[shartshooter]

When I joined the army as an infantryman back in the early 2000s there were kids who couldn’t start basic training because they weren’t capable of doing 6 pushups. 6.

I believe at the time they were allowing 38 year olds to join for the first time which seemed crazy to me. Now that I’m in my early 40s I can’t imagine going back in

[michaelteter]

If they want to draft any significant number of people, they will have to greatly lower the fitness standards.

[pogue]

77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs and more to join military, Pentagon study finds (2023) https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/03/77-of-young-america...

[conception]

They should just deploy ICE.

[SirFatty]

yeah, just not the National Guard!

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/overweight-texas-nati...

[TimorousBestie]

The US military is in the process of changing fitness standards, mostly for ideological reasons [0]. Most enlisted I’ve spoken to consider the new tests harder, especially for women, but it isn’t clear cut and implementation across services has been weird.

Rumor is they’re also cracking down on (specifically medical, not religious) shaving waviers again, probably because some minorities have a skin condition that makes regular shaving painful.

So it’s a bit of a conundrum! They obviously want more enlisted so they can do more wars in more places, but they also are adding disincentives for female or nonwhite enlisted.

[0] https://www.fitnesswarriornation.com/hegseth-military-fitnes...

[aaronbrethorst]

It’s a real bummer when your ideological imperatives start conflicting with each other.

[mlrtime]

Poe's law: I can't tell if you are sarcastically commenting on op's ideology.

[AnimalMuppet]

I suspect that they're commenting on the administration's ideology.

[Bender]

have a skin condition that makes regular shaving painful.

Pseudofolliculitis barbae [1] or PFB was a regular issue for some I served with in the 90's.

[1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6585396/

[mlrtime]

You are seriously suggestions they are doing this for race reasons?

[TimorousBestie]

There’s no other credible reason. A 1/4” beard (which is all the medical wavier allows) doesn’t affect gas mask fit.

I’m hardly the only person who has inferred this:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2025/september/ne...

> It is estimated that 45–94 percent of all Black men will experience PFB at some point during their lifetime. Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern men also are often affected, as are some women. A 2021 study found an association between shaving waivers and delayed promotions. Since most of the waiver group (65 percent) was Black, the new policy could have a discriminatory effect. In our conversations with Black sailors, including some in senior leadership positions, many shared that they feel the new policy is racially insensitive at best—or may be designed to target them.

[LMYahooTFY]

You're just frankly uninformed.

Shaving waivers have been so abused it's a running joke in the army.

It's still trivially easy to have a doctor get you a waiver.

[array_key_first]

Even if they are abused, their abuse doesn't have any downsides. These people are not growing beards.

Also, I don't even think they are necessarily abused. A lot of men are very sensitive to shaving, with degrees of sensitivity. I think there's probably plenty of guys who have perpetual razor burn and ingrown hairs and nobody cares.

[ting0]

And raise the pay.

[randycupertino]

Lucky for us Pete Hegseth declared war on "fat generals and admirals" and is going to end fat troops and increase fitness standards! /s

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5528556-hegseth-warrior-e...

> “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he said. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world.”

“It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are,” he continued.

> “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men” Hegseth said.

[defrost]

I was told he also promised a throwing axe for every grunt and to rid the world of the scourge of marching bands.

[BobaFloutist]

It's so funny because obviously yes there are benefits to fitness in even a 2026 military, but a huge advantage of guns is that you don't have to be in peak physical condition to kill people pretty effectively, tanks and subs take it even further, and by the time we get to modern drone warfare a gaming couch potato can be as effective as your favorite football player.

Sure, sometimes you need a human being to sneak behind enemy lines to get in range for the drone, but that's not gonna involve a ton of sprinting anyway!

[dinkumthinkum]

What about what he said is incorrect? I don't know, maybe you are not familiar with the U.S. military. You can many videos produced by the military under Biden of even significantly overweight drill instructors in the Marine Corps, for instance. I don't know if this is part of the "healthy at any size" thing or what.

[randycupertino]

I guess I expected him to be calling all those generals and admirals with decades of combat, command and special forces experience together for something more substantive like policy changes vs an unhinged coked up rant boiling down to "no fatties!"

He's also rebranding to a macho aesthetic, encouraging bringing back hazing, tossing bunks, "shark attacks" and drill sergeants putting hands on recruits. I'm no expert but maybe if we're having trouble recruiting we shouldn't lead with ways to make military life suck even more?

[jrs235]

Who'd of thunk that rebranding to the Department of War might also cause folks to reconsider signing up...

[TimorousBestie]

> I don't know if this is part of the "healthy at any size" thing or what.

It’s not, that’s silly.

It turns out that it’s kind of hard to establish uniform physical fitness standards at scale! They have to be cheap to implement and easy to execute in a wide range of environments.

No one can agree on how much fitness a soldier needs to be minimally effective, but you know for sure every stakeholder has a strong and incorrect opinion on it. Oh, and if you raise the bar too high, you won’t meet your enlistment goals, and readiness suffers.

[Bender]

For a second I thought your username was sharpshooter but then it got even better as I re-read it. Thankyou for the laugh.

In 2012 Lieutenant General Mark Hertling had a TED talk [1] about this very issue and I think it still very much applies today.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWN13pKVp9s [video][16m][TED-Talk]

[mikewarot]

I've never been capable of 1 push up, or pull up, even after 6 weeks of the best efforts of MCRD back in 1983. They were looking for a few good men, turns out I wasn't one of them.

I aced the aptitude test, and totally failed the PFT.

[d--b]

Right, but that was before older people found out about Tai Chi! Youtube keeps telling me it’s a great way get ripped at 50! /s