How fit the men of Easy were was determined at Mackall when the Department of the Army had Strayer’s 2d Battalion—already famous for the march to Atlanta—take a standard physical fitness test. The battalion scored 97 percent. As this was the highest score ever recorded for a battalion in the Army, a Colonel Jablonski from Washington thought Strayer had rigged the score. Winters recalled, “They had us run it a second time, officers, men, service personnel, cooks, everybody—and we scored 98 percent.”
