Despite what people may think about the fitness of the reserves, the physical entry requirements are the same for both reg force AND reserves. The 19 pushup, 19 situp thing needs to be done by everyone (unless you‘re female, then it‘s 9 pushups and 15 situpes). They‘re still doing the step test as the entry requirement, but they‘re going back to the shuttle run... to be implemented sometime soon. The reserves may not do the 13km ruck march every year the way the regs do, and yes, there are people who‘s physical fitness is lacking, but that isn‘t just in the MO. I saw a reg force RMS clerk who was about 5‘2" and about 350-400 pounds. Don‘t tell me that she could‘ve done it.
As for standards going down, people have been saying that about training since the dawn of time "Oh, it was so much harder when I did it." My grandfather was told that by the ‘old boys‘ when he joined in 1939. Everyone talks longingly about the old days, and how much harder it was, and how everything sucks now and we‘re not training people as well as we used to. Either the old soldiers were absolutely murdered during training, going through the most rigorous training in the history of combat, or things aren‘t really that bad.
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