Posted on 01/12/2009 10:34:19 AM PST by presidio9
The Army has been dismissing so many overweight applicants that its top recruiter, trying to keep troop numbers up in wartime, is considering starting a fat farm to transform chubby trainees into svelte soldiers.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, head of the Army Recruiting Command, said he wants to see a formal diet and fitness regimen running alongside a new school at Fort Jackson that helps aspiring troops earn their GEDs.
Bostick told The Associated Press that obesity looms as "a bigger challenge for us in the years ahead" than any other problem that keeps young people from entering the military, including lack of a GED or high school diploma, misconduct or criminal behavior and other health issues such as eye or ear problems.
According to Defense Department figures provided to the AP, over the past four years 47,447 potential recruits flunked induction physicals at the nation's 35 Military Entrance Processing Stations because they were overweight.
That is a fraction of the 205,902 such exams given in 2005 and 250,764 in 2008, but still amounts to a hefty number and comes at a time when the military is more interested than ever in recruits. The Army and Marine Corps together paid more than $600 million over the past year in bonuses and other financial incentives to attract volunteers.
While the services have reported exceeding their recruiting goals in the past year, the Pentagon remains under pressure to find a constant flow of recruits. The Defense Department has announced plans to boost the active duty Army by 65,000 to a total of 547,000 soldiers by next year, and grow the Marines from 175,000 to 202,000 by 2011.
Obesity afflicts recruits for other physically demanding jobs,
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My name’s Dewey Oxbeger. My friends call me Ox. You mighta’ noticed I have a slight weight problem.
Guys: No. No! No.
Ox: Yeah, yeah I do. I went to this doctor and he told me I swallowed a lot of aggression... along with a lot o’ pizzas. Haha-ha!
I’m basically a shy person. I’m a shy guy and ah, he suggested takin’ one o’ these aggression training courses, you know these aggressive training courses, like E.S.T.? Those type o’ things. Anways, it cost like 400 bucks! 400 bucks to join this thing.
Well, I ah, I didn’t have the money. I thought to myself, join the Army. It’s free. So I figured, while I’m here, I’ll lose a few pounds. And you got what, a six to eight week training program here? A real tough one. Which is perfect for me.
I’m gonna’ walk out of here a lean, mean, fightin’ machine. Haha-haha!
As a taxpayer I would endorse a fat camp before boot camp. Anyone that wants to volunteer to stand up for freedom is OK with me. Make them lean, mean fighting machines.
Sounds like a good plan. Get more recruits that way.
haha... first thing I thought of when I saw this.
Quit being “politically correct” and you’ll double your recruitment. Of course that would require the Army to look in the mirror.
Boot camp used to be fat camp...and a whole lot more.
Good and necessary. Recruiters are dealing with the Nintendo generation: too much TV; too many video games; too much McDonald’s; too little exercise.
When I went to school (40’ and 50’s) maybe one kid in fifty was overweight. Now it’s one in five.
Lazy parents; lazy kids. No mom at home—no nutritious homecooked meals. Absentee fathers: no games of catch or morning runs or hikes in the winter woods.
No more paper routes or shoveling snow or chopping wood or chores of any kind.
Well, I could go on, but those are just some of the reasons why we now have The Unfit Generation.
Correct on all points.
A serious question. In 1954 I went off to Boot Camp really, really overweight as I’d always been. When we were outfitted with uniforms, I received not a single article of actual uniform, just dungarees and underwear. I was told that half of me would be gone at the end of training and then I’d be properly fitted.
Boot Camp at Bainbridge was tough. Physical activity was unending..company commanders (Chiefs) were without mercy..and the food was more than plentiful. For some reason the chow agreed with me, and I ate everything in sight.
One week before graduation, I and the other “fatties” as well as two kids who entered training worse than scrawny went to be fitted. The ONLY original issue articles that I could still use were the handkerchiefs.
When I got off the train for my boot leave and walked into the station, neither my mother or father recognized their son. They both walked by me, searching for their homecoming sailor. I’d lost (officially) 72 pounds.
MY QUESTION: What has gone wrong with basic training in the US Military???
I envision a pre-basic training environment for unfit recruits for all branches of the military. Kinder and gentler than basic training with the reward of being able to enter the military.
What did we do during the draft? I highly doubt that all drafted recruits were fit for duty.
I was so gaunt and skinny after basic training that my parents actually thought I looked unhealthy. I’ll never see that waist size again...
The standards we have or at least had in place made as much sense as rejecting an otherwise stellar candidate because he had more that two speeding tickets in a six month time period which allegedly shows a pattern of wreck lace behavior. In the meantime anything that looks tough, that weeds out those who want to be there vs. those collecting a paycheck gets removed from training since it's “hazing.”
The Army doesn't need to be G.Q. The Army doesn't need pretty goody boys that are afraid of the dark but look good with a black beret wearing class A's. The Army worries about appearances, in the real world it's about performance.
For some reason, I reminded of this clip from the Jack Webb movie The DI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwnPDNOAKhs&feature=related\
The relevant part is around 1:30
(great little movie, btw)
As for the idea of a fat camp... it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Lots of kids are overweight to obese these days, and if you’ve got a kid who wants to serve but needs some help getting his weight down, so be it.
I would bet that even if you were overweight, you were in better shape than many teenagers today, even those who are not overweight. More passive entertainment, fewer chores, and less participation in sports take their toll. If we ever had to revert to a draft, the military would have to set up fitness camps on a massive scale prior to basic training.
Add 45 days at the front-end of boot camp for those overweight. Focus on exercise and develop a diet for each individual...control what they consume but be certain the get the right stuff to transform themselves before entering bootcamp.
For those that can't get there in 45 days...let them go through it again.
Considering the amount of money we spend on all other training, equiping etc., this is chump change.
FAT and no GED?
Wudda formula for success.
Can't get off your a$$ and finish school, and just plain can't get off your a$$.
And the Army WANTS these ‘recruits’? YGBSM (apologies to the 66th TFW)
*The US armed forces are obsessed with bogus height weight standards that fit some statistical average that few ever fit into. In the end the real purpose isn’t in any way performance based, rather about appearance*
Don’t worry, the upcoming world war will resolve this situation.
They weren't, but there was a much, much larger pool of men to pull from. They could afford to reject the then smaller fraction of overweight trainees. If they were only slightly overweight, they could and did put them through boot camp, hoping for the best, and usually getting it.
Even I lost weight during ROTC field training, and I'm a hard case. A perennial fatty, which eventually cost me my slot in AF Reserves. But not my commission. I was just transferred to the inactive list, then eventually the retired Reserve list.
I thought we had this figured out in the eighties. When I was a Drill Sergeant at Ft. Leonard Wood from '85 to '88, each BCT Bn had an FTU, where only Drill Sergeants who were also graduates of the Master Fitness Course trained those who came to BCT either overweight or unable to pass the PT test.
While they were in the FTU, the cadre closely monitored their nutritional needs, and PT'd the hell out of them until they could join up with a regular BCT Company.
It actually worked great, because those of us in the regular companies and platoons could focus our complete attention on the training we were supposed to be providing, rather than spending too much time worrying about getting the weak and chubby to pass a PT test or a weigh-in.
I guess that since it wasn't broke, some genius had to come along and fix it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.