I don't know, I would think the last thing in the soldier's mind before deploying to war is to look up Delta or any other airline's site and try to gauge what acceptable weights for luggage are or not.

If the family is correct, the article states that the soldier was told to pay or lose the 16 pounds, not that an option was to put the excess items in another bag for free.

I don't know if the military is still semi-poorly equipping soldiers but I have heard many of them bring their own body armour, camel packs for water, etc as they don't necessarily get them in the field. I have no idea, I am just saying it's war. I have never put any thought into what I would take to war. Point is, maybe he needed lots of stuff and he wanted it in one bag...and he's not aware of airline rules as most of us here are.

All speculation anyway.