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I saw people discharged from the Army for being overweight. One soldier was overweight, lost the weight, went overweight again within 90 days and he was discharged within 10 days. That was in the 90's. We also had people returned to their original unit when signing into a school if they arrived overweight.
I guess anything is possible but normally being over weight or a PT test failure bars you from favorable actions. I don't see how joining a ship for a deployment is favorable; actually I see why people would get fat to not deploy.
During this current war some Army soldiers thought that being overweight or a PT failure would mean they were not deployable, of course that wasn't so. I've seen IRR soldiers called up that were seriously overweight and they were crying all the way through mobilization processing.
Yes, physical fitness and agility are essential job functions for some positions. They can be refused other jobs also. The line has to be drawn somewhere.
This doesn't even take into account potential health implications of being fat, which are numerous.
Yes, the person could be kept off a ship as well as discharged. Have you ever seen or been inside one of those things? There is not a lot of room to manuver. You can't have somebody on there who can potentially get stuck because they are too wide.
While I'm not familiar with this particular case I do know of other situations directly where members of the service (Navy) who do NOT meet height/weight BCA standards are not only refused permission to board a ship but are separated from the Navy. The U.S. Navy is starting to really take health issues seriously because they've finally discovered that the Welfare-State Navy can no longer afford to pay for all the health issues generated by tobacco, motorcycles, alcohol, drunk-driving and obesity. Add to this the increasingly tight budgets, the Navy is looking for ways to cut costs, one of which is to get rid of people who simply can't or won't stay in shape. Hey people....it's the military...you MUST be in shape to fight...it's a job requirement....like...."be able to lift 70 pounds" type of thing. If you're a lump of fat....and can barely fit through an escape-scuttle....your a hazard to yourself and others.
Now the Navy is administratively (medically) separating people who not only fail the PFA "PT test" but also those who manage to pass but fail the BCA or "body fat" measurement.
I know several people who were great guys and could pass the PFT all day long...but had too much weight and didn't take seriously enough the need to loose the weight....and the Navy tossed them out.
I also know guys desperate to stay in......who lost the weight....
So, yes. The Navy can refuse a fat person and they will continue to do so.
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