I’m not going to argue troops don’t need to be fit. They absolutely should be. I also seen chubbies out PT “fitter” troops. I don’t know how they do it but they do it.
Clearance Divers are renown for being extremely fit (and alcoholic) and consider PT an integral part of their culture and work day. Among Ship's Team Divers, the culture isn't quite the same, but there are still a lot of Ship's Team Divers (especially those that want to eventually go Clearance Diver) who embody this culture of "be as fit as humanly possible."
So, I was a Ship's Team Diving Officer for about 4 years. During that period, I had divers on my team who were pre-Clearance Diver fitness nutjobs, as well as many divers who just enjoyed diving and it was a good secondary duty to get out of cleaning stations and landing gash. What I found was that the fitness level of the divers on my team didn't indicate, ever, whether or not they were good divers. Some of the fittest divers on my team were absolute cluster f**ks in the water. As soon as they'd hit the water, they'd get tangled in their ropes, couldn't control their buoyancy very well, and if it was a night dive, they'd swim in the wrong direction. Conversely, two of my best divers were women who barely ran the 2.4km run in the maximum time and could barely do the minimum push-ups. But when
they hit the water, they'd be blasting off at high speed in the right direction before the bubbles cleared and could swim loops upside down around the props without getting fouled in their lines.
No doubt there should be a minimum fitness standard. Without question, being more fit can make you better at your job, if for no other reason than it helps you better deal with stress and sleep deprivation. However, being fit, and more importantly "appearing fit" do not indicate whether or not you are effective at your job, and the required level of fitness is vastly different between jobs in the military.
