A team of Marines on an Air Force Base did such a good job motivating airmen there to complete grueling Marine-style workouts that the base commander gave them medals.

Since 2022, a small group of Marines at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas have been holding Marine Corps-style PT sessions for airmen going through the base’s professional development schools.

Their goal: get the troops from the Air Force — often denigrated by more fitness-oriented branches as the ‘Chair Force’ — to pass the Marine Corps’ grueling Combat Fitness Test.

Apparently, the Marines did such a dedicated, motivated and fired-up job that the base commander decorated them with Air Force medals.

Marine Sgt. Alexander Martinez led the program, and was one of four Marines who received an award for developing the fitness regimen.

“Being a Marine on an Air Force base is a culture shock, but working with a sister branch in a joint effort is extremely valuable,” Martinez told Task & Purpose in an email. 

All the Marines including Martinez are assigned to a small Navy and Marine Corps detachment at Little Rock. The base is home for all flight training on the C-130 cargo plane. including for Navy and Marine Corps crews, who fly KC-130 tankers to refuel the Corp’s fighter jets and helicopters.

Martinez is the training chief for the base’s Naval Aviation Technical Training Unit, which oversees those crews.

The original idea to get Marines to run airmen through USMC-level PT came from the Air Force base leaders, Martinez said.

“The base chief master sergeant had an idea as to how they can implement fitness into their professional development and our squadron gunnery sergeant was contacted,” Martinez said. “We created the joint fitness cadre.”

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Martinez and his Marines put together a plan to run classes of airmen through a series of high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, workouts based on regimes the Marine Corps uses to prepare Marines for that service’s two fitness evaluations, the traditional Physical Fitness Test and the grueling ‘functional fitness’-based Combat Fitness Test. They launched the program with a class attending the base’s Airman Leadership School, the Air Force’s initial professional development course that all junior enlisted airmen must attend before being promoted to staff sergeant.

“The cadre and I built a HIIT-style event where the airmen would not only be required to perform a series of strenuous exercises but also build on their leadership prowess,” Martinez said. “We would challenge them to work as a team and brainstorm ideas to complete each exercise.”

Martinez said that might mean they would assign a workout of 23 pull-ups per person — a high number for even a PT-superstar — and force the airmen to work together to get every member to hit that number.

“It is up to them to think critically on how to complete each one if pull-ups are not an exercise they excel at,” Martinez said. He said they could jump into the pull-up, or get help with a boost from teammates. “They are responsible for each teammate’s completion, even if some of them struggle to finish their exercises.”

The Marines put the classes through burpees, kettlebell swings, laps around the track and other HIIT workouts.

The Marine Combat Fitness Test

Then came the big day: the Marine Combat Fitness Test.

“They are initially anxious when they are briefed on the events and what to expect as some of them have never had to do anything as physically demanding as this,” Martinez said. “Everyone who has done a CFT remembers their first time and how it breaks you down, but we emphasize how important it is in building resilience.”

The CFT is a grueling series of events meant to simulate movements and physical challenges of combat.

Wearing a full combat uniform — which for Marines is the Combat Utility Uniform, while the Air Force wears the Operational Camouflage Pattern uniform — the first event is “Movement to Contact,” an 880-yard sprint, usually on a track.

Second is the “Ammunition Lift,” in which troops like a 30-pound ammo can overhead, locking out their elbows on each rep, as many times as possible in a set time.

Finally, is the “Maneuver Under Fire,” a 300-yard course that includes crawling, ammunition resupply, throwing a grenade, agility running, and finally dragging and then carrying a fellow airmen playing a ‘patient.’

It’s a far cry from Air Force standards, which have long been a source of amusement for other branches — particularly in the 90s and early 2000s when the service’s annual fitness test was on a stationary bike. The current annual Air Force Physical Fitness Assessment is a mix of a 1.5-mile run, a 20-meter shuttle run and a series of push-ups, crunches and planks. Those with issues can even choose to walk 2 kilometers.

A Perfect 300 Score

“The airmen are most enthusiastic when they finish the entire CFT and sometimes they will ask if they can run another one in the future.”

Some, he said, truly excelled. Senior Airman Svetlana Escobar joined Martinez’s team of instructors after scoring a perfect 300.

In two years, the Marines put nine classes of the Airman Leadership School through the training, along with 12 other professional seminars and three all-base sporting events with 400 people. 

On Aug. 28,  Air Force Col. Denny Davies, the commander of the 19th Air Wing and the Little Rock base commander, awarded Martinez the Air and Space Commendation Medal. Davies awarded three other Marine instructors — Sgt. Alexander Avent, Sgt. Uziel Guerrero and Sgt, Angel Figeroaramos — the Air & Space Achievement medal.

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