I was once had the great honor of being forced to attend a brief given by the Sergeant Major of the Army, Raymond Chandler. He was on a whirlwind tour of Kuwait, and our Battalion was one of the stops. I can’t count the number of distinguished visitors we had, but SMA Chandler stuck out for a few reasons. You often see generals and politicians, but you don’t often see THE Sergeant Major of the Army.

He talked about lots of things; deployment cycles, uniform changes, SHARP, ect. Then he did a Q&A session. His visit occurred about the same time the Army was considering changing the PT test or adding a combat skills type PT test, so you know that some kid was going to ask about it.

“Sergeant Major, when are we going to see the new PT test?”

You could see the life drain out of the SMA’s eyes. He gave exactly no f*cks, and this is the one question he get's asked every time. But you can’t tell some kid to shut up when you are the SMA. He gave the canned response, but then got into the Army Times.

Now, I am paraphrasing here, but he said something like this:

“There is a reason that the Army Times is wrapped in plastic at the checkout counter. It has absolutely no content and if you were given the opportunity to really think about the purchase or to read it before buying, they would go out of business”

Is he right? Let’s take a look.