Photo By Maj. Fredrick Williams | Sgt. Corbin Hill (left), an M1 tank crewman with Company C, 1st Battalion, 16th...... read more read more
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FORT RILEY, Kan. – “It’s about getting the right Soldier in the right job for the Army,” said Jack Myers, lead planner for Soldier 2020, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.
This was the mantra repeated throughout the week by Meyers and the rest of his teammates from TRADOC during the Army Physical Demands Study held at Fort Riley June 22-26.
“We’re studying the physical demands of these jobs,” Myers said. "We are trying to develop screening tests that the Army can use in the recruiting process or during accessions to help us get the right Soldier in the right job (and) to help screen Soldiers for physically-demanding jobs.”
Approximately 46 male M1 tank crewmen and 46 female Soldiers from various military occupational specialties throughout the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, volunteered to participate.
An additional eight female Soldiers from the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, also participated.
“I think it was an excellent opportunity to be selected,” said 1st Lt. Jessica Dodd, a medical services officer with 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st ABCT, 1st Infantry Division. “I think my participation will allow new recruits a better understanding of what to expect when they join and will set them up for success in the proper MOS.”
The study, led by the TRADOC with the support from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, will use the data collected at Fort Riley and from previous installations to establish occupational-specific physical performance requirements, starting with the specialties currently closed to women.
“They look at Soldier performance and how to optimize that, so they are absolutely the right folks to design and execute this study,” Myers said, referring to USARIEM. “They are like world-renowned experts in this type of study.”
Myers said in the past two years of the study, TRADOC observed different types of units in various locations and environments across the Army so they would have a good cross-section of the Army.
The study at Fort Riley focused on M1 tank crewman tasks.
Myers said the purpose of the study is to provide valid, reliable, legally defensible predictive tests to be used to select Soldiers for placement into physically demanding occupations and determine what it takes to physically perform the physically demanding tasks required in military occupations.
“Currently the Army does not have anything like that; we have the ASVAB and a couple of other tests that look at cognitive things,” Myers said. “We do some height-weight screening and we do some medical screening but we don’t do any type of performance screening for Soldiers that want to join the Army.”
The Soldiers conducted a series of criterion tasks provided by the different proponents, including the armor, infantry, artillery and engineer schools. These schools provided input to the overall process and helped decide which tasks would be selected for the PDS.
“A criterion task is basically a simulation of an actual Soldier task,” Myers said. “One of the physically-demanding tasks for an (M1 armor crewman) is to load the main gun of the tank, so the Soldiers will do that task or a simulation of that task.”
The all-volunteer test group was divided evenly between male and female Soldiers who were rated on their ability perform tasks like simulated tactical movements under fire, evacuation a casualty, preparation of a fighting position and a 4-mile foot march.
Both male and female Soldiers were tested on the same tasks and their ability to perform under the same conditions.
“To be honest, seeing the females do the same MOS activities that we do, often, they did it better than often some of my comrades in my unit,” said Pfc. Kevin Antiporta, an M1 tank crewman with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st ABCT, 1st Infantry Division. “They can do the job just like we can.”
Following the completion of the criterion tasks, the Soldiers focused on a series of predictive tasks or potential predictive tasks, such as lifting of a dumbbell, which measured their muscular strength, or conducting a 300-meter run, which measured their cardiovascular fitness.
All data collected will be used to try to find a correlation between the two series of tests, Myers said.
The study was developed in response to then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s rescinding of the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule in January 2013, and his directing the integration of women into currently closed units and positions in the military.
“I think this is a very important test,” Peter Frykman, a research physiologist with USARIEM, said. “We will end up, hopefully, in the future, having the right Soldiers paired up with the right jobs that they do.”
Fort Riley is the last installation to be tested in this phase of study prior to the mandated implementation date of Jan. 1, 2016.
| Date Taken: | 06.26.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.09.2015 15:46 |
| Story ID: | 169536 |
| Location: | FORT RILEY, KS, US |
| Web Views: | 96 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, ‘Devil’ brigade participates in Soldier 2020 physical demands study, by MAJ Fredrick Williams, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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