July 25, 2005
All together now
Your CO may pay the price if you don’t shape up, so get ready for unit PT
By Mark D. Faram
Times staff writer
Navy leaders have fired a shot across the bow of every sailor, telling them to stay in shape or eventually face expulsion from the service.
The new twist: Commanders and others in the chain of command also are accountable for a sailor’s fitness failures.
And if bosses heed the advice of headquarters, thrice-weekly, command-sponsored physical fitness programs may soon be part of every sailor’s workweek. That goes for both sea and shore commands.
The Navy’s new, tougher Physical Fitness Assessment policies are expected to be formally announced in a Naval Administrative Message any day. In addition to the policy changes, the message will strongly encourage — but not directly order — commands to implement organized PT sessions during the workday to ensure sailors succeed under the new rules.
Navy Times has been briefed on the new rules by key policy architects, including Vice Adm. Gerry Hoewing, chief of naval personnel, and Fleet Master Chief (AW/SW) Jon Thompson, the senior enlisted sailor at Fleet Forces Command.
For years, sailors have been expected to stay in shape mostly on their own time, save a few communities such as divers, explosive ordnance disposal technicians, SEALs and Seabees that have long carved out time during work to allow their sailors to exercise.
Now Navy leaders want all sailors to take PT more seriously.
As has historically been the case, Navy brass remain reluctant to require commanding officers and officers in charge to carve out time in the workday for sailors to PT. That hasn’t changed.
Policy planners hope, instead, that by holding COs, officers in charge and senior enlisteds accountable on their fitness reports for their command’s failure rates, they will be motivated to create the “culture of fitness” the leaders say they want.
“We don’t want to plan a ship’s workday from Washington,” Hoewing said. “That doesn’t work, because we can’t predict what they are doing operationally on any given day.”
Instead, Hoewing said officials can use other means to get commanders to comply, including finding ways to reward commands whose fitness levels are higher than the rest.
“I think we need to find ways to put more incentives into our physical training program and I have challenged our people to come up with ideas over the next year,” Hoewing said.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark agrees with the new approach.
“I believe that we have a culture of a fitness test [rather] than a culture of fitness,” said Clark in a July 5 interview with Navy Times.
Clark said the working hours of Navy deployments and the inconveniences of shipboard life can sometimes make it difficult to stay in shape while at sea.
“But this is what we really need, to provide the opportunity for people to have real quality service. We need a system and a culture that is about fitness,” he said.
Carrot and the stick
Clearly, Clark thinks that the new carrot-and-stick approach to getting commanders to ensure their sailors are fit is the way to go.
“I absolutely believe that commanding officers are supposed to be assessed on the manner in which they execute, period. That’s what leadership and command is about,” Clark said.
Only after commands begin to focus on helping their sailors PT regularly will the service begin to change the culture, he said.
“We will expect commanders to make time available for their sailors to PT,” he said. “Yes, it does take time out of the workday, and that is tough because we are all busy people, but commanders must find a way to do this — that is what they are being paid for.”
If leaders do not comply with the “request” and their commands do not perform well on the PFA, their fitness reports, as well as those of their subordinate leaders in their commands, could start to suffer, too.
Hoewing said he already has instituted a PT program for all military and civilian workers under his direct command. He even offers to run with anyone who wants to tag along.
In a message to the fleet announcing his intentions for the new PT policies, Hoewing said only that leaders must “stress the importance of the physical readiness program and support and encourage time for physical training during the week.”
Hoewing went on to explain, though, that he plans to hold commanders responsible for fitness failures; those commanders should, in turn, hold their officers and senior enlisted sailors accountable as well.
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/AW) Terry Scott fully supports the move, saying it is really up to the chiefs’ mess to help commanders provide workout time for their sailors.
“The command master chiefs and the chiefs’ mess must be helping drive this on the deck plates,” Scott said.
That involvement from the chief and sailors’ “buy in” to the program is what will drive a culture change in the Navy, he said.
Clark said he considers fitness a readiness issue, especially under his quick-deployment Fleet Response Plan initiatives.
“If I never again hear a sailor say they are on the ‘three mile a year’ PT program, it will be too soon,” Clark said.
“Being fit is part of the job and our sailors must know that and carry that out — but to do that they need command support,” he said. “If the command cannot PT as a unit because of ongoing operations, then it must fall to the departmental chiefs to get it done. If that can’t happen, it goes down to the divisional chiefs.”
The most difficult step
The hardest part for both sailors and commands is taking the first step, Thompson said.
“When I go to the gym, the hardest part is putting on my shorts and getting started — I think commands will find that, too,” he said.
“The toughest part of making PT time available to their sailors for commands and commanders is the committing themselves to doing so.”
Even before the changes to the fitness instruction were announced, a growing number of ships and deploying commands began working out as a group at least once a week. They’ve also begun to organize at-sea sessions.
“I would argue that there is enough time in a workday to fit this in somehow, somewhere,” Thompson said.
Hoewing said that before any sailor is sent home for being out of shape, commanders must be “very sure” they have provided that sailor with every chance to succeed at PT. They must prove that they have policies and programs in place under their command to ensure sailors can improve — and that includes providing time for workday workouts.
“Before we discharge anyone,” he said, “we need to ensure that we have done everything we can to help those sailors succeed,” he said.