Some airmen want to train like Marines - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Some airmen want to train like Marines

It’s been about four months since an Air Force basic military training instructor boasted in a recruiting ad that airmen emerge from the program “in better shape than most Marines are.”

The claim, understandably, drew fire from throughout the Marine Corps — and the ad was quickly yanked.

Now, some airmen are advertising a different message about their service’s overall fitness, saying the Air Force’s physical training test does not adequately measure combat readiness. Some have even been so bold as to call for a second test akin to the Corps’ Combat Fitness Test.

Air Force officials are giving the idea serious consideration.

Airmen’s current PT test, which they take twice a year, consists of running a mile and a half, doing as many push-ups as possible in a minute, ditto for sit-ups, and then getting a waist measurement.

The CFT, which Marines take once a year to augment their PFT, requires Marines to sprint 880 yards, lift a 30-pound ammo can over their heads for two minutes, and then navigate a 300-yard “maneuver under fire” obstacle course that includes crawling, carrying a mock casualty and throwing a dummy grenade.

Several leathernecks stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., recently invited seven airmen assigned to the 33rd Fighter Wing to join them for a run through the CFT. Those airmen said afterward that there is no comparison between their PT test and the Corps’ CFT.

“I could barely feel my legs when I was done,” said Air Force Staff Sgt. Simon Delacruz, assigned to the 96th Security Forces Squadron.

About 10 percent of Marines failed the CFT during the phase-in period, which ended last March, and so far only 5 percent have achieved a perfect 300-point score, according to the Corps.

The push for an Air Force CFT has come mostly from airmen with combat experience.

While downrange, “not once did a situation come up where you had to run a mile and a half. And no one could care less if you had a 32-inch waist,” said Tech. Sgt. James Geiss. “When those rocket/mortar attacks hit the base, what mattered was that you get your butt to safety.”

Air Force Capt. Thomas Worden found during a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan that many airmen could not even run for cover.

When Worden returned in April 2007, the civil engineer went off to the Air Force Institute of Technology, where he attempted to measure an airman’s combat fitness.

Though Worden believes more research is needed, he said he is convinced the Air Force must include combat fitness in its fitness program.

The PT test, he said, is “not very good at measuring if you will be good at combat.”

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