← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 18442 | Posts: 21 | Started: 2005-05-29
2005-05-29 12:59 | User Profile
This editorial makes little sense to me.
The shortfall in recruitment in the Army and Marines isn't a result of poor treatment of our ground forces, it is rather a function of the fact that this war wasn't the cakewalk promised. Young soldiers and Marines are getting killed and wounded over there, and no amount of combat pay and college tuition benefits can make that worthwhile. For the same reason recruitment in the Navy and Air Force is still up to snuff, because sailors and airmen risk much less. Car bombs generally don't bring down aircraft of sink ships - they do blow to bits near standing human bodies, whether or not they're wearing an American uniform.
The NYT is whining about Rumsfeld, but yet supports the war in Iraq. The author seems to be saying that if only we'd have gone in with more troops then fewer would have been killed, and consequently morale would improve along with recruitment. Seems like a stretch. Had the Empire gone in there with a million troops, that just would have created that many more targets for the car bombers and snipers. Right? This is a guerilla war - an asymmetrical war - where numbers don't matter so much as good military intelligence and moral resolve.
But I'm no expert. What's the consensus on this, gentlemen?
[URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/opinion/29sun1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print]New York Times[/URL] May 29, 2005 The Death Spiral of the Volunteer Army
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld likes to talk about transforming America's military. But the main transformation he may leave behind is a catastrophic falloff in recruitment for the country's vital ground fighting forces: the Army and the Marine Corps. The recruitment chain that has given the United States highly qualified, highly skilled and highly motivated ground forces for the three decades since the government abandoned the draft has started to break down.
This is astonishing, even allowing for the administration's failure to prepare Americans honestly for how long and difficult the occupation of Iraq would be. There are over 60 million American men and women between 18 and 35, the age group sought by Army recruiters. Getting the 80,000 or so new volunteers the Army needs to enlist each year ought not to be such a daunting challenge. There are obvious attractions to joining the world's most powerful, prestigious and best-equipped ground fighting forces, and in so doing qualifying for valuable benefits like college tuition aid.
But Army recruitment is now regularly falling short of the necessary targets. Recruiters are having even more trouble persuading people to sign up for Army National Guard and Reserve units. The Marine Corps has been missing its much smaller monthly quotas as well. Unless there is a sharp change later this year, both forces will soon start feeling the pinch as too few trainees are processed to meet both forces' operational needs.
Why this is happening is no mystery. Two years of hearing about too few troops on the ground, inadequate armor, extended tours of duty and accelerated rotations back into combat have taken their toll, discouraging potential enlistees and their parents. The citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserves have suddenly become full-time warriors. Nor has it helped that when abuse scandals have erupted, the Pentagon has seemed quicker to punish lower-ranking soldiers than top commanders and policy makers. This negative cycle now threatens to feed on itself. Fewer recruits will mean more stress on those now in uniform and more grim reports reaching hometowns across America.
The results can now be seen at every Army and Marine recruiting office. (The Air Force and Navy, which have not been subjected to the same stresses and dangers as the ground forces, are meeting their recruiting quotas.) Missed quotas have translated into intense pressure to lower standards and recruit people who should not be in uniform. Earlier this month the Army required all of its recruiters to go through a one-day review of basic recruiting ethics.
Things might have been different if Mr. Rumsfeld had heeded the judgment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, in the months before the United States invaded Iraq and planned for a substantially larger occupation force. A larger force might have kept the insurgency smaller and more manageable. It would have been better able to defend itself without resorting to the kind of indiscriminate firepower that kills civilians, destroys homes and inflames Iraqi opinion. Individual combat brigades would not have been under such constant operational stress. But Mr. Rumsfeld rejected General Shinseki's sound advice. The Pentagon now says it gives field commanders as many troops as they ask for. But those commanders are aware of Mr. Rumsfeld's doctrinaire commitment to holding down troop numbers and of the diminished career prospects that could result from challenging him.
The Pentagon now hopes that next month's high school graduations will help it catch up to its recruiting goals. Besides crossing its fingers, the military should open more combat roles to women, end its senseless discrimination against gays and reach out to immigrants with promises of citizenship after completion of service. There should be no thought of reinstating the draft, which would be militarily foolish and politically explosive. But expanding the potential recruiting pool can be only a partial answer.
