[roberts_usmc]

Some of the stuff in this thread is just plain silly!

The first thing I'll take issue with is the guy saying that in his Army bootcamp they usually did a minimum of 25 pullups.
You must have been training with fricking Delta Force - if not that's pure BS.
I am a Marine, and in my boot camp I had the same thing happen. I wasn't a fat-body in the first place, instead I was in pretty good shape. I still lost pullups, and overall strength and weight.
I went doing 12 pullups, left doing 10, and now (6 months after leaving) I do 19-20 depending on the day. I've got to call BS that you guys did a minimum of 25 deadhang pullups in bootcamp.

For the original question:
Do you mean the once in a few years encounter with some BG or combat operations against an opposing force?
Against some bad guy, you need to do just have good hand to hand, knife fighting, and fire-arms skills. Of course it helps to be able to bench 500 lbs or some **** like that -- but you can't stamp something on there like that. Some one will always be able to kick your ass. Just prepare.

In combat operations against an opposing force, you need to have endurance and strength. It's not a question of "can you jog/run a mile?" The question is more like, "can you hauls ass 2 miles to reinforce another platoon heavily engaged, then get down and do fire and manuever for the length of the firefight while carrying all your gear and a weapon (or weapons) plus lots of ammo? Then you got humps where you need to be able to carry a fricking machine gun plus a pack weighing 80-100 lbs on your back.