US Soldiers Don Fake Belly, Breasts To Better Understand Pregnant Troops' Concerns

[downandout]

CAMP ZAMA, Japan – The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training.

This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers.

Army enlisted leaders all over the world are being ordered to take the Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course, or PPPT, according to U.S. Army Medical Activity Japan health promotion educator Jana York.

Developed by the Army in 2008, the course includes aerobics classes, pool sessions and classroom studies on the physiology of pregnant women. The NCOs learn special exercises for pregnant women, who shouldn’t push themselves too hard or participate in high-impact activities such as snowboarding, bungee jumping or horse riding, York said.

During the training, each NCO must wear the pregnancy simulator for at least an hour.

“When they first come in, the males are typically timid and don’t feel they have the knowledge to teach female soldiers,” she said. “However, after three days their confidence rises.”

Sgt. Michael Braden, a helicopter crew chief who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, said he was less than enthusiastic about taking part.

“I didn’t want to do it,” said Braden, 29, of Everett, Wash.

The 78th Aviation Battalion mechanic said he was ordered to do the training even though he doesn’t have any female soldiers in his unit and doesn’t see himself as the right sort of person to run the aerobics classes that make up a large portion of the PPPT training.

Despite his misgivings, Braden strapped on the empathy belly and spent Tuesday morning learning low-impact aerobics moves like the “grapevine” and the “V-step.”

“This whole thing is pretty uncomfortable,” he said of the 25-pound pregnancy simulator. But, “body armor is a lot heavier.”

Braden said he didn’t know there was such a thing as physical training for pregnant soldiers before he started the course.

“I’ve learned that being pregnant is no excuse to avoid PT,” he said.

According to an Army fact sheet about the program, “moderate exercise promotes a more rapid recovery from the birth process and a faster return to required physical fitness levels.”

An Army study showed significant Army physical fitness test failures, height/weight failures, and increased injury and illness rates when active-duty soldiers who don’t take part in physical exercise during pregnancy return to their unit, according to the fact sheet.

The program, which is mandatory for pregnant soldiers, was set up to get them back to their units quickly after they give birth, according to Staff Sgt. Latoya Nieves-Gonzales, who is helping York train the NCOs at Camp Zama.

“Pregnant soldiers were trying to do [regular Army] physical training and they couldn’t do a lot of the exercises,” she said.

Soldiers have six months to meet the Army’s height and weight standards and pass a physical training test after they give birth, she said, adding that nine pregnant soldiers do PPPT training at Camp Zama each morning.

“In the last year, we have only had one soldier who didn’t meet those standards and she was already in the weight-reduction program before she got pregnant,” she said.

Female soldiers typically add 25-30 pounds during a pregnancy, said Nieves-Gonzales, who put on 20 pounds before the birth of her own son, Xavier, six years ago in Würzburg, Germany.

That was before PPPT training was mandatory.

“My unit said: ‘You can’t do PT with us so just sleep in,’ ” she said.

Still, soldiers used to mounting up with rucksacks and rifles were not too keen on the idea of strapping on a big belly and fake breasts.

“I’m not looking forward to wearing the pregnancy simulator,” said Sgt. Matthew Prout, a 26-year-old member of the 88th Military Police Detachment at Camp Zama.

The Army Combatives instructor said he was worried that the frontal weight would throw his balance off during aerobics routines.

“It gives me a better sense of what the pregnant woman is going through as she is going the exercises,” he said. “It will allow me to see both sides.”

It never occurred to Prout, when he joined the Army, that he’d learn to train pregnant soldiers, he said.

“My initial view of the Army was just kind of – we train, we fight,” he said. “But my eyes have been opened up to the family aspects of the Army as opposed to just the single soldier view.”

Prout, who is single, said he hoped the PPPT training would help him relate to his future wife when she gets pregnant.

“A lot of people when their wives get pregnant just say, ‘good luck,’ but I will be able to be there step by step,” he said.

xhttp://www.stripes.com/news/army/soldiers-don-fake-belly-breasts-to-better-understand-pregnant-troops-exercise-concerns-1.168786

Just another sign of how the U.S. is so beyond salvageable now. The government is feminized, the religions are feminized, the culture is feminized, and now the military is feminized. It's over.

[Legacy]

Even the Romans didn't go this far.

[Cobalt]

I'm the first to say that what the US needs is a more SENSITIVE AND GENTLE military...sorry, couldn't finish my sarcasm due to throwing up.

But this has GOT to be satire. Tell me it's satire. Please? The Onion? Please?

[Vic Ferrari]

"....and to teach the women empathy for men, women had to train with a gun in their mouth while having their pockets picked."

[xtc]

Are they allowed to take six months off at home when they feel like it too, and excused from the front lines if it gets a little bit dangerous?

[slowlearner]

"Empathy Bellies?" This culture has finally jumped the shark.

Funky Bright Pink Moving Cuckoo Wall Clock - YouTube



I'm surprised that they don't have a plastic packet of semen in the women's kits so they can perform an emergency insemination. That way, when it starts looking dangerous, they can go home.

