“The ACFT … lowers standards and expectations for young, male soldiers while setting unrealistic standards for others, including those with fewer physical responsibilities such as … judge advocates.”
Wow, ladies and gentlemen of the Army JAG Corps. If that sentiment doesn’t serve as your 3am wakeup call, I genuinely don’t understand your interpretation of “Soldier First, Lawyer Always.”
The Washington Post is out with a report today which details the concerns of two Senators who believe the Army’s new ACFT—officially launched on the 1st of this month—will severely limit the career prospects of females (and attorneys!) in the force.
“We have considerable concerns regarding the negative impact [the test] may already be having on so many careers,” New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said in their letter, a copy of which the JAGWAR has now obtained. “It is imperative that we pause implementation until all questions and concerns are answered. Soldiers’ careers depend on it and the continued lethality of our force requires it.”
Soldiers conducting the “leg tuck” event. The exercise has proven to be an obstacle for several soldiers, many of whom are female. Army leaders claim that, with training, this event will not pose an obstacle to anyone.
The Post article cites the Senators’ concerns that the test will have a disproportionate impact on women, who make up 15% of the Army and “continue to fail [the ACFT] at dramatically higher rates than men.” The letter notes that eliminating the “leg-tuck” event specifically would significantly reduce failure rates. The Senators’ proposed solution is to delay implementation of the ACFT so as to accommodate more evaluation… of a test that was publicly announced half-a-decade ago.
Soldiers conducting the dead lift with the ACFT’s mandated “hex bar”.
These sentiments reiterate those already vocalized by soldiers skeptical about the ACFT’s single-scoring metric. But as active duty MAJ Kelly Buckner writes in her article published by the Modern War Institute, “Age- and gender-neutral standards are the only relevant measurement of physical readiness across the Army’s formations, because combat itself is inherently age- and gender-neutral.[T]he ACFT represents a cultural change the Army needs to prepare for the next fight.”
There’s a lot of merit to these Senators’ anxieties, which no doubt respond to complaints throughout the ranks and across the force. Moreover, there’s a wide range of legitimate practical, logistical, and health concerns associated with the ACFT—and they absolutely warrant additional study.
But from my foxhole as a member of the Army’s JAG Corps, I’m dismayed that the Senators’ letter specifically references judge advocates as one of the demographics ostensibly aggrieved by the ACFT, as members of a branch in need of a more lenient standard when it comes to gauging athletic capability.
Suffice it to say that the Senators’ attitude is NOT in keeping with our Corps motto. Ergo, it’s up to all of us—attorneys, paralegals, and legal administrators—to emphasize that we not only can meet a single Army standard, but that we can in fact lead the way in defining its applicability to every task and purpose in our OSJA formations. We are the consummate dual professionals; the quality of our legal counsel is a function of how well our commanders and colleagues receive it. If we can’t show ourselves to be worthy of sharing space on the battlefield, we may not get the chance to more meaningfully influence it.
So get after it, JAGWARriors. The ACFT may indeed be ripe for modification, but let’s work to ensure that never again are the members of our esteemed branch cited as the justification therefor!