PFT and Promotions

[BRM21o]

How does PFT factor into officer promotions? I can max out the Pull-ups and Crunches but I have always been a horrible runner. My best time is a 22:00 and I usually run around a 23:00. Will this have a negative impact on promotions if you have a slow run time but a pretty good overall PFT score?

S/F

 

[Taxman2A]

As Officers we don't have "cutting scores" or anything like that, the way we get promoted is this:
- Commissioned a Second Lt.
- Automatically promoted to First Lt 2 years from the day we are commissioned
- 4 years from commissioning you are "in zone" for Captain. There is a board for selection to Captain, albeit a not very competitive one (right now I think above 95% selection). They look at your total package on selection boards, to include your class rank at TBS, your fitness reports in the fleet, etc.
-I believe 5 years after pinning on Captain, you will be in zone for Major. Once again there is a selection board, this time more selective than before. At this board the billets you have held will start to come into play (i.e., did you hold any command? what B Billets did you fill? what deployments were you on? were you in the fleet as a Lt? Capt?) This is where PT could play a part.

If you can't PT you are less likely to be selected to fill command billets. I was told that the magic number for command billets is to hold a minimum of a 250 PFT.

I am a ground officer, and I was given all this above information in a conversation I had with a Col (who I generally consider to know a thing or two about promotions). Keep in mind that this is from a ground Officer perspective. I'm sure if you are a pilot they don't look at things like Command as much when you are going for Major.

So then- if you can max pullups and crunches your run time shouldn't drag down your overall PFT so much that it hurts you for promotion.
If you can't run, you will absolutely hate your life at OCS, but after that it probably won't effect your Officer career that much.

 

[phrogdriver]

I concur with most of what Taxman says, except that officers of all MOSs are done by the same board. Major is still a 75-85% selection rate, so PT is usually not a factor unless it is downright slovenly, i.e. not a first class score for your age. Generally really poor PTers aren't great officers anyway, so it's only one more nail on the coffin. If a poor PFT is paired with being at the limits of ht/wt standards, it can be a killer, though. Remember that you generally slow down a little with age and not PTing as religiously as before--my 18:09 run in TBS is now about a 22:30. If you are starting at 22:00 as a 21-year-old and get slower every year, after 10 years you might be hurting.

Billet assignments are done independently of promotion boards (in theory, at least until you're very senior), so that's a different animal. True "Commanding Officer" billets are for LtCols in most cases for most MOSs, oddball billets like recruiting station COs excepted.

 

[samadma]

FYI. An Recruiting Station Commanding Officer (RS CO) is equivalent to a Battalion Commanders billet (LtCol/Col). Also, you have to be selected for it. Just FYI for those who dare think about doing recruiting duty.

 

[phrogdriver]

But RS COs are majors. A decent way to get to be a CO as a major, if you don't mind death by quota.

A Col would be taking it in the shorts as a CO of a battalion--he should be getting a regiment.

 

[UORBulldog]

Once you're commissioned how do PFT's work? Do you have to get tested every so often mandatorily or what?

 

[Crowbar]

You have to take a PFT at a minimum every six months. One between 1 January and 30 June, another between 1 July and 31 December. Usually it's more often than that, for various reasons.