FORT LEWIS — They don’t have anything against a game of volleyball or basketball. It’s good exercise, builds teamwork and camaraderie. But as far as Fort Lewis’ senior commanders are concerned, it’s just not right for “PT.”
The post has gone back to basics for physical fitness training. A bright red line has been drawn around the magic hour of 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. each day, Monday through Friday, and set aside for soldiers to do push-ups and sit-ups, calisthenics, combatives and, of course, running.
And no team sports.
“Softball, flag football, whatever … There is some aerobic activity to that,” acknowledged Command Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe, the post’s senior enlisted soldier and an architect of the revised PT policy. “But for that one-hour snapshot, five times a week, and being a nation at war, and the combat-focused installation that we are, we need to get the most bang for the buck out of that hour.”
The changes, published last November in revisions to “The Basic Standards of I Corps and Fort Lewis,” passed without much grousing in the ranks, at least none for the record for this story.
Mandatory PT went from four days a week to five, and the new rules tightened up uniform standards.
Some complained privately about the rule scrapping team sports, including some commanders who felt like it impinged on their discretion to lead their units as they saw fit.
But Grippe said he and the post’s commanding general, Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby Jr., want soldiers in wartime to focus on “the warrior tasks.”
“We’re not being ‘bah humbug, no intramural sports,’” Grippe said in a recent interview. “After 7:30, you can do as you please … The commander and I encourage soldiers to do more than that one hour of PT.”
Grippe, for his part, said he works out five or six days a week — stretching, weights and lots of running. The command revised the post’s PT standards to make sure soldiers know “we must be physically fit at all times to take on the physical and mental stresses of combat.”
Soldiers working out with their units one morning last week said they hadn’t much noticed the change. At other duty stations, they occasionally played team sports during PT, but they don’t miss it here, they said.
“At my last unit, in Korea, we had Fridays where we did sports,” said Sgt. Lisa Riordan. “It seemed like it was when people got hurt more. That’s where most of the injuries came out.”
Her commander, Capt. Eric Haas, said that at captain’s school at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., they would occasionally play soccer for PT. Guys in their 30s trying to play a start-stop-start running game like soccer on wet grass was a bad mix, he said.
In training Thursday at Fort Lewis, Haas, Riordan and the rest of their company went on a 3-mile run wearing their body armor. Along the route, in a pre-dawn mix of snow and rain, they stopped for crunches and leg lifts and other calisthenics. They mix up the routine from day to day. Some days they shed the body armor and go for longer runs. They do strength training. They occasionally work out in the pool, Haas said.
His company’s senior enlisted soldier, 1st Sgt. Jeffrey Clyons, said the approach is to make sure their intelligence soldiers are as fit and nimble as the infantry and cavalry scouts they’ll have to accompany into combat.
The 572nd is part of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and some of the company’s troops will be assigned to go out on patrols and missions with other Stryker soldiers.
“We have to be as fit or more fit than the shooters,” Clyons said. “We have to be an asset, not a liability.”
Across the 5th Brigade area at North Fort Lewis on Thursday morning, squads worked out with a variety of routines.
Lt. Caleb Phillips and Sgt. 1st Class Michael Field put their platoon in the 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment through a strength and flexibility regimen aimed at an overall fitness level they say they’ll need when they’re on the job in Iraq.
Soldiers also said they think they get the same team-building and bonding out of their morning routine together as they would if they were playing a team sport.
“There’s motivation and encouragement to push each other on,” Riordan said.
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