He's also rebranding to a macho aesthetic, encouraging bringing back hazing, tossing bunks, "shark attacks" and drill sergeants putting hands on recruits. I'm no expert but maybe if we're having trouble recruiting we shouldn't lead with ways to make military life suck even more?
It’s not, that’s silly.
It turns out that it’s kind of hard to establish uniform physical fitness standards at scale! They have to be cheap to implement and easy to execute in a wide range of environments.
No one can agree on how much fitness a soldier needs to be minimally effective, but you know for sure every stakeholder has a strong and incorrect opinion on it. Oh, and if you raise the bar too high, you won’t meet your enlistment goals, and readiness suffers.