“Were you born a fat, slimy, scumbag puke piece o’ shit, Private Pyle,
or did you have to work on it?”
During the past decade, the U.S. Army has faced what it regards as a serious internal threat: young recruits entering in terrible shape.
In a radical shift, the Army is overhauling the way it trains, cares for and feeds new soldiers. So, as fad workouts increasingly borrow Army terms like “boot camp,” actual basic training is starting to look a bit like a new-age fitness camp — but with harsh words, severe haircuts and firearms. [...] Many of the freezing future soldiers, in gray sweats, caps and gloves, are struggling to do a few pull-ups.
A decade ago, the Army started to notice that new recruits were, in general, getting weaker. [...] The Army’s problem, Stone and others say, is that most current enlistees grew up on the couch, playing video games, rather than horsing around outside. And public schools have cut gym classes.
[...]
Palkoska has completely revamped basic training at all posts, starting with, well, the basics: stretching and holding; mastering simple, precise movements. Soon, athletic trainers and physical therapists will join these workouts at Fort Leonard Wood to help soldiers avoid injuries and to quickly treat those that occur.
“I saw a lot of folks saying that we had gone to yoga and Pilates,” says Mark Hertling, the three-star general in charge of initial military training for the entire Army. “And I’m saying, ‘Where the hell did they get that?’ It’s all about functional fitness, and using the body the way it might have to be used in a tactical situation.”
The Soviets had the same problem. They started off with the lofty goal of having free gymnasiums for all citizens, but after propaganda concerns kicked in they were only used for elite athletes so they can show the rest of the world how great the USSR was.
In the meantime the rest of the Soviet population was drunk and out of shape.
#37 Glenn E. – Without a doubt to me at least, the U.S. DoD communicates with the U.S. Dept. of Education on policies regarding college student aid, i.e. Pell grants, loans, etc.
90% of grades K-12 funding was state and local – I prefer saying local and state – in 1990. Soft drink companies making exclusive deals with school districts so that only one company’s vending machines can be placed in classroom hallways was horrible.
Arnold S. wrote an essay in Newsweek magazine around 1989 or 1990 saying that young kindergarteners were looking much fatter than before. Florida made P.E. classes mandatory and daily for grades 1 through 5. So many students qualify for free or reduced lunch and breakfast that feeding a child on weekdays during the school year is becoming more and more a government-funded function.
Looking back: Arnold S. wrote the Newsweek essay mentioned above when he was President George H. W. Bush’s head of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. I watched a 16mm film in the late 1970s hosted by George Allen concerning overweight youth featuring b&w footage of U.S. troops during the Eisenhower administration who couldn’t do one pullup. George Allen would head the council under President Reagan. The President’s Council was started by President Eisenhower after a report showed European children were healthier than U.S. children. The Council is under the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.
I feel that the USDA and FDA are too close to the food industry – practically lobbying for them as the recent case with the usage and consumption of dairy suggests. Remember when the dietary guidelines food pyramid was changed due to lobbying. I think it was the 1980s? Ketchup is a vegetable.