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Enlistment-Ending Minor Malaise: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
''And my asthma's getting worse
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If the setting is during a state of total warfare, this can avoid implying the character is [[Draft Dodging]]. This can be a case of [[Informed Flaw]]. A [[Ruptured Appendix]] is a medical condition with no real long term consequence, though generally won't qualify for this. Some vision problems are still disqualifying from service even if they [[Blind Without'Em|can be corrected with the right prescription lens]]. [[w:Flat feet|Flat feet]] is the classic [[Stealth Pun|impediment]] to enlistment, in part because of [[Inherently Funny Words|how ridiculous it sounds]].
{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* A variant; Barbara Gordon tried signing up for police and federal law enforcement work in ''[[Batgirl: Year One]]''. Why was she rejected despite her stellar academics and physical ability? Because she didn't meet their minimum height requirements. While her dad could have pulled connections to get her a job, he refused. Commissioner Gordon tells his daughter bluntly that he doesn't want her on the front lines because it is dangerous, and she's safer working in a library.
== [[Film]] ==
* Inverted in ''[[Mulan]]''. The title character argues that her father Fa Zhou has already served in the army, sustaining heart problems and a leg injury that necessitates a cane. He will die in battle if he goes to fight the Huns when the Emperor sends conscription notices. Fa Zhou asserts it will restore honor, something Mulan lost that day by failing her matchmaker exam, and he will die "doing what is right". His wife Fa Li agrees with Mulan in private, fighting with her husband and crying before they go to bed. Since Fa Zhou has no sons that can take his place, Mulan takes her father's armor and conscription notice, posing as a man to replace him in the army.
== [[Literature]] ==
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* While most of the ''[[Dad's Army]]'' cast are relegated to the Home Guard for clear cases of being too old for military service, its younger members are in the Home Guard instead of the army due to examples of this. Joe Walker is allergic to ration staple corned beef (though [[Lost Episode|the loss in a BBC archive purge]] of its debut episode ''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker'' and his Black Marketeer stats give many the impression it's fake) while Frank Pike has a [[AB Negative|rare blood type]].
* One ongoing plot in season two of ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' has Lucille accidentally enroll her youngest son Buster in the army. She spends a long time pulling strings and using her body to keep him out of combat. Turns out it was [[All for Nothing]]; a seal eats his right hand in a freak accident, forcing Buster to wear a hook.
== [[Music]] ==
* As seen in the page quote, the "narrator" of [[Phil Ochs]]' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U "Draft Dodger Rag"] has several conditions (in addition to a host of other reasons) that allegedly disqualify him from Vietnam-era military service.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** In at least one [[WWII]]-vintage cartoon, [[Bugs Bunny]] was apparently rejected for military service (the sole of one foot is stamped "4F") for something so minor that it didn't prevent him from performing his usual antics.
** In another, this gets [[Played With]]. Bugs gets a draft letter mistakenly sent his way instead of to B. Bonny; he passes the health exam due to perfect eyesight and the doctor thinking he's seeing a rabbit skeleton on the X-ray due to hallucinations. When the general finds out they hired a rabbit, after Bugs blew up the military camp using a shell to hammer a photo, they say that Bugs can't work on the frontlines because he's not human. They have him testing shells in the factory instead.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Nearly occurred with American Admiral and long distance marksmanship champion Willis Augustus "Ching" Lee, who very much needed glasses due to his childhood adventures in bomb making. Despite high marks at the naval academy, a vision test near the end ''would'' have gotten him dismissed, had the rest of the class not gathered together to help him cheat at it. He would go on to be a thoroughly excellent Admiral and his career only ended when he died seven days before the end of [[World War II]].
* Former President of the United States [[Donald Trump]] was spared participation in the [[Vietnam War]] in 1968 when [https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/26/politics/trump-bone-spurs-vietnam-war/index.html his podiatrist diagnosed him] with [https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/heel-spurs-pain-causes-symptoms-treatments heel spurs]. This painful condition that makes walking difficult appears to have resolved itself shortly after the war ended.
* [[Stephen King]] mentioned in ''On Writing'' that he considered enlisting for the Vietnam War in the hopes it would inspire a book; his mother made him go to college instead because she didn't want him returning in a coffin. The biography ''Haunted Heart'' reveals that he wasn't qualified anyway due to punctured eardrums from a procedure meant to cure his ear infections as a child. (King wasn't that grateful as a child, saying the experience taught him to never trust doctors saying "This won't hurt.")
{{reflist}}
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