What is the most appropriate way to address someone being given a false PT score, while minimizing the damage to their career?

CPL Santos,
I'm going to be very direct. Personally, and I don't care what her MOS is, I don't want a soldier who displays an utter lack of integrity in my Army. She had at least a couple of opportunities to fix this. 1. Either she didn't know the PT test was pencil-whipped or she did. If she didn't, as soon as she became aware of it, she should have cleared the air. If she did, she is disloyal, failed in her duty, failed to show respect to both the rank, the promotion board, and her leadership, is selfish, is dishonorable, lacks integrity and personal courage. 2. When she failed the PT test, she showed a gross lack of readiness, which is unsat in our Army, especially right now. She should have cleared the air then.

I'll be honest, I am a bit irritated at the fact that there is a soldier out there somewhere who is about to be promoted to become a leader of soldiers under these circumstance. I sincerely hope she is not in the 35 CMF.

The Soldier is complicit in the forging of an official training record. She then allowed that record to be used to accept a promotion.
That violates the spirit and the letter of the entire first paragraph of the NCO Creed.
She has no business accepting a promotion based upon this.
Were she my Soldier, she'd be trundled down to the PT Track for an immediate record APFT. Regardless of score, the new one would be the basis for a recalculation in promotion points. She would be flagged until it hit the PPRL and I was sure that the new score was reflected there.

I wouldn't necessarily punish her for what had happened elsewhere, but I'd sure as hell counsel her. Her actions after she arrived in my unit would be scrutinized carefully. I don't know this Soldier, but she isn't getting off on the right foot.
I need NCOs with integrity, personal courage, and selfless service. This is not that. If she gets her head right - and apparently her fitness as well - then she can move out smartly and potentially lead others.
Until then, she needs to get her mind right.

Well, frankly, if you cannot for certain prove that it was falsified there isn't a whole lot that you can do. However, if the soldier fails a real OR test prior to being pinned she can be flagged and that will postpone any promotion. Fail another one and administrative action can be done to separate them. Frankly, they obviously don't have the integrity it takes to be a leader anyways. I would see that they take an APFT as soon as possible and flag them if they fail.

When I was attending the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, we were "requested" by the command of Beaumont Army Hospital to conduct their APFT. Be careful for what you ask for. Many of the USASMA students that volunteered were combat arms and a large number of those were former drill sergeants. The many different violations of form and function of doing sit-ups and especially pushups were astounding. The hospital chief, a Colonel, was one of the worse when it came to doing pushups. After being told several times that his pushups were not meeting the standard, he finally quit and then blew his stack.

He said that he had never failed an APFT previously during his career and nobody had ever questioned his pushups before. Needless to say, there were a number of the military hospital staff that didn't do well on the APFT that day. I doubt that USASMA students were ever invited back to be graders again.

I did have knowledge of a CSM that was caught falsifying his APFT card, subsequently received a field grade Article 15 and retired. When members of leadership or the command team do their PT and take the APFT separately from the rest of the Solders, that's not a good sign.

Some of you may not like what I’m about to say, but many top brass and senior NCO’s are some of the most guilty culprits for “pencil whipping” their PT scores & height/weight records... ironically, they’re the same ones who’ll bring punitive action against lower enlisted for failing PT tests and being overweight.

There are the policies that should be adhered to regardless of the reasons. There are consequences for actions. From the information I'm reading, I find it hard to believe a promotable E4 would not be updating their promotion points as soon as they get more, unless it is one of those MOSes where the points are really low. If that is the case, a passing PT score would probably have had enough points. 300 points can only help promotion points. If this soldier did not know, then someone else was taking care of her promotion points in the system. I'm of the opinion she knew what was going on. Shady business all around.

That being said, has this soldier consistently performed well on PT, with high 200s and happened to hit 300 this one time? Or was this a consistent 180 soldier? Could she have had a seriously beyond belief off day during this diagnostic? Will she be able to perform well on the next one or will she likely do poorly on the record, and not fail again?

I mention this because when I was an E4, my points in secondary zone was consistently 798. My only hope of promotion was that it would fall low enough to be promoted early. I did my best to max my push ups and sit ups and ran as fast as I could to get as many points towards promotion. I still needed to wait until I hit primary zone and points fell low enough. After promotion, my average PT score was in the 220s. In recent history, I was having a bad day, failed my PT test, and passed the next 2 diagnostics without issue and I have confidence for my next record. My whole chain of command was disappointed in me because if I passed that morning of the record PT test, I would have received an award later that day, and been promoted at the first of the next month. No one was disappointed more than I, but no one was going to falsify my PT test because I was 1:30 off from passing.

So if she expects her performance for a record PT test to reflect what her actual physical conditioning readiness is, and not the 300 that was falsified, the sooner she clears it up the better. Take responsibility for what happened. It is possible to discuss it as non-judicial punishment, and will likely be flagged and lose promotable status. The soldier should do what is right, as should you CPL.

Not to take the side of any wrongdoing, but there are several pieces of information that are missing here. For example, what was the time frame between the soldier reporting to the unit and the diagnostic PT test. For example, if her previous duty station was in Florida and she was PCS’d to Ft. Carson, Colorado, that is a severe altitude change that would affect her APFT score in a major way, especially her 2 mile run time, and I as an NCO, would NOT give her an APFT right after she arrived. In other words, was she allowed time to acclimate.

Thanks for squaring me away 1SG it's corrected.

To be honest part of me is disgusted that you would even be looking for a way to minimizee any of the consequences of any soldier involved with this, but a small part recognizes that it is probably out of a sense of loyalty to your peer.
The bottom line is anyone involved should face the full consiqueses of their actions.
The NCO Corps does not need anymore people with a lack of integrity.
I'm sure there was no malice involved in what they did probably just trying to hook a buddy up right?
Well the problem is as a leader we are expected to lead by example and no one involved will ever have a leg to stand on if their troops find out what they did and it could be used against them by their soldiers.
How do you correct a soldier for failing p.t. If you can't pass yourself? How do you fail a soldier if they know you pencil whipped a score for someone else?
Nope we don't need NCO's like this.

This whole scenario doesn't really make sense to me. Why would someone pencil whip a 300 knowing that the person being scored couldn't achieve that? Why would the person receiving the score allow it to be whipped that high IF they knew it was happening? Especially going to a new unit with a promotion hanging in the balance.