shore duty, and I suspect that fleet and air sailors face less rigor overall. Despite the Navy’s efforts to have members stay fit, I still had major widebodies in the late 80s who were in no danger of being discharged. As time went on, somebody finally realized that a person’s age and body type were kind of important factors for PT performance, particularly for run times (used to be 12 minutes for everyone). I believe that body fat calcs are now part of the PT program.
In the movie they did not make it clear who were draftees. Although it varied depending on which year of the conflict, conscripts were about 25% of the force in Viet Nam. The Army drafted over 600,000, the Marines drafted about 42,000. Realistically most of those in the unit in FMJ would have been volunteers.
Question #2 was inspired by a personal experience. I had a friend who wanted to go into the Air Force OTC program after college. He was not overweight by any stretch, and he wanted to get in the program, so he asked me to run with him every day.
I can’t remember the distance now, but it may have been 1.5 miles. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get under the time limit, and he became very discouraged. He worked at this for months, and he could run long distances (5 miles was no problem), but he just had no ability to run with any speed.
AFAIK, he never went into the program. I always wondered if he would have been given a “pass” if he was satisfactory in other areas. IIRC, he was approved for some “pre-flight training” program, but it has been a long time now, and I don’t remember a lot. The one thing I remember was the stress he was constantly dealing with because he couldn’t make that run, and he felt that would have kept him from his dream of being a pilot.
I thought the Air Force would have worked with him if he was intellectually up to the rigors of being a pilot, but his impression was that the standards were the standards because flight school was so competitive, so they would use whatever means they needed to to weed people out. I don’t know if that came from a recruiter, or someone he knew personally, or if it was incorrect info he picked up somewhere.
I have always thought the Marines had the hardest physical requirements, and the Navy and Air Force the easiest, but again, this was just based on second-hand knowledge and probably popular culture references.
Looking forward to Bear_Nenno popping into the thread if he sees it… It sounds like he would know the relatively recent requirements and how the service handled non-hackers. I never heard of the PCP, but it makes sense for overweight recruits. However, was this just for the “disgusting fatbodies”, or for anyone having issues meeting the Physical tests, regardless of their physical appearance or BMI?
The minimum score is 50 to make it out of basic, but you must score 60 after that, they factor age in all events and gender in push-ups. In my experience those that could not meet the physical standard in Basic were recycled, in other words you had to do the whole two and a half months of basic over again. Not something most people would want to do and pretty good incentive to make the cut. Even a guy we had that faked an injury the first week and ultimately kicked out had to stay for the entire cycle where he was treated like dirt by everyone and even physically assaulted, no fun.
Oh about the disgusting fatbodies, The funny thing with the Army and probably all branches was that even if you could pass all the PT requirements, hell even if you scored 300 you can still get kicked out for failing what they call tape. You see if you were overweight, they would tape you which basically meant measuring the circumference of your neck and waist and plugging those numbers into a formula that involved the ratio between the two, in other words you better hope you had a really thick neck. You can pass the pt test and still be kicked out for failing tape because of Army regulations on appearance. I felt this was somewhat unfair because some people really are fit but just built differently.
My experience in Army basic training during the Viet Nam period:
Those who were trying but needed more time or training to meet requirements were recycled – sent to another unit to redo all or some of the training.
A couple guys who had been recycled into our unit and who seemed to be genuinely unable to progress were administratively discharged under honorable conditions.
Those who were seen to be capable but who were not performing up to the required levels to pass tests either because they were “almost” there or because they were deemed to be malingering for whatever reason – on retest day they were confined to barracks and told to give their dog tags and one of their shirts with the name tag sewn on to another recruit. When the shirt and tags were returned, the Sergeant congratulated them on passing the test.
Yeah, DOOD, I know what google is. And the chart doesn’t exactly answer my question now does it (except for the sliding scale with age)?
No where did I read that a non-hacker would get recycled and have to do the entire boot camp over. That would suck, but that is also based on personal experience.
If you have something to share, please do. And if your Army Manual or recruitment guide spells out what is going to happen to you if you don’t pass your PT requirements, I’d like to see that, too.
This WOULD suck. Some folks are just built differently, so why should you be punished for that? I can understand if you are too big to fit into a cockpit or a tank, but there have to be jobs that don’t require someone shaped like everyone else.
If you get bounced out by “tape”, is that dishonorable? Because that would truly seem unfair.
Stink Fish Pot, I believe it’s technically an administrative separation, but it’s an honorable discharge. You seem to have a lot of questions about military requirements for a guy that’s not joining.
Eventually, yes. They would put him in a fitness platoon if he failed the record APFT at the end of basic and PT him until he passed, a long time passed, or they injured him and he couldn’t pass.
That’s considered a test failure, and #1 happens.
Check the published standards
Yes, it’s a sliding scale
It’s around 35, I think they raised it to 38 during the wars and it’s remained there.
You can get out of bootcamp if you wanna. They’ll give you a very hard time, and make you feel like crap. There’s a punishment platoon that’s kind of like prison where you are made to mop floors and clean toilets for several weeks while they “process the paperwork” to kick you out. I think some recruits change their mind, not sure - I only saw some of those recruits from a distance once. If you leave the military in the first 6 months, it’s considered a no-fault, “failure to adapt” or something discharge. (so long as you didn’t commit a crime like going AWOL in the process of leaving)
If your body is actually unable to do one of the maneuvers - they call it being a brokedick among other slang terms - they’ll either fix you, if medical science knows how and it can be done quickly and reasonably cheaply, or kick you out.
