# What conditions get you labeled as 4-F in the military **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524 "2015-02-13T00:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/41 "2015-02-17T10:04:33Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I’m a big guy myself, but based on my own infantry experience, the best “terrain eaters” and long-distance runners, more often than not, were wiry little guys - marathon runner body types. A mate is a Royal Marine and fits this to a T. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/42 "2015-02-17T11:24:47Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > aruvqan, what year did this happen? I’ve been told that in the Vietnam War era, the height requirement for men was that they couldn’t be less than 5 foot or more than 6 foot 6. I’ve been told that now the requirement for both men and women is that they can’t be less than 4 foot 10 or more than 6 foot 8. Does anyone have the entire history of the height requirements of the American military for both sexes over all the time that the military has had any height requirements (and perhaps a citation for it)? Yeah, I’m sure that you can come up with anecdotes about particular rejections at particular times, but I’d like to know the entire history. There was a woman in my basic training unit who was very short. She has to supply a doctor’s note that she didn’t have any form of dwarfism that might compromise her skeleton, and was just someone who was short. Apparently people, or women in a range, I’m not sure what it is, can get this. This is when the Army allowed one waiver, no matter what it was. You could have a waiver for mild asthma, a waiver for having a juvenile record you had not had expunged, a waiver for having vision that was poorer than X, but better than Y, so long as you just had one waiver, this height waiver, or a number of other things, but you couldn’t have two-- at least to start basic. Once you were an soldier who had finished training, you might have more than one waiver. I knew a guy who had a waiver that allowed him to be up to ten pounds overweight as long as he continued to pass his PT tests. His PT test scores were very high, so they brought up the average for his company, but he couldn’t quite make weight, and he couldn’t make tape, because he had these weirdly narrow wrists. ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/43 "2015-02-17T21:55:16Z")
When I started college, I was asked by some group if I wanted to sign up for a college deferment. I was only 17 at the time, so I dismissed it and never thought about it again. Until I got that letter from Uncle Sam, telling me to be at the county courthouse steps at X:00 in the morning on such and such a date. I went to my doctor to get a paper that said that he had treated me for back problems. That was going to be how I did not end dead in Viet Nam. Just about a week before I was due to be inspected, injected, and see-lected, I had my wisdom teeth extracted. In the hospital. With full anesthetic (and five-part harmony). After the surgery, they gave me some pain pills, but I couldn’t swallow them. (My throat was so sore from (apparently) swallowed blood, that I could not even swallow the mushroom bits in a can of mushroom soup!) So, after too little sleep, off I go to take my draft physical, clutching my doctor’s note tightly in my fist. Wondering who I’m supposed to give it to, so they can let me go. I was sure that my lack of sleep meant that I was going to fail the hearing test. We had already been warned, however, that if anyone failed that test, they would take it again and again, until they either passed, or failed with the exact same score as their other failures. Finally, I got to see the doctor that would look at my doctor’s note. He glanced at it, and then gave it back to me, with barely a “Hmmph!” I started to lose hope – if he didn’t care about my back problems, well, that was it, then, wasn’t it? No, since he also had all of the information about me that had been collected from the beginning of the examination. “We cannot make your glasses in the Army.” What? That threw me for a bit. I almost blurted out, “But I can bring a spare pair!” But I shut my mouth, and just sucked it up. During the ride back to the county courthouse, we learned that of the three busses that transferred us back and forth, two now held newly disqualified examinees. A short time later, I received my 1-Y deferment. That was in June. In September, President Nixon went on TV to participate in the first ever Selective Service System lottery. Guess what birthdate he picked first? Mine! Guess what initial letter of last names he picked. Mine! (You’re getting good at guessing!). So, I expected to get another letter indicating that they’d like to have another shot at me. Instead, I got a letter explaining how they had gotten rid of the 1-Y classification, and that now I was considered 4-F. I did experience fallout over the 4-F classification, however. During a job interview, I was asked to explain how I came to have the classification. I gave a complete and accurate description, but I could tell that they no longer considered me as a viable candidate. