Some comments from your USAF brethren, we have a ridiculous fitness test that is comprised of a short ride on a stationary bicycle while some yabbo monitors our heart rate. Said yabbo is not a medical type but some poor admin yaboo who just happened to be the lowest ranking squattie in the office.
Now being Americans, we have to be fitness freaks (we invented jogging, didn’t we??). Thus it is not uncommon to see a fairly good crowd at the gym during the day. Yes, I said during the duty day, when many of us get over to do our workouts. But a larger crowd still avoids any physical training whatsoever, with some claims of being too busy at work (funny, they always find time for a cigarette break, though...). My point is this, our standards and methods of testing are a joke as they are randomly enforced. It is quite obvious who makes an effort to stay in reasonable shape and who doesn’t. Whether you can run a marathon or life 300 pounds over your head is not the issue...the issues are whether you can perform your job in a combat/increased ops tempo environment or not, and how you look in uniform. The first in important as it is our job, and if you wheeze out just doing your daily grind, than you will fall short when it comes time to work 100 straight 12+ hour days. The second part is the professional image of the armed forces. It is hard to keep John Q. Public’s confidence level up when a bunch of doughnut-eating slobs in sloppy uniforms are running around.
So, no, we in the Air Corps don’t need to be as fit as the paras or Marines, but there is still a need for physical fitness. Beside, it is you life we are talking about here, and if you want to spend it tubbing out and wheezing every time you climb a set of stairs, and smoking cigarettes like they are going out of style, then it is your choice. But when these poor habits mean I have to pick up where you falter, then it becomes OUR problem. I have yet to see pure individualism in the military, we are all a part of a bigger team that depends on each one of us. When you fail to uphold your part, then the rest of the team has to work harder to make up the slack.
Think about it...
Cheers!