Overweights get a pass

Battalion commanders are no longer allowed to chapter you out of the
Army for overweight, alcohol, drugs, etc. It has to go up to brigade.

http://slate.com/id/2120146/

The part about "these troops were the ones "who eat up my time and cause
my hair to gray prematurely." rings true from my experience.

The second half talks about the ongoing privatization of the Army...i.e.
that some soldiers are leaving behind large reenlistment bonuses in
order to accept even bigger salaries at private military
contractors...doing basically the same job (guarding trucks, I would
guess), but with far more freedom and six-figure salaries. I'm not sure
I believe it - I know there's gotta be some who are doing that but I
don't know if that's the Army's biggest recruitment problem. But I do
think that paying big tax dollars to mercenaries is very wrong-headed.
As the article says, the Pentagon needs to be spending its money
creating a professional, highly paid, and patriotic national army
instead of depending on patriotism (and involuntary callups) to provide
an Army on the cheap.