[kirik]

I'm waiting for the female members to go through training where they see friends with heads blown off and limbs lost.... I won't hold my breath.

[Cobalt]

I'm former military, and the lovely ladies were NOT subjected to the same PT that the men were.

I wonder why?

[hhb3]

Remember the Army recruitment ads that went “be all that you can be?” Apparently, that now includes being a pregnant woman. Due to the epidemic of pregnant women in the US armed forces, most of whom are destined to be single mothers, male NCOs are being ordered to undergo a kind of sensitivity training that will supposedly help them understand the trials and needs of their pregnant troops. Actually, part of the program is to ensure that the pregnant “soldiers” maintain some level of fitness, probably to cut the costs associated with birth complications, which are more common in flabby, out of shape women.

Of course, calling pregnant women soldiers is a joke and an insult to taxpayers, but we’ve taken “equality” so far that people will actually use the term with a straight face. The NCOs, for their part, aren’t too excited about the exercises, but orders are orders.


Sgt. Michael Braden, a helicopter crew chief who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, said he was less than enthusiastic about taking part.

“I didn’t want to do it,” said Braden, 29, of Everett, Wash.

The 78th Aviation Battalion mechanic said he was ordered to do the training even though he doesn’t have any female soldiers in his unit and doesn’t see himself as the right sort of person to run the aerobics classes that make up a large portion of the PPPT training.

Despite his misgivings, Braden strapped on the empathy belly and spent Tuesday morning learning low-impact aerobics moves like the “grapevine” and the “V-step.”

“This whole thing is pretty uncomfortable,” he said of the 25-pound pregnancy simulator. But, “body armor is a lot heavier.”

I know a lot of people out there want “equality” in the military, but this is just a big scam, and little more than taxpayer-funded welfare. Why do all these women in the armed forces get pregnant? Because they get to take an all-expenses-paid break from uncomfortable work and the taxpayer supports their kid, who more often than not is illegitimate.

Despite the fact that this is no longer the Cold War and we don’t need an enormous military, we have more women in uniform than ever, and they are more expensive than comparable male soldiers. Furthermore, their legendary promiscuity undermines morale and spreads disease, and, most importantly, they fight like girls.

The only reason women are recruited into the military as soldiers (rather than into sex-segregated auxiliary units, where they belong) is so that they can receive yet more government goodies. It’s a scam, and no, women will never be deliberately sent into heavy combat situations — there will never be combat equality.

“Empathy Belly” Helps Soldiers Connect with their Inner Uterus - The Spearhead

[Zah]

Feeling empathy for cowards who get knocked up to avoid their duty? No thanks.

[toadman]

Is this what it has come to? USA sworn enemies are laughing their asses off now.

[TheBlueTurtle]

You have got to be kidding me.
Pregnant women in the military have special PT (physical training, basically exercise)
It's aptly called "pregnancy PT", and involves some mild calisthenics and stretching.
I've never done pregnancy pt myself(obviously), but have seen them working out a few times.

Then these women go to work in uniform after being given an hour to freshen up. They have a profile (piece of paper signed by a medical doctor detailing what they can and can't do.) The last two women that were pregnant in my unit were assigned to office work. They sat in an AC office filing papers and the sort while the rest of the unit (men mostly) were setting up a makeshift pipeline (50+ pound pipes).

The article also says that pregnant women shouldn't push themselves to hard. Yeah, they sluff off all week, and then hit the clubs, drinking until they vomit, and then go back to dancing, and then start a physical altercation with a female that is hotter than them. These women have it so tough!

There was an NCO in the article who mentioned that body armor was heavier than the pregnancy simulator. Damn right it is. Sometimes, units train in this gear! And I meaning training, not that pansy shit they were doing in the video.

Pregnant women have it harder in the military?
Puh-lease...

Oh, did I mention that prior to the baby being born, a woman has a choice if she wants to leave the military? Yeah. If she feels that the baby shouldn't be raised in a military environment, she can get "chaptered" out of the military. No punishment, usually full benefits, for getting knocked up and deciding the vow you took to uphold the constitution isn't valid anymore. Pathetic.

Sorry I'm getting all hot and bothered. But military topics get under my skin. This is just one of hundreds of reasons I didn't reenlist.

But, to be fair, there are women in the military who do an outstanding job, but they are few and far between, hence AWALT.

[chainlightning]

This is the same army that will attack Persia?

This is the same army that is fighting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan?

Oh and while the West continues dabbling in moronic ideologies....

Taliban eat into Afghanistan's core

"ISLAMABAD - As the United States steps up efforts to engage the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a peace process for Afghanistan, elements of the Taliban have initiated their own plan focusing on regaining the power they lost in 2001 following the US-led invasion.

This involves hijacking the efforts and finances that the US is investing in training and equipping the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP)."

[AussieSteve]

Welcome to Bizarro World.