New Army Fitness Determinations Directive (AR DIR 2024-01)

The Army Publishing Directorate has released a new Army Fitness Determinations and Deployability Directive (AR DIR 2024-01) that may have a profound effect on your PEB case- thus, I wanted to post it here for you to download and review with your attorney when deciding how to develop or appeal your Army PEB findings.

This directive modifies AR 635-40 and authorizes the Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) to determine a Soldier’s fitness for duty based on multiple criteria, including the ability to deploy with a medical waiver. These criteria include whether a soldier possesses specialized skills that the Army needs, whether the Soldier’s evals and nonmedical evidence support retention, how well-controlled any potentially unfitting condition may be, whether the Soldier’s environment can be controlled to prevent exacerbations, and whether the Soldier’s conditions make it unlikely that they would receive a medical waiver to deploy. Note- the deployability factor does not apply to Medical Corps officers.

While this may be good news for some of you who wish to be retained with a permanent profile, I suspect that it will be used to retain more personnel against their wishes in the medical and allied health fields as well as personnel who possess an MOS in a career field where there is currently a personnel shortage.    ARN40250-ARMY_DIR_2024-01-000-WEB-1