Should someone be denied a retirement award, after 20 years of service and 4 deployments, because they're flagged for being overweight?

Oh, that is wrong on so many levels. They are leaving the military after an honorable 20 years, and the height/weight gets them in the end. They survived this long, and that is what did them in? Once retirement paperwork is in, the rules and regulations should be waved for something like this. I remain befuddled by the Army bureaucracy.

I think many of you are missing the point that was being made and the question being asked. First off: YES physical fitness is a personal responsibility, both for PT and maintaining proper height and weight standards. YES the individual that becomes flagged for failing an APFT or being placed on the ABCP only has themself to blame (outside of those with medical issues that contribute to the weight gain). The basic premise for this question is whether you think someone that has served 20+ years deserves the recognition of an award, regardless of being flagged for ABCP enrollment or an APFT failure.
Personally I say yes they do deserve the recognition. It isn't always just about the individual. A few people have already mentioned the fact that it is also about the Soldiers remaining in service after said individual retires. If we treat a Soldier that basically gave 20 or more years of their adult life to this country that way because of something that is truly of minor significance, then we become hypocritical, because you always hear speeches and seniors talk about taking care of each other from the time you enter the service. What motivation do the younger Soldiers have to give their adult life to the service vs. getting out? Another way to look at it is like this: What is one purpose of an Article 15? It is to maintain good order and discipline within the unit. If that was not one of the purposes then every punishment should be the same, regardless of the circumstances leading to the misconduct.
As far as the retirement award goes though, it is a public recognition of the sacrifices of the Soldier and his/her family. And for the individual that asked about the retirement ceremony, I have not been to an installation that does not hold a monthly or at least quarterly retirement ceremony. If you can determine when the next one is at your duty station, you should attend. You will typically see hundreds of years of service to the nation sitting in one room. Most places feel it is so important that they have a Brigade Commander and CSM host the ceremony and present the awards to the retirees.

Funny. It mostly seems the younger/junior NCO's and CSMs are all about the regs while others are a little more forgiving. For those in the “who cares about meaningless medals” camp, do you wear yours? Would you be butthurt if you didn’t receive something for a deployment or PCS? Then we have that small group in which I’ve seen commanders disregard the regs and ensure a deserving Soldier is taken care of. The worst group to fall into are Soldiers who don’t receive awards because there was a word misspelled or some other stupid error on their 638 and the attitude is “well, he’s gone, who gives a shit.”
I will end my participation here by stating we’ll have to agree to disagree. Failing to honor a Soldier who dedicated at least 20 years of their life to the military in an honorable manner (who's retiring) because they missed the run by five seconds or is an inch over on tape is a leadership failure. What ever happened to taking care of Soldiers? My 2 ½ cents, flame away.

Depends on any mitigating circumstances. Was the Soldier recently injured or did they have a surgery? For a retirement award I would look past it unless the guy had a poor track record. It's a retirement award that may mean a lot to the Soldier and does not reduce readiness or erode standards due to the fact he's going to Ft. Living Room. Kind of douche move IMO to deny a Soldier a retirement award after 20 years of faithful service.

The very prevalent belief that weight gain is always the result of poor choices and a lack is self-discipline is contrary to nearly 15 years of research (Vierra, etal. Stanford, 2006). Weight gain has been proven to happen as a result of aging (10-15% increase every decade), and nearly 200 mapped genetic anomalies that result in obesity at the same rate that the well-known breast cancer gene presents in cancer. This is not a popular view. Many people place a lot of stock in feeling morally superior to those who are overweight. But even after the Biosphere experiments, we began to learn that even in a closed environment given dramatoc caloric restrictions and increased physical.actovory, within 18-24 months humans return to their setpoint weight, even if they continue with the diet.
Saying that someone is ineligible for service when they are initially screened is one thing. But negating prior service when it is possible to determine medical causality is unethical in the extreme.

Yup, Thats the rules. However, a General Officer can authorize the award regardless of the flag though. AR 600-8-22.

Your CC forgot four things:
1) What a retirement medal is
2) What it represents
3) Who it's for (Troop AND his/her family)
4) How to motivate with positive reinforcement.

BTW... If he/she sees this and says "Motivate! The guy is retiring!" - Then he/she is missing out on the whole "leadership" thing. The motivation is for the troops in the audience at the ceremony.

Seems like this might be that one time you can look past that. Just my personal opinion.

We had a ward master when I first joined , a very capable gregarious individual. Had a profile for bad knees due to combat jumps. One day I saw him walking down an alley in front of my car by the hospital. I slowly inched the car behind him and hit the horn. I immediately regretted doing it. This poor fellow tried to hobble out of the way of the car scared he was going to be hit. It would have been funny and we did laugh about it later but it etched on my heart to cost of his service. During normal hours he hide his pain and disability very well. I have known to many good soldiers who have struggled with weight issues. That being said , when I was at Fort Carson we had a tanker so fat he got stuck in the turret, it was a discussion point at general officers call. Must be some gray ground to give the deserving a break.

BTW a lot of my fellow "super dupper paratroopers" will not agree with me on this one, but I rather have one overweight mechanic in the motor pool that knows what he's doing, gets the job done, and can teach others than 10 PT studs that all they know to do is jump out of airplanes and follow orders. These overweight guys sometimes are the hardest workers in the units... Now I'm mostly talking stateside peacetime Army! It's a whole different thing to count on that guy to run to the Assembly Area... For that I'll use the studs lol