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/44 "2015-02-18T02:23:30Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > aruvqan, what year did this happen? I’ve been told that in the Vietnam War era, the height requirement for men was that they couldn’t be less than 5 foot or more than 6 foot 6. I’ve been told that now the requirement for both men and women is that they can’t be less than 4 foot 10 or more than 6 foot 8. Does anyone have the entire history of the height requirements of the American military for both sexes over all the time that the military has had any height requirements (and perhaps a citation for it)? Yeah, I’m sure that you can come up with anecdotes about particular rejections at particular times, but I’d like to know the entire history. 1. No idea how one would get the _entire_ history for both genders, but there is a fair amount of minutia published by the government publishing bunch on the tedious discussion on policy and the finalized policies - not sure how far back the records go offhand though. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Winkler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/82dd89/32.png) [@The\_Winkler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Winkler)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/45 "2015-02-18T06:27:59Z")
I believe both James Dean and Chevy Chase claimed homosexuality to avoid the draft. Apparently James Dean was indeed gay. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/46 "2015-02-18T07:36:17Z")
Not the same as the draft but when I went to enlist and went to take my physical, they noticed a limp I was trying to hide and I admitted to having a bone growth on my knee so I didnt pass. ---
**Author:** ![Rixroxk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rixroxk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rixroxk)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/47 "2025-12-29T16:35:22Z")
McNamara’s morons. That’s what they were called. Sad really. My pop was 4F for not having any hair. He had a very high fever as a child and had no hair. No eye brows, eye lashes, arm hair, leg hair, nothing. He volunteered to go to Vietnam and they wouldn’t take him for fear he was contagious. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/48 "2025-12-29T17:00:33Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Either he went to college (2S deferment) I had a 2S deferment and it suddenly disappeared in 1967, leaving me still in college but reclassified as 1A. 1967-68 was the peak casualty period for the Vietnam war and bodies were needed. So I got scooped up for a physical and told that I would be draft-eligible 28 days after the physical, despite my protests that I was in college. They were taking everyone at that point. I ended up joining the Navy. I had a good friend who did a tour as a Navy recruiter. He told me about a young man who came in to enlist, but he not only couldn’t pass the ASVAB test, he had a debilitating stutter. So he was turned down. Then his mother brought him in for a second go around, saying that she just couldn’t put up with him any longer and how he had to go into the service. My friend told her about the test failure and alluded to the fact that his stutter disqualified him. The woman turned to her son, slapped him up side of his head and told him: “Now Jimmy, you talk right!” ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/49 "2025-12-29T23:02:49Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Asthma? This may have already been answered, but I was excused from the draft in 1967 due to asthma. I had had attacks severe enough to require hospitalization, and I had a note from my doctor about it. They asked me a couple of questions, and sent me home with a 1-Y classification, which was a middle ground between 1-A and 4-F. Some time later they abolished 1-Y so I was made officially 4-F. If I could have been sure it would not have reached my parents and if the medical condition wasn’t enough, I was tempted to tell them I was queer. It was kind of a tossup whether I was more afraid of going to Viet Nam, or of my queerness being common knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/50 "2025-12-30T00:17:38Z")
When I was in college (early 70’s) I tried to enlist in the Air Force. I was assured by the recruiter that my weight, eyesight, and the fact that I had braces would not prevent me from being accepted. I had gotten near maximum ASVAB scores, and was told I would probably get assigned to some sort of engineering position. However, after going through my physical I was told that I was being rejected; I’m sure they explained why at the time, but whatever it was is lost in the mists of time. However, I do remember that shortly after I was notified by the draft board that I had been reclassified 4-F. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/51 "2025-12-30T02:17:24Z")
A draft counselor in late 1969 or early 1970 mentioned to a group of us that braces on your teeth would be an automatic 1Y. He called it the Beverly Hills deferment. For me the student deferment was plan A. I kept my crooked teeth as plan B. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/52 "2026-01-04T21:01:04Z")
The cricketer Colin Cowdrey was rejected for the draft as medically unfit, even though he was fit enough to play first class cricket for the next twenty years. My father was one of those who resented Cowdrey for the rest of his life over this, saying he had ‘dodged the column’. Other people felt the same - one man apparently wrote to Cowdrey about it once a year, every year, for long afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/53 "2026-01-04T23:23:09Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > The cricketer Colin Cowdrey was rejected for the draft as medically unfit, even though he was fit enough to play first class cricket for the next twenty years. When was this? According to Wikipedia Cowdrey was 13 at the end of WWII. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/54 "2026-01-05T02:04:11Z")
