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

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...

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conception 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They should just deploy ICE.

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ting0 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And raise the pay.

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TimorousBestie 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a real bummer when your ideological imperatives start conflicting with each other.

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randycupertino 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

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defrost 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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

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dinkumthinkum 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		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?
	▲	TimorousBestie 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> 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.