The Marine Corps is making changes to its Physical Fitness Test, allowing Marines to replace the three-mile running portion of the PFT with a 5,000-meter stint on a rowing machine.
Marines seeking to do that will require a medical chit to prove and explain why they can’t run. But it will allow fit and hard-working Marines to still earn a top score on their fitness test without risking unnecessary injury.
It comes at a time when the entire military is wrestling with issues of standards and fitness. The Pentagon wants to crack down on one in 10 service members who are “non-deployable” for one reason or another. And the Pentagon is working to put together a new force-wide policy on fitness and body fat standards.
It’s heartening to see the Marines push ahead with common-sense change that maintain high standards while also considering the unique needs of individual service members who might be contributing to the Corps readiness in non-traditional ways. Other services – and Pentagon bureaucrats – should take note.
The crew of the Research Vessel Petrel, led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is on a roll.
The Defense Department on March 8 announced that troops deployed to Niger, Mali and northern Cameroon qualify to receive imminent danger pay/hostile fire pay, retroactive to June 7, 2017.
The daggers flew this weekend when a disparaging military rant by a California high school teacher went viral.
A technical sergeant from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada came under fire recently after she shared a racially-charged, expletive-laced rant to Facebook.
For the second time in about a month, CENTCOM said a senior al-Qaida leader was killed in a drone strike in northwest Syria.
"We put some very, very harsh downward pressure on Clark, because they were a failing partner," said Army Gen. Edward Daly, head of Army Materiel Command.
Tracey McNeill, 51, pled guilty to wire fraud July, 6 2021 after defrauding the Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management of more than $90,000 of benefits owed to an elderly veteran in her care.
If Guard troops do activate, it will be at the behest of their governors.
China has recently upped its threat to bring Taiwan under its control by force if necessary by flying warplanes near the island and rehearsing beach landings.
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