Military

Earlier this week, the U.S. Army announced that it will be replacing the Army Physical Fitness Test designed to better prepare soldiers for combat.

The all new Army Combat Fitness Test will be a requirement of all soldiers, regardless of age or gender, by October 2020. It is a test of six events that will measure “muscular strength, muscular endurance, power, flexibility, coordination, speed, agility, cardiovascular endurance, balance and reaction time.”

Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost told reporters at the Pentagon, “It’s going to improve soldier physical readiness; it’s going to change the Army fitness culture, reduce physical injuries … it will better inform commanders of unit readiness and will enhance mental toughness and stamina. I personally believe that the Army Combat Fitness Test will ignite a general cultural change in fitness for the Army and will be a cornerstone of individual combat readiness for the future.”

The six events of the new ACFT:

• Strength Deadlift. This is a three-repetition maximum deadlift to test muscular strength; it mimics movement to safety and effectively lifting and carrying heavy loads.
• Standing Power Throw. This event involves throwing a 10-pound medicine ball as far as possible over the head and to the rear. It measures upper and lower muscular power, balance and whole body flexibility.
• Hand-Raised Push-ups. This event forces the soldier to go all the way to the floor and raise his hands before coming back up again, measuring upper-body muscular endurance.
• A 250-Meter Sprint, Drag and Carry. This is five different events within one event — a 50-meter sprint; a backward 50-meter drag of a 90-pound sled; a 50-meter movement; a 50-meter carry of two 40-pound kettlebells; and a final 50-meter sprint. It measures muscular strength, power, speed and reaction time.
• Leg Tuck. A soldier hangs perpendicular to the pull-up bar and brings his knees up to his elbows and back down again for one repetition. It measures muscular strength, endurance and grip.
• Two-Mile Run. The ACFT retains the two-mile run portion of the APFT, which is designed to measure aerobic and muscular endurance.

All of the events must be completed in 50 minutes or less. Frost said there is mandated rest and a maximum time for each event. Two minutes’ rest between each of the events and five before the two-mile run.

There are still a lot of questions surrounding the new Army Combat Fitness Test to include policies and procedures, as well as alternate events, scoring systems, and more.

Starting in October 2019, the ACFT will be fully implemented to allow all soldiers to train up to the new standards.

Many have made incredibly strong arguments about the APFT and if it was a valid enough test to effectively measure readiness.

Sgt. Maj. Daniel Dailey, sergeant major of the Army went on record to say, “This supports the chief of staff of the Army’s and the secretary of the Army’s number one initiative, which is readiness. We need to assess our soldiers’ ability and improve that over time. The APFT is a physical fitness test that has served the Army well for decades, but we can improve upon it.”

A veterans group has blasted the Department of Veterans Affairs over leaked internal documents showing dozens of medical facilities performing at below-average levels.

The VA had previously refused to make the ratings public, claiming the system is for internal use only. It rates each of the VA’s medical centers on a scale of one to five, with one being the worst.

Roughly 45 facilities — many in the Upper Midwest and the Northeast — performed at an above-average rating, the report said, while 40 were below average.

The documents also show that some medical centers have not improved despite scandals and scrutiny from Congress. The Phoenix VA still sits at a one-star rating despite a 2014 scandal revealing veterans died while waiting for care and that staff manipulated wait-time data there and at other VA hospitals across the country.

The VA announced last October it plans to allocate $28 million to the Phoenix center in addition to its annual budget.

VA Undersecretary for Health David Shulkin told USA Today that the ratings system is primarily for internal use and that the public should avoid seeing it as a ranking tool.

“It is essentially a system within VA to see who’s improving, who’s getting worse, so we can identify both,” he told the newspaper. “My concern is that veterans are going to see that their hospital is a “one” in our star system, assume that’s bad quality, and veterans that need care are not going to get care. And they’re going to stay away from hospitals and that’s going to hurt people.”

Concerned Veterans for America, a veteran advocacy group that has been critical of the VA, released a statement condemning the findings. CVA Executive Director Mark Lucas said the ratings system underscores continuing problems in the organization and that the VA is not committed to transparency.

“By keeping this rating system secret, the VA was admitting that preserving the illusion of competency matters more to them than actually serving veterans — and the VA fails at both,” Lucas said. “The lengths to which the VA will go to hide its own bad performance should disturb veterans and American taxpayers alike.”

Read more: Stars and Stripes

Owen Reese Peterson, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran, initially went to the Oklahoma VA for an infection, which later ended up as sepsis – a condition in which chemicals, released by the immune system into the bloodstream to fight an infection trigger an inflammation throughout the body, damaging multiple organ systems, leading them to fail, commonly resulting in death.