Young people and their parents are reacting rationally to a regrettable and unnecessary transformation in how the United States government treats its ground troops. That is what needs to be changed.
2005-05-29 18:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Why this is happening is no mystery. Two years of hearing about too few troops on the ground, inadequate armor, extended tours of duty and accelerated rotations back into combat have taken their toll, discouraging potential enlistees and their parents.
A few thoughts....
1) Today's military-age young people from Gen Y are the kids of Boomers. Not trying to paint with too broad a brush, but a good many of the parents were to some degree or another activists against the Vietnam war, ex-hippies, and their legacy is the establishment left. Military service for their kids is gonna be a tough sell to them under any conditions, not to mention the controversial nature of the war in Iraq and the fact that it ain't going very well.
2) If we discount most of the kids of blue state liberals from military service, that leaves the red state, patriotic, Bible Belt types, who aren't going to the elite universities on trust funds to begin with, and who historically tend to view military service as honorable. I think the constant propagandizing of Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News, and Weiner "Savage" only goes so far with even Bubba. Coastal types don't see many body bags...in Jerkwater USA, I would imagine that the probability that more people know somebody killed or maimed in Iraq/Afghanistan is significantly higher.
3) A significant chunk of military recruits--hispanics and blacks--aren't all so gung-ho as white Christian Zionists to make the world safe for Israel. The more aware among them, in fact, have been onto the Zionist angle of this war all along from the beginning, just like the "far right" has known. I honestly wonder if inner city and barrio recruiters have heard much of any anti-Israel rhetoric from kids who see through the BS. Remember, families and friends back on the block are influenced also by the perceptions of returning veterans.
2005-05-29 19:07 | User Profile
If a foreign country were to invade the US we would 100% fight against them the same way when we invade a foreign country I would expect them to fight 100% against us.........do I need to say more?
2005-05-29 20:21 | User Profile
Walter, > This is a guerilla war - an asymmetrical war - where numbers don't matter so much as good military intelligence and moral resolve. [/unquote]
Yep, that pretty much says it all. Hackworth would agree with you, in fact he did so explicitly in interviews given before his death. In war, the moral is to the physical as three to one. No matter what one thinks of them, the suicide bombers have the courage of their convictions. Generation Y in the former U.S. is not up to that, no, not even the "women" and the "gays" and the [illegal alien] "immigrants" the New Yawk Times proposes to fill the combat gaps. This is the croaking of the Empire.
2005-05-30 17:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=New York Times]
Besides crossing its fingers, the military should open more combat roles to women, end its senseless discrimination against gays and reach out to immigrants with promises of citizenship after completion of service. There should be no thought of reinstating the draft, which would be militarily foolish and politically explosive. But expanding the potential recruiting pool can be only a partial answer. [/QUOTE]
Pathetic article indeed, Walter. So the NYT just comes out and says that we need women in front-line combat roles, more homos, and more immigrants in the Army. Now that's one heckuva a fighting force isn't it ? Women, who possibly have children at home, and want to stay alive to have children, gays, who are attracted physically to their fellow soldiers and are usually effeminate, and immigrants, legal or illegal, who are no more than unpatriotic mercenaries looking for a few bucks to send back to Mexico. Man, if I were the Mujahadeen, Sadr Militia, Baathist elements, or just an Iraqi sick of living in fear of bombs and imprisonment all the time with a rocket mortar, I'd be WORRIED about that FIGHTING MACHINE. Isn't it also revealing that the NYT is speaking as if it is a foregone conclusion that the USA will need more troops in Iraq for years to come, and doesn't even mention the possibility ( because there is none, of course ) that troops could be sent home or elsewhere. [url]http://www.uruknet.info[/url] [url]http://www.iraqwar.ru[/url]
2005-05-30 17:36 | User Profile
If the military were to announce that it would henceforth be patrolling the southern border to fight the hostile invasion from Mexico, I bet they'd be turning people away.
2005-05-30 18:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]If the military were to announce that it would henceforth be patrolling the southern border to fight the hostile invasion from Mexico, I bet they'd be turning people away.[/QUOTE]
...and there'd be a huge chunk of fifth columnist Mexican (and maybe Puerto Rican) enlistees who'd protest, refuse or sabotage pulling border duty. You seen today's military lately? In some units English is the exception, not the rule.
