f13.net forums - Doesn't the Military know that Meatwalls are the way to win?

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April 27, 2024, 09:45:12 AM

we're back, baby

Having to drop 50 pounds isn't a 'little bit of weight'.

The Gangs of New York has a blurb in it about recruiting from the gangs for WWI and it mentions that the average gang member at the time was 5'3" and 135 lbs.

Hrm.. that's something I hadden't considered before. The nation is overweight, that's a fact, and it's kids are going from 'hefty' to 'lardass' pretty quick. Larger people also tend to be from lower income brackets, which is also the major recruitment pool of the armed forces. Wow, that's a trainwreck waiting to happen, isn't it.

Hmm, I wouldn't have never guessed that they tend to come from lower income.

Every (and I do mean "every") middle class, suburban kid I see these days needs to "drop a few pounds" (and that's being nice).

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Today's soldiers are supersized, averaging 37 pounds heavier than their Civil War counterparts.

A whole 37lbs? Wholly frick!

The weight requirements are there for a reason, but I hate the way they do the measurement. It's not a body-fat measurement, it's a weight to height ratio. So if you are a buff, iron pumping 18yo who is trying to join the Marines, well, you'll have to stop working out and start eating donuts for 4-6 months before applying so you fall into your weight/height bracket.

The Air Force has started measuring current personnel by measuring the waist (which, for some reason, is above your belly button?! I'm not a woman!) and your weight and your height. But then they also check other things: resting pulse, active pulse after 3 minutes of stair stepping, number of pushups, number of situps. This is somehow turned into a score that dictates if a person "passes" or not. The measurements are weighed, I think the active vs resting pulse is the biggest measurement used.

Anyways, I would say that most people who join the military aren't necessarily poor, but are usually right out of high school and don't have something going for them (no good job, not in college, no trust fund, etc) or they just want the military to pay for school.

I was (maybe upperish) middle class and was a 21 1/2 yo when I went to Basic: I certainly was an anomoly. Anyone older than me in my flight in Basic Training was there because they lost their job and hadn't been able to find a new one.

I joined for the chicks.

Quote from: Viin on July 13, 2005, 08:52:32 AM

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Today's soldiers are supersized, averaging 37 pounds heavier than their Civil War counterparts.

The weight requirements are there for a reason, but I hate the way they do the measurement. It's not a body-fat measurement, it's a weight to height ratio. So if you are a buff, iron pumping 18yo who is trying to join the Marines, well, you'll have to stop working out and start eating donuts for 4-6 months before applying so you fall into your weight/height bracket.

See what I said above about the average weight being much lower then because average heights were also much lower.

Anyway those big, thick dudes had a pretty hard time of boot camp and out in the fleet. Endurance was much more important than impulse strength. if you were muscular enough that you were outside the Marine Corps weight requirements you were BIG, but it was easy enough to get a weight waver (after boot camp) if it was muscle and not flab. All you had to do was ask, they would measure your body fat ratio and you never had to worry about it again.

I am not sure the whole weight thing is strictly food related. I think it is air conditioning. It is much tougher to get fat when you do nothing but sweat all day. Course the fact that work is now mainly a sit on your ass affair, that is another factor.

The soldier of the future!

Now that's my kind of Army.

You ever had the Aunt Jemima treatment?