A last resort to avoid the boot

[unhappycamper]

Groshong works on his sit-ups during Osan’s boot camp, which ended in July. He was so pleased with his results, he has returned to the PT camp.


A last resort to avoid the boot
By Franklin Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, October 21, 2008

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — Senior Airman Gabe Groshong, an overweight airman who faced dismissal from the Air Force if he flunked his fitness test one more time, is pleased to say that he is still in the military. And he doesn’t mind that he had to buy some new clothes.

Groshong, 25, of Lancaster, Pa., made it through "PT Boot Camp" here not long ago and emerged 17 pounds lighter and very relieved.

And Groshong is so pleased with the results that he’s right back in the boot camp — this time as a volunteer — for a six-week session that Osan launched Oct. 14.

"If I had failed this PT test at the end of the boot camp, I would have actually gotten kicked out of the Air Force … and gone back to the civilian life, which I wasn’t looking forward to," he said.

Groshong, of the 303rd Intelligence Squadron, said he passed thanks to the intensive, six-week course he and three dozen other airmen puffed and sweated their way through here over the summer.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58267