June 1, 2019
How 'Fit' Does the U.S. Military Need to Be?
Depends on the job?
by Task and Purpose
A burly Marine may repel the Taliban in Afghanistan or an elite Special Forces unit may engage Islamic State fighters in urban warfare, but these are just peripheral threats.
When Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a letter to his troops just before the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, he told them, “I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.†He was writing to American troops who had to meet these minimum physical requirements: seven pull-ups, 31 jump squats, 27 push-ups, 52 sit-ups, and a 300-yard sprint in 52.5 seconds. Soldiers — all of them — had to be fit in 1944.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-fit-does-us-military-need-be-60517