The UK maintained conscription post-WWII, until the early 1960s. Ain’t you ever seen _Queen and Country (2014)_? Also: > **[Conscription in the United Kingdom | After 1945](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Kingdom#After_1945)** > > National Service as peacetime conscription was formulated by the National Service Act 1948 introduced by Clement Attlee's Labour government. From 1 January 1949, healthy males 17 to 21 years old were required to serve in the armed forces for 18 months, and remain on the reserve list for four years. They could be recalled to their units for up to 20 days for no more than three occasions during these four years. Men were exempt from National Service if they worked in one of the three essential serv... ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/55 "2026-01-05T02:13:03Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > The UK maintained conscription post-WWII, until the early 1960s. Ain’t you ever seen _Queen and Country (2014)_? Or read _Ginger, You’re Barmy_ (1962)? > **[Ginger You're Barmy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_You're_Barmy)** > > Ginger You're Barmy (1962) is a comic novel by David Lodge based on his experiences as a conscript to two years National Service in post-war Britain between August 1955 and August 1957. > In an afterword written in 1981, the author explains that "few postwar novels dealt directly with National Service, especially if you discount those set in places where conscript soldiers were involved in actual combat, such as Malaya, Korea, Suez". He goes on to explain that "most National Servicemen resented,... ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/56 "2026-01-05T02:30:13Z")
I seem to remember basketball star serving his active duty after graduating from the Naval Academy. He was 7 feet at the time, but maybe he had a growth spurt after entering the academy? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/57 "2026-01-05T02:32:41Z")
I suspect that, even if Britain maintained the draft after WWII ended, the needs of the service were much lower, and so they could afford to set the fitness requirements more strictly. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/58 "2026-01-05T02:55:26Z")
David Robinson only served 2 years active duty, and actually received special consideration from the Secretary of the Navy. At the time of his acceptance into Annapolis, he was below the upper height limit, but by the time he reported, he was just over. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/59 "2026-01-05T04:49:16Z")
It seems this is not quite accurate as he was called up and [entered the RAF but was discharged at the instigation of doctor](https://www.wisden.com/wisden-cricketers-almanack/colin-cowdrey-a-batsman-far-above-the-ordinary-almanack)s: > Cowdrey returned to England in April 1955 ready for his two year’s National Service in the Royal Air Force. For years his feet had given him considerable trouble, but he never mentioned it to the authorities. Never did he expect they would become front-page news and lead to questions in Parliament. He suffers from stiffening of the joints in both big toes and when playing cricket always wears specially made boots. > When sixteen he underwent a manipulative operation and spent the whole of the Easter term in the Tonbridge School sanitorium with both legs completely encased in plaster. That brought about a distinct improvement, but he knew that at some time another operation would be essential to break down the joints. He hopes to put off that operation until he is twenty-five and although no permanent cure can be guaranteed, he thinks there is a sporting chance that his feet will last him through his cricket career until, perhaps, he is forty. > Most people would expect that a young athlete returning from a triumphant cricket tour of Australia could fulfil his initial Forces training without question. Hence the doctors who received him prior to his call up passed him one to the other. This is Cowdrey the cricketer; he’s all right, they said. > It was on the day he joined the RAF that the medicos raised the first query. At once they spotted the state of his feet. In Cowdrey’s own words, they were scared of allowing him to go before a drill sergeant. Permanent injury and a life pension might have resulted. So they put him in the sick bay far away from the drill sergeants and telephoned Whitehall with their problem. In a few weeks Cowdrey was a civilian again. It does seem odd that a person whose chosen sport involves running and turning rapidly could have a foot condition that makes one unfit for service, but if Wisden is to be believed it doesn’t seem like Cowdrey himself sought to dodge anything. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524/60 "2026-01-05T17:03:41Z")
The Army rejected Joe Namath because of a bad knee, but he went on to play in the NFL for 13 seasons. An injured athlete can be carried off the field to be treated. Battle situations are different. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-conditions-get-you-labeled-as-4-f-in-the-military/712524.md?page=4)