Hi new to this... My daughter has just phoned and informed us that she failed her PFA at Kapooka and is going into the Ashley Platoon. This has come as a BIG surprise to us as she has nailed this twice before for pre-enlistment and performed much better than the boys in her group. She has always taken her physical fitness extremely seriously and is quite upset that this has happened. Is it possible that they could be using this as a mental test for her as there are only 2 x 17 year olds going through and the other 17 year old failed as well?? By extending her stay another 4 weeks she will be over 18... Thanks in advance.

Generally pretty cut and dried, you pass or you don't. The Kapooka PTIs will be more strict on form than the people that ran the PFAs, when they identify that you might be struggling, then they start cutting incomplete reps from your score and all of a sudden you get scored 10 good pushups, even though you did 35.

4 weeks of structured PT will do her the world of good and as long as her IET training isn't disrupted, another 4 weeks at Kapooka won't hurt her.

Tell her not to sweat it. In the grand scheme of things it will be a distant memory by the time she's qualified and posted to a unit.

It wouldn't be because she's 17 it would be because she simply didn't pass. I went through at 17 with no issues. Many people fall short of the mark on the day of the race for different reasons.

Aree your daughter will be absolutely fine. She has nothing to worry about being in Ashley Platoon.

I think it's pretty normal to have a degraded performance at the first PFA, new enviroment, stress, lack of sleep...

I remember my legs felt like concrete and my stomach felt like ejecting the disgusting banjo we had for breakfast before doing the test...

We had a girl fail the beep test the first day, but pass the other two, then the next day pass the run but fail the push ups.

But crux of the matter is she didn't meet the standard, nothing to do with age etc.

Four weeks of fitness and conditioning will put her in a good spot mentally and physically to finish once she is out of Ashley Platoon.

Just tell her to keep her chin up.

Is this the new name for digger james pl?

As for your daughter Aree, I wouldn't be concerned. Her age has nothing to do with it. Kapooka gives its recruits plenty of opportunity to pass. Recruits failing a BFA is very common and is merely a small hurdle for her. Keep her spirits up when she calls as it can make a world of difference

I was assuming by the name it must be an all female version of DJ platoon?

Will wait for confirm.

http://content.defencejobs.gov.au/pdf/a ... ctions.pdf


Digger James Platoon is mentioned else where, it's a re-training platoon for those who were injured/medical and those who learn a little bit slower then others.

Ashley Platoon seems to be JUST for improving your fitness.

(Side note, possibly my last post here for a while. Catching the train in an hour and into the office tomorrow morning for the big day... YAY!!!)

Ashley platoon is the physical conditioning platoon for men and women that fail the first PFA and retest.
I couldn't even begin to imagine the proverbial S storm from an equality standpoint if 1RTB has a special platoon called 'Ashley' that was just for gal PFA failures.

Source: 1RTB JI's.

Back in the day DJs could handle the PT quambies along with the shooting and drill quambies, but unfortunately society isn't as active as it once was.