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An important component of service to our nation in any of the services is physical fitness. It is the responsibility of every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine to be physically fit and ready to fight. Being ready to fight means a very different thing to a lawyer,
infantryman, or pilot. Being physically fit, however, does not. Here lies the key to the constant hue and cry over the gender norming of physical fitness tests in the services. The tests are designed to
measure individual fitness, not combat readiness. Gender and age norming the scores and standards is not only appropriate but essential.
The services’ regularly administered physical fitness tests are wellness tests, designed to measure individual fitness. They are meant to challenge service members at their own physical level rather than rate them against a single absolute standard. For example, it is a medical fact that most humans lose muscle mass and aerobic capacity as they grow older. This is why 38-year-old first sergeants pass the run at scores that would fail their 17-year-old troops. Personal commitment, effort, and training are being measured, not the inherent running ability of young legs and lungs.
Similarly, most women have less muscle mass and less aerobic capacity than most men. To grade women on the same scale as men would not properly measure their fitness. The very fittest women would be only above average, and many fit women would fail. The only proper way to measure individual physical fitness—and commitment to physical fitness—is to gender and age norm the grading scales.
This is not to say that the physical qualifying standards for jobs should be gender or age normed.
A pilot needs to be able to pull Gs, an infantryman to march far and fast carrying heavy packs, and an artilleryman to lift heavy rounds repeatedly. War makes no allowances for women pilots or old grunts, and neither should the services. But there are 40-year- olds who can keep up with the youngsters and women who can keep up with the men. Physical qualifying standards should be absolute and should fairly reflect the physical attributes required for a particular job.
The physical fitness test does not measure a person’s ability to do a job in combat. We need to stop pointing at physical fitness test grading scales as a reason to exclude women from jobs for which they are qualified. More important, we need to stop these grading scales from being a morale factor by educating our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines as to the true purpose of the tests.
Major Pfluke is currently attending Marine Corps Command and Staff College at Quantico, Virginia.