2005-05-31 00:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]You seen today's military lately? In some units English is the exception, not the rule.[/QUOTE] No s***?
I would not be surprised. There was a heavy Hispanic component when I did my little reserve duty 1982-86 but they all spoke good English. Now it seems every other troop has an Hispanic name. Remember the Marine lance corporal who returned to Somalia to briefly become, iirc, it's President? Un-be-f***ing-lievable.
2005-05-31 00:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]Remember the Marine lance corporal who returned to Somalia to briefly become, iirc, it's President? Un-be-f***ing-lievable.[/QUOTE]
never heard of that one...got a link?
2005-05-31 00:59 | User Profile
[url="http://www.netnomad.com/aydiidyounger.nyt.html"]http://www.netnomad.com/aydiidyounger.nyt.html[/url]
Sorry, not president of Somalia, but head of the Habr Gedir clan formerly headed by his father. I remember watching TV news reports of this.
2005-05-31 11:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Exelsis_Deo]Pathetic article indeed, Walter. So the NYT just comes out and says that we need women in front-line combat roles, more homos, and more immigrants in the Army. Now that's one heckuva a fighting force isn't it ? [/QUOTE] Yeah, exactly.
I posted this article because it just didn't compute, and as I mulled it over yesterday I realize it doesn't compute because the author is absolutely deluded.
I mean, just think of how nuts you have to be to even propose something like that. As if you wouldn't further alienate 10 1-A recruits for each woman and faggot they managed to attract.
The folks running the Empire have a very loose grip on reality.
Which is both bad and good, I guess. It's bad in the short run, but their delusions might just deliver them into partriot hands some day, the Good Lord willing.
2005-06-01 14:21 | User Profile
Walter,
Other than the conclusion, the editorial makes more sense than the present Bush policy. What I would love to know is how many people are refusing to volunteer because they see this as a war for Israel and oil? I don't think we'll ever see that poll done. The conclusion shows typical p.c. New York Times boilerplate that results from not understanding the military.
[url]www.wpherald.com[/url] Walker's World: Neo-con wants more troops By Martin Walker UPI Editor Published May 31, 2005
What do you call a neo-conservative who has learned just how hard and costly and manpower-intensive the post-victory mission in Iraq has become?
You call him a realist who has understood that the U.S. military is the wrong size and the wrong shape, and the $500 billion Pentagon budget too little to do the job.
That is the position of Tom Donnelly, one of Washington's most prominent strategic thinkers and author of the new study: "The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine." Published this week by Donnelly's intellectual home, the American Enterprise Institute think tank, this book sums up the current anguish among some of President Bush's staunchest supporters. Donnelly's theme is that Bush has the right strategic goal in "the forward strategy of freedom" that seeks to transform the Middle East through the promotion of democracy, but lacks the means to pursue it. Worse still, the U.S. military is bending under the strain.
"Without greater spending, the very structures of America's defenses -- most particularly the U.S. Army -- are in danger of precipitate collapse," Donnelly writes. "The expansive Bush doctrine is built on a dangerously fractured foundation."
Donnelly has three separate causes to promote in this deceptively modest volume. At just less than a 100 pages it feels slim, but is packed with ideas, challenges and argument that command the attention of anyone who has ever expressed an opinion on the Iraq war, the Middle East and terrorism.
His first contention is that the current Pentagon budget of just more than $400 billion plus another $100 billion and more in "supplementals" for Iraq and Afghanistan is not enough. The administration should bite the bullet and accept that 5 percent of gross domestic product, or $600 billion, is the kind of price required -- and still a lot less than the average 8 percent of GDP spent during the Cold War. The money should go toward manpower, boosting the current active duty Army from 480,000 to 625,000, and the Marine Corps to 210,000.
His second thesis is that the military needs much more transformation, and not in simply becoming nimbler. Those heavy Abrams tanks were very useful in Fallujah, but the United States may not need the current fleet of aircraft carrier battlegroups, and the Air Force's high-tech fighters and short-range tactical warplanes, which are being bought at the expense of the strategic airlift and refueling tanker aircraft on which any conceivable future military will depend.
"The military's obsession with technology has left the services increasingly ill suited for the missions they must actually execute," he writes.
