Bring Ye Your Fat, Your Tired, Your Asthmatic…

Reuters recently reported that Australia has decided it’s time to increase the size of their army. Having committed soldiers in the Pacific Islands to monitor destabilization has left the Australian army a little thin. However, a new plan proposed by the military’s leadership will fatten their army, in more ways than one.

Australia’s army is going to loosen the requirements for military service (and waist size). This will allow overweight individuals and borderline asthmatics to become Australian soldiers. One of the highest ranking military officials in Australia was quoted as saying he wasn’t worried about the methods used to increase his forces because (and this is a real quote, not a fabricated one) “we're good at getting people fit and taking the weight off them.” He makes it sound so obvious that you wonder why any military wouldn’t run out and sign up all the unfit people they can find.

I am currently reading David McCullough’s “1776” about George Washington’s leadership of America’s Continental Army during the revolution. I bring this up because as desperate as this young country was for soldiers to fight the British, we didn’t even resort to what Australia has proposed. Now granted we had no problem enlisting the elderly and the occasional 14-year male, but we never enlisted asthmatics. That’s just cruel.

If the Australian government is anything like ours, I’m sure they’ve researched the impact this will have on their army. Have they thought about how many potential soldiers they will lose during training though? Can you imagine how grueling boot camp will be for these recruits? It’ll be very similar to NBC’s “Biggest Loser.” Man, that could end up being the next big thing in reality TV. The Australian Army could call it “Fitness Camp – March to the Death” and either sell the rights for it or air it themselves and make a killing (non-militarily speaking, of course) on ad revenue. The money they bring in could be used to bankroll their military industrial complex for years to come.

The recruits could be divided into teams with the overweight folks on one team battling against the asthmatics on the other. I’m not a big fan of reality TV, but this one might be fun to watch. The team that loses a particular week’s boot camp training exercise competition has to vote which recruit to kick off. The eventual individual winner of the show wins money and an automatic military promotion to a higher rank.

The Australians are brilliant. Not only did they give us Paul Hogan, Men At Work and shrimp on the bar-b, but they were also home to the Bee Gees for a few years before they made it big. All of that pales in comparison though to what they can teach our military leadership…a way to make Americans fit, increase the size of our military and entertain us at the same time. To Australia, I say thank you and Good Day, mate.