If you are “kicked out” of the armed services for being overweight and/or out-of-shape, does it show as a dishonorable discharge? Do you lose your pension?
I think it would show up as, at worst case, an other-than-honorable discharge. That could be enough to kill most/all of your benefits, including your retirement (taking my info from here). This is assuming, of course, that the separation occurs after the 20-year mark.
You’d have to really screw up to get an OTH discharge. I don’t think that failure to meet weight standards would ever lead to that.
In egregious cases, a servicemember might get a General Discharge (Under Honorable Conditions), but I’m pretty sure that most people get a regular Honorable discharge, with a notation about failure to meet weight standards on one copy of the DD-214.
P.S. A servicemember being discharged for failure to meet weight standards will typically get an “Administrative Separation” (or “admin sep”). The administrative separation board will determine the characterization of service (typically honorable or general).
True–I was just giving the worst-case scenario. I know of some people that have been in this type of process over the years, but never found out about the ultimate fate. So I don’t know what the norm is. The way I read the JAG site, the admin board can recommend an OTH if it feels the need, although it’s probably never been done. Personally, if I was on such a board and confronted with someone who was trying to eat their way out of the Navy, an OTH is what I’d recommend.
Officially the standards are the same between active duty and reserve/national guard. In reality there are a lot more fat part time soldiers. In general you are put in a weight control program and told to shape up. Generally no one gets kicked out but you can’t get promoted, go to school or get reenlistment bonuses.
In my unit it was fairly standard for the fat boys to be threatened with a General discharge, but as I said earlier in the thread I never saw anyone actually get discharged for weight in my unit, so who knows what would have happened. I can tell you that we gave several druggies Honorable discharges though, it just made the paper work easier so we could get them out of our hair faster.
I got my fat ass canned from the Navy back in 1990. I was a Missile Technician, working on SLBM’s, but I was trained in the Poseidon Missile which was being withdrawn. I believe my BMI was about 20. I got an honorable discharge with VA medical benefits.
That’s pretty demanding. What branch?
When I was in the Navy (80s), those were my exact dimensions (I might be a smidge taller, especially in the morning before the day has taken its toll). I hovered around 200-210 during my entire time in. Not once did I get told about being overweight.
The fact is, if you take your average 6’2" fellow and put 210 pounds on him he still is a tall slim guy.
I remember once standing on a fancy glass bathroom scale on display at a department store and an older woman standing next to me looked at the number, gasped, and said “Where do you put it?”
I missed this one…
Wait a minute. A weight bench???
On a military vessel that is designed to be an acoustic “hole in the water” ??? :eek:
Was it some five-million-dollar silent setup with rubber weights?
I can just imagine some Russian sonar operator listening for the quietest rustle among the sounds of the sea, and then some doofus drops a 45lb plate on the deck.
And there’s sure to be the “grunter” somewhere in the crew—the guy who grunts and groans as he lifts some crazy amount of weight above his head and then immediately lets the whole barbell crash to the floor.
Submarines don’t run dead silent all the time.
If there’s a draft, can you get out of being drafted by being too fat? Or too thin?
That was the Army, from 1991 to 1996. It was 1995 when I was suddenly deemed “overweight” due to the BMI measurements – no problems up until then. At 26 when I ETS’d, I wasn’t eligible for reenlistment! If I were 210 now, I’d be laid unwillingly every day where I’m working now. 
Boomers spend a lot of their time being very quiet and they take any gratuitous noise very seriously.
I’m sure the weight lifting stuff was all sound isolated and off limits during certain periods, otherwise the Navy never would have allowed it. But it still sounded kind of funny, like part of some silly joke about screen doors on submarines.
I’m interested in Robby’s description of the setup.
I did just one patrol on an old boomer in the late 1980s, which had the weight bench. The attack submarine I served on as a junior officer did not have one.
It was a pretty ordinary weight bench, as I recall. I don’t remember the set-up all that well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the weights were coated with rubber or plastic.
As for noise in general, “so-called air noise” is really irrelevant. People can yell and scream (and grunt) all they want, and the sound will not be readily transmitted outside the hull. What does transmit sound is metal-on-metal contact with the hull or part of the submarine connected acoustically to the hull. For this reason, the decks are isolated from the hull, so anything dropped on a deck does not not readily transmit noise outside the hull.
The final check is the sonar operators on board the sub. They are constantly listening for sounds of other vessels, as well as for any sounds emitted by their own vessel. If someone does make a loud noise, they will report this information to the Officer of the Deck immediately. If the weight-lifters make a habit of making noise, it would be secured pretty quickly. During certain so-called “tactical situations” activities like this might also be preemptively curtailed.
What does that mean?
ETS: Expiration, Term of Service
Basically the date your enlistment ends and you go back to being a civilian.
Probably because the BMI recommendations have changed a few times since they were introduced. Currently, the NIH charts put the BMI of a 6’2" 210# person at 27lbs/in^2. That is officially in the overweight classification. These standards are intentionally skewed towards encouraging a lower BMI than most of us consider “normal”.