With a volunteer army and the population of the USA, they don’t have to accept recruits who don’t meet the relative low standards of the military. Most adult men can pass - it’s only about 40ish pushups and situps and a 2 mile run in about 15 minutes. You’re nowhere near the limits of human potential if you can do that. You’re supposed to become a dangerous man in a team of warriors, toting a gun around. Someone the enemies of the USA would actually fear. If you can’t even do the basic tasks, they’ll find someone else. (notably, the other requirement is being able to hit slightly more than half of the targets on the firing range. No Stormtrooper aim here)
There are people the military make exceptions for. Higher ranking officers who have been in for a while and who have difficult to replace skills. Doctors and lawyers. But not mere recruits.
Failure to pass the physical fitness requirements will eventually result in an entry-level discharge. Generally, the recruit will be given additional training and multiple attempts to pass the Army Physical Fitness test (APFT). At some point (ideally before the 180th day of service) the Soldier will be sent home. After 180 days, the veteran status of recruit changes. Someone who serves at least 180 days, even if they never made it out of basic training, is entitled to certain veteran benefits. Before that 180 days, they can be given an entry-level separation which is basically the same as if they never joined and never served.
Not only must the recruit pass the APFT by running 2 miles in the maximum allowable time for his age group, he is also required to complete the five mile run in less than 45 minutes. That is a graduation requirement for infantry basic training. If they pass everything else, but fail that final run, they will be held back and will not graduate. They will spend the next week or so doing trying to get their run time down, and we would have him attempt the run with another company who was doing their 5 mile run the following week. If they are nowhere near passing that run, they will be restarted and given the chance to do basic training all over again, either from Day 1 with our company as the next cycle starts, or at Week 10 with another company.
The APFT standards were linked to up thread. If any of those standards are not met, the recruit will not graduate. He will be given another APFT the following week after graduation. If he still can’t pass, he will be recycled according to his performance, effort and motivation. If he cannot do the minimum sit-ups or push-ups, but managed to pass all other required training events to standard (to include the 5 mile run and the 12 mile foot march), then he might be sent to a Physical Fitness Unit where all he does is work on his physical conditioning. He might stay in that unit for several weeks (staying under that 180 day mark) until he can pass the APFT. If he can pass the APFT before the 180 days is up, he graduates and ships off to his first duty station. If he doesn’t, he is sent home.
Yes. Sliding scale for age and sex as posted up thread.
Yes, the maximum age is always changing. I’m not even sure what it is right now.
Military service is not compulsory. Most recruits are not looking for a way to get out of military service. They joined voluntarily for their own personal reasons. Some realize they made a huge mistake and do want out, though. Failing the physical requirements is indeed one way they can get out. It’s a miserable 6 months trying to go that route though. Under total control and locked down in an open-bay with no personal space for 6 months is not fun. They don’t get free time to go out into town or do their own thing. It’s a bit like being in jail for half a year. So it isn’t really an “easy way” to get out of their service obligation.
No, they don’t get a pass. And they shouldn’t!! With that said, there is absolutely no such thing as person who is “truly giving everything they have and still cannot meet the minimum”. If a recruit meets the body fat requirements for enlistment, there is no way he would not be able to pass the minimum standards by the end of basic training unless he was not trying. Everyone is capable of the minimum physical standards after 14 weeks of training! The drill sergeants make sure of that. Recruits who show up only capable of doing 1 pushup or running a 35 minute 2 mile are able to pass the APFT by the end of the training cycle.
The Navy is changing the Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA) starting with cycle 1, 2016. See NAVADMIN 178/15.
Most notable: the CO can do Body Composition Assessment (BCA) and PFA spot checks. Another: failures were reduced from three to two for administrative separation.
I was overweight and out of shape (relative to the other Officer Candidates, anyway) going into Navy Officer Candidate school as a recent college graduate (this was early '00s). I am a poor natural athlete (in terms of running, anyway) and pretty much everyone in my family is overweight. Navy OCS is led by Marine Drill Instructors. In 13 weeks I went from about 13-14 minutes for 1.5 mile run to 10 minutes, from doing about 40 pushups to over 80, and from 45 situps to over 100.
The only people in OCS who couldn’t make the physical standards over the 13 weeks were injured, from my memory. And OCS is so miserable in day-to-day life that I can’t imagine anyone not trying to succeed, since if you fail you roll back into the next class, or if you fail multiple times, then you get stuck in a remedial class which doesn’t advance.
The hard part was not getting there (well, it was hard, but we were very well motivated), but maintaining it afterwards. It’s very hard to exercise on a submarine, especially while one is qualifying and getting very little sleep. I struggled through most of the PRTs in my career, and ended up failing my very last PRT on the run time. I had already submitted my resignation to get out at the end of my 5 year commitment, so it didn’t hurt me at all.
Uggh, though. I’m glad I was in the Navy – I learned a lot, did some cool things, and am a better person for it. But I’m glad to be out, and every bad day today is a breeze compared to bad days in the Navy. And the physical standards were a big part of the reason why. It really sucks when your boss constantly tells you that you’re too fat, and he’s got the regulations behind him.
I can say that when I was a 2nd Lt I came across an AF reg about how to handle people over the weight limit. This was about 1974. Men, I don’t remember the rules. Women were to send pictures in swimsuits (there was an example) front, side and back to a board. If the board said you were good looking enough you could stay in the USAF.
I believe all of them were volunteers–I seem to recall a few queries about why different folks had joined Hartman’s beloved corps.
This was me–I have really short legs and the torso of a really solid 6’ 00" dude. With a 7 minute mile I wasn’t particularly fast, but I could do that pace for upwards of 5 miles. Always wrestled the tape. But ultimately it’s the captain’s decision whether or not to boot you as a fatboi. To that end, attitude and overall physical performance were very useful.
