Army says generals can substitute two-minute plank in lieu of victory in Afghanistan
By Cat Astronaut
The Army has revised its long-held policy on winning wars after the Biden administration announced all U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. Officials say new regulations allow all general officers to plank for two minutes in lieu of a decisive victory in a war that has lasted nearly 20 years.
“It’s important that our combat performance accounts for the strategic, intellectual, and physiological differences between our leadership and the Taliban’s,” said Acting Secretary of the Army John E. Whitley. “Just because our generals don’t have the ability to defeat a third world enemy with a budget the size of four-and-a-half F-35s doesn’t mean they don’t have what it takes to wear the uniform.”
Though Army officials acknowledged that winning a war once in a while is certainly a good measure of a general’s fitness, they said war does nothing to measure core isometric strength and stability the way the plank does.
The test will be gender-neutral and scored using a tiered scoring system with five performance categories: Platinum, Gold, Kevlar, CLP, and Moon Dust. Those in the Platinum and Gold categories will be among the fittest 10% of generals in the Army, while those in the Moon Dust category can be described as “moving in slow motion, as if they’re trying to run in moon dust.”
“In initial testing, unfortunately, every single general has classed into the Moon Dust category,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville. “Which we thought was statistically impossible, until we saw these people try to exercise.”
McConville says the results have nevertheless been enthusiastically received within the force. After the undisputed success of the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT, the Army said the plank had demonstrated its value as a replacement for all manner of military competencies.
“We’ve found that planks are the perfect substitute for all the hard stuff we don’t want to do. Leg tucks, victory in war, treating soldiers with respect and decency as if they’re actually human beings,” said McConville. “We don’t have to do any of that crap anymore. Just plank and be done with it.
“We even tried letting lieutenants plank in place of land nav, but none of them lasted more than a minute without getting lost.”
At press time, senior Army officials were reportedly “freaking out” the service would be stuck in Afghanistan indefinitely if it couldn’t find at least one general officer that could plank for more than 30 seconds.
Cat Astronaut is a demobilized mobile infantryman and the creator of Ye Olde Tyme News.