And as a recent Defense Department study revealed, the number of overweight active-duty troops has more than doubled during the past 10 years.
‘We have a crisis in this country,’ Gilroy said during a March 3 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel subcommittee. He cited obesity among other shortcomings such as physical fitness deficiencies and lack of a high school diploma that disqualify about three-quarters of 17-to-24-year-olds from serving.
It will be an interesting time in the military for the next few years. In the course of about four months the Army went from accepting most anyone with a pulse and the ability to eventually get a GED to refusing waivers for marijuana possession and closing lower-tier graduate and senior categories. The Army also reduced enlistment and reenlistment bonuses. However, there are currently a few thousand people enlisted these past couple years who were enlisted with backgrounds which make them ineligible now. Those Soldiers are going to find it difficult to remain in if these trends continue. They’ll be denied reenlistment or offered separation bonuses to get out.
There is also the class of Soldier who is outside of standards (fitness, weight, etc) but is allowed to remain in simply because there would be no one to replace them. With the services recruiting 105% of their missions there will be people to replace them. Height/Weight and APFT standards will become a big thing again. If you’re in the service, and you don’t meet the fitness standards, and you want to stay in, I’d suggest hitting the gym because if these trends continue there will be a glut of people being kicked out for those issues.
Of course, if the current administration could get silly and decide to expand the military by 1,000,000 people in an effort to create jobs. At which point the fat and dumb will be welcomed back.
I pretty much agree with you statement except for the last paragraph. It’s gratuitous and based on nothing.
The military is already in the process of weeding out the under-performers and gangbangers (actually most are weeding themselves out via bad behvaior)and will enforce it’s former fitness standards.
Dwayne Dobermann.
The military needs to stop contracting with the fast food industry to feed the troops.