But the modern military needs to do two separate jobs; one is to be able to win major and high-technology modern wars, not just in order to fight them but in order to prevent them, by deterring rising new powers like China. The other is to build "an army for regime change," one that can accomplish the post-battle stabilizing, nation-building and counter-insurgency missions that are stretching and straining today's military in Iraq.
This brings him to the third and most important argument -- that the United States has to be clear about its strategic priorities, and the alliances and basing systems these impose. For Donnelly, the goal "the preservation and expansion of today's Pax Americana."
"The first key to success is to expand and deepen the process of political liberalization in the Islamic world, on the periphery (by which he means West Africa and Southeast Asia) as well as in the Arab heartland," he writes. "Just as important, however, will be integrating China within the liberal international order -- even though it implies some form of regime change in Beijing."
These jobs require new kinds of allies, and NATO is not that helpful. For Donnelly, "Collectively, Europe is nearly irrelevant to the great issues of the future of the Middle East and East Asia." The kinds of allies that the United States needs are those who share U.S. concerns about China and Islam, who are prepared to fight and who also believe in democracy.
"India gets tick marks on all four," Donnelly said in an interview in his AEI office. "We have to learn to make strategy without Europe -- which means learning to make it with others. But potential allies have to be reassured that they are on the winning side and right now they are watching our efforts in Iraq, watching to see how and what we do."
New allies mean new basing strategies. Donnelly wants to get back to Subic Bay and Clarke Field in the Philippines, to be closer to the Chinese coast than Guam or Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile he wants smaller bases, and smaller, less expensive but highly visible forces like Navy gunboats or frontier forts in the new areas of concern like the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and near Venezuela, and on the outskirts of Islam like West Africa and the Red Sea, or the Lombok and Malacca Straits in Southeast Asia.
Currently an AEI resident scholar, and before that with Lockheed Martin, and before that with the House Armed Services Committee, and before that the editor of Army Times, Donnelly became known as one the high priests of neo-conservatism for his part in running the Project for the New American Century in the 1990s. All involved with PNAC, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his former deputy, Paul Wolfowitz (now head of the World Bank), have entered the demonology of the left. Web sites are devoted to watching PNAC and its supposed attempt to take over the planet on behalf of the U.S. dollar, Halliburton, hamburgers and **Israel** (which barely gets a mention in Donnelly's book).
The curious feature of Donnelly's work is that he transcends these easy labels. He can certainly be called neo-conservative, but he is also an American nationalist, and could be labeled a neo-imperialist since he admires the cost-effective way the British ran their empire (and the way they used Indian troops). Above all, he sounds like a realist in the way he wants to match military means to strategic ends, but yet Donnelly understands the limits of realism and of realpolitik.
"America's political principles are the most powerful aspect of what is now called 'soft power,' the ability to attract others around the world, both to retain allies and to win over potential enemies," he writes. "The retreat to realpolitik would be to forego our most precious strategic tool."
It may not win over any of the anti-neocon Web sites, or even appease his critics among the Democrats and in the Pentagon, but Donnelly's new book will be required reading for anyone wondering just where Bush administration is heading in these days of $500 billion defense budgets, and when nine out of the Pentagon's 10 divisions are either in Iraq, training to go there, or recuperating after coming back.
Copyright é 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Return to the article [url]http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050531-121908-8291r[/url] ==================== Rather ambitous, isn't he? To do this is akin to giving an irresponsible 16 year old the car keys with a case of beer thrown in on a Friday night. This has nothing to do with "terrorism" and everything to do with meddling on Israel and Wall Street's account.
2005-06-03 19:48 | User Profile
Walter:
The sound byte
Hearkens back to Nixon: Would you buy a used car from this man/DoD? Loss of trust, or a credibility gap. I freely admit, I believed Powel when he briefed the U.N. Blush for having been had, I must.
Elaboration.
Rumsfeld is one of a long line of Silver Bullet thinkers (see Bernard Brodie and the MAD gang) whose counsel ignores the man with the bayonet as the last word in who controls terrain. He is, like MacNamara, better at bottom lines and balance sheets than the art of strategy. (Let's set aside for a moment the justness of going to Iraq in the first place, will get to that at the end.)
