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Sorry to hear about your friend's son and the Chair Farce ;-) (Actually, one of my daughters just finished a 6-year stint in the AF - but she intentionally wanted to break her old man's heart :-( -- in actual fact, her maternal grandfather was a USAAF B-29 pilot who won the DFC over Japan. My Dad was USN submarine force, and his brothers Navy aviation and Marines, so she had her choice)
Weight gain at age 18-22 can be triggered by stress, by working out harder than before, eating more and better, or just maturing. Boot camp, at least until the early 70s, definitely was both stress and hard physical activity! My weight gain, for example, was from a somewhat depressed start (I'd had mono the previous year), but the gain was steady, and I ate voraciously whatever the chow hall served. When it was done, I was in the BSOML. It was evenly distibuted strength and significant endurance. Lots of sailors gain significant weight at boot camp and/or their first duty station because the activity drives it, but also because it's natural at that age to "fill out".
For Nick, it'll be interesting to see. If it comes from weightlifting, he may indeed have big "guns". If it was from a more general workout program, maturing, and increasing input (6200 calories would be more than boot camp, where I believe it used to be 4000-5000 depending on how fast you could eat), I would expect him to be heavier around the shoulders, hips, and thighs. If he did enough running (double-timing with gear and rifle?), he might be both stronger and quicker. His endurance might be massively improved. But again, he's gone from rail-thin to Ackley's & Ryan's size - we might not have noticed without Lonnie's intel. In the vids from fan-fest, wearing a jacket, he just looks healthy and upbeat.
On the NIMITZ class carriers, it's 18 flights of stairs (ladders) from the turbine condensors in the machinery rooms to the bridge where the Captain usually is. No elevators (those are for planes and bombs). Running that path 2-3 times a day during an upkeep can keep you fit. Endurance was a necessity. Couldn't do it anymore.