America's New Age Army

I consume more war- and military-related culture than perhaps I ought -- maybe it's because I'm just another emasculated Last Man looking for something to believe in, at the end of history. I don't actually like war that much, but I do like the accoutrements of it. Not just the gear, but the gear/human combination of the tuned and trained human body amplified by technology. That's why I like special forces most of all -- I know the extreme level of training they undergo is so far beyond me that it amazes me that I'm a member of the same species. 

But so it's a jarring to be reminded that the vast majority of the army is made up of very average Joe and Jane Schmoes, many of whom ended up at the recruiting centre because they were too poor, to dumb, or too anti-social to get by in regular society. The army may turn out men and women who are the best of the best, but the inputs aren't always so impressive. 

Today's NYT fronts a somewhat depressing story about the sorry state of today's recruits.  The short version is that recruits today are fat and slow, with poor bone density caused by eating too much junk food and spending too much time playing video games. As a result, they are getting injured during basic training at a much higher rate than even a few years ago.  

This year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight.”
“Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent,” the report concluded. 

That's the bad news. The good news is that it is forcing some much-needed changes in how the army trains its young soldiers. It's funny, I always assumed that the military would be at the cutting edge of physical training, but it turns out it's still stuck in gym class circa 1978: Lots of running, situps and pullups, calisthenics, and so on. But now - in an effort to reduce injuries - they are looking at a fitness regime that begins by looking at what sort of skills soldiers actually need, and building upon that. What it ends up with sounds less Officer and a Gentleman, more like a PX90 infomercial:

Some of the new routines would look familiar to a devotee of pilates, yoga or even the latest home workout regimens on DVD, with a variety of side twists, back bridges and rowinglike exercises. “It’s more whole body,” said First Lt. Tameeka Hayes, a platoon leader for a class of new privates at Fort Jackson. “No one who has done this routine says we’ve made it easier.”

They've gone and re-did the mess hall as well. More vegetables and less fried food. They've even put signs near the fries labelling them "Performance Limiting Foods."

I've heard lots of stories over the years about how the army is the most conservative institution in America. I had no idea.