Anyway over the past several years I've seen a few stories like this indicating that the Pentagon is ending that.
The policy has never been consistent, and has varied by Administration and even by the Service Secretaries within an Administration. Napoleon McCallum (Class of 85) was a fantastic running back, but he had to serve his 5 years before starting a career with the Raiders. Robinson (Class of 87) was a bit different. He entered the Academy below the maximum height and grew after the fact.
IIRC, Robinson entered the Academy at 6’-6”. He was accepted into the Academy while in HS when his height was still under 6’. By the time he had enrolled he had grown to 6’-7” but he was granted a waiver because they thought he had topped out, which obviously was wrong.
As per the rest of your comments you are correct about turning away top academic / athletic students. Even so most of these athletes enter the pros as unsigned free agents because teams don’t want to waste a draft pick on them because of their commitment to the service. If they get lucky and make the team then they apply for the waiver. A few years ago, the Seahawks had the former Navy QB on the team who was allowed to play and participate with the team but also was required to serve during the offseason.
NBA player David Robinson, for example, was deemed too tall to serve (shocking they missed this all through his academy time)
He grew nearly 11 inches WHILE at Annapolis - literally grew out of being able to serve.