[QUOTE=Mr. Slant]
How fat of a bastard must you be to be unhangable?
[/QUOTE]
400 lb apparently How they're going to hang Saddam Hussein.
“The Army drop table turned out to be inadequate for Mitchell Rupe, a Washington inmate who was supposed to hang in 1994. On death row, Rupe refused all exercise and ate junk food nonstop. By the time of his execution he’d reached 409 pounds, well above the table’s maximum listed weight. According to Army regulations, anyone heavier than 220 pounds would get a 5-foot drop. The Washington authorities made an exception and cut Rupe’s planned drop to 3.5 feet. Rupe appealed his case, and a federal judge ruled that the risk of decapitation was still too high. Rupe died in a prison hospital this past February.”
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
Isn’t there some urban myth about an army recruitment officer who would respond to this by drowning trou and saying, “Prove it!”?
[/QUOTE]
You misspelled “trout.” And since they have gills and live in water, they’d be awfully hard to drown.
[QUOTE=bluethree]
Ah, the food-for-freedom program.
It’s a great deal. You’ll be a draft dodger and a fat tub. That’ll make you a devil with the ladies.
[/QUOTE]
Rush Limbaugh never seemed to have any troubles in that regard.
[QUOTE=scm1001]
400 lb apparently How they're going to hang Saddam Hussein.
“The Army drop table turned out to be inadequate for Mitchell Rupe, a Washington inmate who was supposed to hang in 1994. On death row, Rupe refused all exercise and ate junk food nonstop. By the time of his execution he’d reached 409 pounds, well above the table’s maximum listed weight. According to Army regulations, anyone heavier than 220 pounds would get a 5-foot drop. The Washington authorities made an exception and cut Rupe’s planned drop to 3.5 feet. Rupe appealed his case, and a federal judge ruled that the risk of decapitation was still too high. Rupe died in a prison hospital this past February.”
[/QUOTE]
I recall some radio host discussing that story. I called in and suggested using a balloon with a 100-pound lift.
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
I recall some radio host discussing that story. I called in and suggested using a balloon with a 100-pound lift.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but if you miscalculate, he still gets decapitated, only now his 10 pound detached head is flying away into the stratosphere, courtesy of the balloon…
[QUOTE=Doug Bowe]
I knew of a person who actually did eat his way out of the draft during the early '70’s. He was a dormitory friend who was an activist.
The guy literally ate his way over the military limit. But it wasn’t one weigh-in and it’s over. He had to go back to the board regularly (I forget if it was once a year or once every six months) and get weighed. He was told that this would continue until he reached 35.
[/QUOTE]
35 :dubious: ? Under Vietnam era draft laws one ceased to be eligible for consciption at 26.
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
Isn’t there some urban myth about an army recruitment officer who would respond to this by drowning trou and saying, “Prove it!”?
[/QUOTE]
It’s sounds like an UL since that officer would end up comitting sodomy himself. Of course that’s not to say a closeted officer never decided to take advantage of a desperate young man and use him for sex. Men claiming to be gay were interviewed by a military psychiatrist (homosexuality was considered a mental illness). There never was a test.
[QUOTE=Doug Bowe]
Note in my second sentence “dormatory friend.” He took college deferment. Conscription changed from 26 to 35.l
[/QUOTE]
That’s exactly what I did. I had a 2S student deferment (I was the last year that could get them, actually). They warned me that it increased my eligibility to 35. Since by the time I graduated they were no longer drafting, and weren’t about to reinstate it in the foreseeable future, that didn’t really matter much. Somewhere along the line I lost the final “1H” card I was issued.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Yeah, but if you miscalculate, he still gets decapitated, only now his 10 pound detached head is flying away into the stratosphere, courtesy of the balloon…
[/QUOTE]
I suppose that would be more effective than the traditional pike or top of the city gate as a warning to others.
It wont keep you out of the military, but if your idea is to avoid serving in combat, it appears all you need to do is charge up you credit cards. If you are too in debt, you can loose your security clearance.
[QUOTE=RedSwinglineOne]
It wont keep you out of the military, but if your idea is to avoid serving in combat, it appears all you need to do is charge up you credit cards. If you are too in debt, you can loose your security clearance. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301069.html
Much easier and less damaging for your health.
[/QUOTE]
You’re probably better off having a job with a security clearance so that you can be behind the lines fixing missiles or something like that. Most grunts don’t need security clearances.
[QUOTE=Balthisar]
You’re probably better off having a job with a security clearance so that you can be behind the lines fixing missiles or something like that. Most grunts don’t need security clearances.
[/QUOTE]
You’re right, some don’t …
…but it looks like enough do that it has become a significant problem…
There’s a famous essay by James Fallows called “What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?” in which he talks about how he got rejected for the draft during the Vietnam War by losing just enough weight to be below the acceptable level for his height. Fallows made the point that nearly always the people doing this were well off. Less well off people didn’t know how to beat the draft. He contrasted the people who were going through their physical exams when he did. Half of them were, like him, students at Harvard. The other half were from a working-class neighborhood in Boston. The Harvard students got deferred for physical reasons much more often than the working-class kids who were, at best, high school graduates.
