Hundreds of recruits got into the Army without passing a mandatory fitness test

[nitpicker]

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/07/19/hundreds-of-recruits-got-into-the-army-without-passing-a-mandatory-fitness-test/

Hundreds of recruits got into the Army without passing a mandatory fitness test

By: Meghann Myers    3 days ago

It was early 2017 when a one-station unit training battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia, noticed one of his soldiers looked weak.

There was an easy check: If he could dead lift at least 160 pounds, he would meet the infantry standard for the Occupational Physical Assessment Test, a four-event battery the Army implemented at the beginning of that year. He could not.

“The [battalion] commander asked the trainee if he had ever taken the OPAT, and the trainee stated he had not,” according to an investigation, provided to Army Times via Freedom of Information Act request, which wrapped up in 2018 after all involved had been disciplined.

The command got to work asking every single trainee who’d shown up at Fort Benning since Dec. 27, 2016 ― the first rotation that should have taken the OPAT prior ― whether they had in fact passed the test. “Numerous” said they hadn’t, according to the investigation.

That month, Fort Benning found more than 200 of its current trainees had not passed an OPAT, either because they hadn’t taken it, they hadn’t done all four events or they’d failed it.

In total, Army Recruiting Command found 318 soldiers, 305 male and 13 female, claiming they had enlisted after failing the OPAT, or never having taken it altogether.

The issue touched 36 out of the Army’s 38 recruiting battalions ― only New York City and Richmond, Virginia were clear ― and involved 297 recruiters. Of those, 228 allegations were substantiated, according to USAREC spokeswomen Lisa Ferguson.
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Dallas was the worst offender ― with 38 untested recruits ― followed by Atlanta, Raleigh, North Carolina, Houston, Oklahoma City, Montgomery, Alabama and Columbia, South Carolina.

Of the untested recruits, 98 recruits had gone into general infantry, 25 into infantry fire support, 26 into cavalry scout and six into Special Forces ― four of the military occupational specialties requiring the highest levels of fitness. But not everyone was looking for a direct combat job. There were three who went into human resources, and two more from food service, as well as others who would have only needed to meet the “moderate” standard. Regardless, they were all able to stay.
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“Many recruiters perceived that they were under pressure by the mission increase and the requirement to fill training seats during a historically low period of accessions into the Army to ship recruits as quickly as possible,” according to the report.
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