{"id":143794,"date":"2024-04-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=143794"},"modified":"2024-04-05T17:20:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T17:20:56","slug":"soldier-revolutionizes-army-fitness-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=143794","title":{"rendered":"Soldier revolutionizes Army fitness standards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Sgt. 1st Class Latoya Greene, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, III Armored Corps, receives the champion award. She was inducted into the Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame in March 2024.
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\n Sgt. 1st Class Latoya Greene, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, III Armored Corps, pulls a 5,600-pound dual rear-wheel truck during the Strongest Competition April 17, 2021.
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There are many phrases that can describe Sgt. 1st Class Latoya Greene, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, III Armored Corps, but \u201cout of shape\u201d is not among them.<\/p>\n

Greene is the very definition of a fitness enthusiast. She is up and working out in the gym at 4 a.m. most mornings and has participated in challenging physical events, including one of the Strongest Competitions hosted at Fort Cavazos, where she has pulled a vehicle weighing 5,600 pounds.<\/p>\n

Despite this, she has been \u201ctaped\u201d her entire career. The tape-test is used when a Soldier\u2019s body weight does not fall within the body mass index screening table.<\/p>\n

Greene knew there needed to be a change, but she put up with it until a little more than three years ago when a 19-year-old female Soldier reached out to her for help in passing the deadlift portion of the Army Combat Fitness Test.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first came out with the ACFT and they incorporated the deadlift … they were going by MOS (Military Occupational Specialty),\u201d she said. \u201cWe have females now that are in combat MOS\u2019s, so they have to be physically stronger. (The female Soldier) came to me because I was always strong and she was like, \u2018I need to pass the deadlift because I\u2019m not that strong.\u2019 So she was coming to the gym with me at four o\u2019clock in the morning. She finally passed the ACFT, but she failed tape. At that point, you could fail the PT (physical training) test and still stay in the Army, but if you fail tape, you get kicked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, when the tape-test was conducted on a woman, they were measured at their neck, the smallest part of their waist and the largest part of their buttocks. Greene said the Soldier she had helped to pass the ACFT was naturally curvy.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me that she was going to go on a juice cleanse (to pass the tape test),\u201d Greene said. \u201cNow, that hurt my heart because she was 19. That\u2019s how you get eating disorders. That\u2019s how you get body dysmorphia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greene was moved to take action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point of being in the military is to make changes,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t say that you love the Army, and you don\u2019t try to make it better. My goal was to make it better for those Soldiers coming behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started a petition on\u00a0change.org<\/a>\u00a0and shared it on her social media platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put my face on it, my body on it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt blew up. To talk about my struggles and what I\u2019ve been through \u2014 it was tough. Surprisingly, a lot of people were going through the same thing, but we all just chose to suffer in silence. It made me passionate because we have to do something for the next generation of Soldiers because that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the first day, the petition garnered more than 15,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just spread like wildfire,\u201d she said. \u201cI started reading the comments. There were a lot of veterans who\u2019ve dealt with body dysmorphia, and they still deal with it to this day because of the way the Army taped them. \u2026 It was just heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Greene was preparing to make a permanent change of station move to South Korea, in 2021, the Army announced that a body composition study was going to be conducted at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, so she decided to spend her PCS leave there to help the study be successful. She used her social media skills to bring out the volunteers that the researchers needed, and she also volunteered to be a part of the study.<\/p>\n

When Greene\u2019s Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry scan, or DEXA scan, was compared to her results from manual taping, the traditional taping method was 2 to 3% off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat matters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now change has already been set in motion. If a Soldier\u2019s MOS requires an ACFT score of more than 540 or above, that Soldier is not required to be taped. And if a Soldier is taped now, they are only measured around their abdomen no matter their gender. If a Soldier fails that tape test, they can go to the Fort Cavazos Armed Forces Wellness Center and test in the BOD POD GS-X, which is considered the gold standard of body composition testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve done an awesome job of fixing it and making it fair to everyone,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n

Last month, during Women\u2019s History Month, Greene was inducted into the Army Women\u2019s Foundation Hall of Fame, and received the organization\u2019s Champion award, due to her efforts in changing the narrative when it comes to the Army\u2019s body and fitness regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so amazing,\u201d she said of the ceremony conducted at the Army Women\u2019s History Museum in Arlington, Virginia. \u201cI was the only sergeant first class. It was all generals and (chief warrant officer fives).\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the experience showed her that the Army is still progressing and was good to see the changes that have been made, are being made and will be made.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times you\u2019re in a uniform and you\u2019re working, but you don\u2019t understand how far you\u2019ve actually come,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re still having firsts of women in 2024 in the military, so it hasn\u2019t been that many years, but a lot of times we don\u2019t think about how far we\u2019ve actually come and those people that are still out there fighting. For me, it was a blessing to be named with so many women but also to see that we\u2019re still working. We\u2019re still fighting. We\u2019ve come a long way, but we\u2019ve got a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that the change she desired has come to fruition, Greene said she is ready for retirement. She looks back throughout the time since posting the petition and knows she overcame obstacles and adversity because she was doing the right thing for future generations of Soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting any recognition,\u201d she said. \u201cI did it because it was the right thing to do and that\u2019s what noncommissioned officers do. I see Soldiers, I see people, I see subordinates who are inspired, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s about for me. My focus is never on those who look down on me but those who look up to me. I was always focused on (doing my job), which was being a steward of the profession and leaving this Army better than how I found it. I know I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Sgt. 1st Class Latoya Greene, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, III Armored Corps, receives the champion award. She was inducted into the Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame in March 2024. (Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of Sgt. 1st Class Latoya Greene. ) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 \/ 2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143796,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143794"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143799,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143794\/revisions\/143799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/143796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}