Wait, wait, wait — now we're supposed to recognize there IS a difference between males and females?
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Capt. Kristin Griest is having none of this nonsense
WASHINGTON — The Army could adjust how it scores its new Combat Fitness Test to account for the “biological differences” between men and women, a service spokeswoman said Friday.
The reevaluation of the ACFT comes weeks after Congress delayed its implementation over concerns the new test created an unfair disadvantage to female soldiers.
… The test was designed as a gender- and age-neutral fitness evaluation meant to simulate strength and conditioning challenges faced by soldiers in combat.
Congress later stepped in and ordered in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that the Army halt further implementation efforts until a study of the test by a non-Pentagon entity determined whether it was fair for women and its impact on retention and recruiting. Congress cited initial Army data that showed women struggled to pass the test, especially its leg tuck event, in which soldiers hang from a pull-up bar and tuck their legs up to their chins.
Army testing showed women failed the ACFT at a consistent 65% rate, while men failed at about a 10% rate, according to Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who sought the pause on the service’s implementation of the ACFT.
But Ranger School graduate Captain Kristen Griest calls bull shit:
The woman who became the Army’s first female infantry officer is now speaking out against lowering fitness standards for females in a test that evaluates troops’ combat readiness, arguing that doing so would "not only undermine their credibility, but also place those women, their teammates and the mission at risk."
The comments from Capt. Kristen Griest, an Army Ranger School graduate, come following reports this month that the U.S. Army is considering revamping the way it scores its new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) to account for the biological differences between men and women.
Doing so would stray away from the Army’s original plan for the six-event test to be entirely gender neutral, Military.com reported.
"The intent was not to ensure that women and men will have an equal likelihood of meeting those standards. Rather, it is incumbent upon women who volunteer for the combat arms profession to ensure they are fully capable and qualified for it," she continued. "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."
…. "While it may be difficult for a 120-pound woman to lift or drag 250 pounds, the Army cannot artificially absolve women of that responsibility; it may still exist on the battlefield," Griest wrote in an essay published Thursday by the Modern War Institute at West Point. "The entire purpose of creating a gender-neutral test was to acknowledge the reality that each job has objective physical standards to which all soldiers should be held, regardless of gender.
Griest also wrote that "under a gender-based system, women in combat arms have to fight every day to dispel the notion that their presence inherently weakens these previously all-male units."
"Lower female standards also reinforce the belief that women cannot perform the same job as men, therefore making it difficult for women to earn the trust and confidence of their teammates," she added.
"As the Army’s first female infantry officer, I have long awaited the elimination of a gender-based fitness test," Griest wrote. "The drastically lower female standards of the old Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) not only jeopardized mission readiness in combat units but also reinforced the false notion that women are categorically incapable of performing the same job as men.
"The new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) promised to alleviate these issues by finally assessing women on the same fitness scale as men and setting minimum physical standards based on branch requirements rather than gender," she added, while also noting that "due to an initial ACFT fail rate of 54 percent among women, activist groups have raised concerns that the test will disadvantage female servicemembers."
In 2016, Griest -- one of two women who graduated from the Army’s Ranger School the year prior -- became the first woman named as an infantry officer.
Connecticut residents may remember that Blumenthal was exposed for lying about his own military experience some years back when it was revealed that, instead of serving in Vietnam as he’d claimed, he’d actually spent his time supervising the Marines’ local “Toys for Tots” campaign in Washington, D.C.
This blogger is proud to claim credit for at the same time tracking down the Dick’s Harvard record and reporting that, rather than being a member of the Harvard Varsity Swim Team as stated on his campaign resume, our state’s Toys for Tots participant was in fact merely a member of his dorm’s intramural swim team, which spent its time dressed in itsy bity Speedos and splashing around in the campus pool with fellow Harvardians and never risking the dangers of leaving campus. Both claims: heroic service in the Mekong Delta, and competing against the ruffians of Worcester Tech, disappeared simultaneously. Tee hee hee; I take my small victories where I find them.
But how could a test that discriminates between men and women pass muster under the proposed Equity Act, which Blumenthal co-sponsored and Gillibrand also supports? Can it be reconciled with these two idiots’ demand that there be two separate fitness tests, one with a lower passing score that recognizes, the “biological differences” between men and women?
I don’t think it can, which, if it means that the new Combat Fitness Test is adopted, would be bad news for the Equity Act proponents and good news for soldiers in actual combat. Blumenthal probably can’t grasp the concept of battlefield rescue because, had he tripped over a Raggedy Ann doll in Washington while facing a scary mob of children, he could simply have called his mom and she’d have dispatched the chauffeur to pick him up and take him home. But a soldier wounded in actual combat would surely prefer a comrade, of any sex, who was capable of dragging or carrying him from the battlefield.
So for the sake of our fighting soldiers, let’s hope that the new, gender-neutral ACFT comes to pass.