Myles Deering, director of the Talihina Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs center, confirmed the maggots found did not enter the wound after Peterson’s death. Rather, they were present while he was still alive. He also stressed Peterson “did not succumb as a result of the parasites. He succumbed as a result of the sepsis.”

Peterson’s son, Raymie Parker, described his frustration with how poorly his father was treated saying, “During the 21 days I was there, … I pled with the medical staff, the senior medical staff, to increase his meds so his bandages could be changed.” And that he “Was met with a stonewall for much of that time.”

The result of this is that four staff members have resigned in wake of the investigation: a physician’s assistant and three nurses.

Deering said the agency reported the incident to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, and also submitted a report to the district attorney to see if charges are warranted.

Deering also said the agency is considering moving from the facility as it is nearly 100 years old, adding that fixing the existing structures would take millions of dollars.

Oklahoma State Sen. Frank Simpson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, said, “The Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs is required to maintain certain staffing levels and currently is unable to meet them. At Talihina, they had to reduce the population of veterans there due to the inability to staff the facility.”

That’s the very question on a lot of people’s mind.

But, seriously… What about all those guardsmen who’ve already repaid their enlistment bonuses?

The other question that probably will never get answered is: Why wait until two years after they started collecting to put a stop to this insanity?

Military.com asked this very question and here’s what they got as a response:

“How do you go back and address soldiers that have paid money back when we start alleviating debts of other soldiers? That’s what makes this a very complex issue,” Col. Peter Cross, director of public affairs for the California National Guard, said on Tuesday during a telephone interview with Military.com.

“I don’t have an answer,” he added. “It’s going to take some very precise language and studying of the issue to make everybody whole again. Otherwise, you’re going to have disparate treatment of soldiers.”

Read more: Military

Well… doesn’t that sound reassuring? Sounds like more of that hurry up and wait stuff that members in the military have become so accustomed to.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said Wednesday that he has ordered the Pentagon to suspend its efforts to collect payments from California Army National Guard soldiers who were told to return their enlistment bonuses.

Carter announced steps to resolve the cases of thousands of soldiers who collectively received millions of dollars in bonuses at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then were told years later that the money had to be repaid.

In a statement, Carter said he had ordered the Pentagon’s financial department to stop the payment collection until measures can be put in place to provide the affected service members with the support they need to appeal the process.

“There is no more important responsibility for the Department of Defense than keeping faith with our people. That means treating them fairly and equitably, honoring their service and sacrifice, and keeping our word,” Carter said in a statement. “Hundreds of affected Guard members in California have sought and been granted relief. But that process has simply moved too slowly and in some cases imposed unreasonable burdens on service members. That is unacceptable.”

Read more: The Washington Post

News broke over the weekend that National Guardsmen in California have been ordered to repay the bonuses they received for re-enlistment.

Here’s the glaring problem: It started 2 years ago!

That’s right. Two years ago the Pentagon performed an audit and realized that California was ‘overpaying’ re-enlistment bonuses to National Guardsmen.

Over these two years, they have collected back roughly $22 million.

These orders have put an undue financial burden on those affected. So much so, that some have had to leave the state because they can’t afford to live there. Another had to refinance their home in order to repay their bonus and student loan repayments. Some soldiers are having their National Guard pay garnished in upwards of $600-$700.

Rep. Darrell Issa had this to say:

The U.S. Navy will require all of its sailors to undergo transgender education training by next summer in response to a recent policy change that will allow transgender people to serve in the military.

The training will begin Nov. 1 and is intended to educate all sailors about the new policy as well as emphasize ”expectations of personal behavior” in response to the policy change.

The Navy plans to dispatch “mobile training teams” to senior leaders to conduct face-to-face meetings on how to appropriately handle the policy change. In addition, a “commander’s tool kit” will be distributed to Naval leaders that will further guide all personnel through the education process, Naval Personnel Command spokeswoman Lt. Jessica Anderson told Military.com.

However, the content of the education sessions has not yet been made public.

“Service members are expected to maintain standards of conduct and treat each other with dignity and respect,” Anderson said. “Training for sailors will be conducted by command triads via mobile training teams or DVD with a facilitation guide if the unit is in a remote area and unable to receive face-to-face training. There will also be webinars for [commanding officers] to ask questions prior to delivering training to their commands.”

All Naval personnel are required to undergo the training by July 1, 2017, which coincides with the day the Navy plans to begin accepting transgender recruits.

Continue reading: TheBlaze