The argument made about "not trying to wage war on the cheap," see General Shinseki's being hammered for speaking the hard truth to his superiors, was the loss of any ability, early on, to cast larger nets and catch Saddam sooner (every day he was loose enheartened his supporters and eroded stability) and catch the foreign recruits who would infiltrate to support the ranks of the anti-American and for some, [u]the anti Shiite forces[/u]. Don't discount that last part. Likewise, every day Zarqawi is alive is a recruiting poster for his forces. (The Brits have had far less trouble down Basra way. Point worth pondering.)
Free agents like Muktar Sadr, whose father was well respected by millions but who has little credibility as a cleric beyond his father's blood, exacerbated the multi-polar aspect of the current civil war. He cut the legs out from under other Shiite leaders, making his own power play. Among other things, he depicted them as sell outs. That he is still alive is a tribute to his own craft and Al Sistani's long term thinking. He diverted forces away from the other counter American forces by his actions.
So, why the easily spread bile, and the ease of keeping the fight alive? Think not of the Marshall Plan, but rather the Reconstruction and the Radical Reconstruction. Paint that picture in Sunni Iraqi's hues. Look familiar?
Patton got canned for trying to bring old Nazi's back into the fold post war. Our current generals, and Paul Bremmer, were ordered NOT to bring old Ba'athists, many of whom were capable, into the fold. Talk about self defeating policy. Doors closed early in the game.
Who paid?
The Marine and the Soldier. Why? More folks decided, early on, "we can't" or "we don't need to" work with these people (Americans). Even for all the success stories CENTCOM and the DOD public affairs spit out regarding the brigdes the soldiers build with the local folks, it does not take a large percentage of a population to keep a rebellion alive. Our own versus the Brits is a good example.
The longer we stay, the less credible becomes the message that 'we will leave soon' whatever "soon" means. Lose credibility, and more people decide "not hear to help, hear to rule, screw them, we will fight the foreigner." Go shoot at a Marine, shoot at a cargo plane, plant a bomb, snipe a policeman, what have you. For some young men, it is a rite of passage.
Failures in intelligence killed troops: the Brits have been bumming around Iraq for decades. The French as well. Was no one talking to these folks? I judge, in retrospect, not in any depth. Hubris, anyone? Chalabi had someone's ear, what criminal foolishness. Narrow minded approach to "who do we need to cut deals with," early on, that cannot be undone. Among Arabs, cutting deals is important. The process is as important as the final deal.
The IED's and snipers are standard partisan warfare, see Lawrence of Arabia and Arabs versus Turks. "Attacking supply routes are us." What has changed is some of the elegance of blowing up train tracks full of stuff. Won't get into the esoteric counters, other than to say it could be a hell of a lot worse. There is some expensive stuff out there supressing IED's every day. But it can't reach them all, and each one that blows up is a recruiting poster for Zarqawi's. So long as he has men, he can fight.
Stretch thin an occupation force, which is what it now is, and you leave cracks and seams to be hit. The sick part is, your opponent has the initiative. That dual element is KEY to the frustration of the troops on the ground. They can rarely "take the fight to the enemy," they have to wait for attack, all the while "creating stabillity."
The Houston and LA Police Departments have trouble with that, in a society not aflame in a civil war . . . yet.
What story is getting back via informal channels, never mind the various media agendas, or DoD's sound bytes?
"We have been used, and any promise of this ending any time soon is bogus."
The one thing no commander can afford to lose is the trust of those he leads. That has been true since Agamemnon before Troy. You can't recruit if the word on the street is that you are expendable, that you can't trust the leadership, and that the leadership is a group who makes fundamental error after fundamental error. "Hi, son, you want to come play football for a coach who has had 4 straight 2-9 seasons, no TV, no bowl game?" The HUMVEE armor issue is a good example of silver bullet myopia that got people killled.
The exposure of falsehood, simple incompetence, or both regarding "why we went" has penetrated. That theme erodes trust in leadership, just as Clinton's wasteful deployments for 8 years eroded trust in his leadership. The current impact is worse: the action far more lethal over the Bosnia and Somalia stuff, but the desire of any warrior is victory. What is victory now?
Summing up, I somewhat disagree with the author, as he seems to overlook the warrior ethos.
The root cause of the recruiting problem is a combination of "whoa, that college funding may cost me my life" and more powerfully "I don't trust these guys to sell me a used car, no less send me to war." Add to that the "car salesman" tactics of Army, Navy, and Air Force recruiters for the past few decades, and you get a sales pitch that lacks credibility.
The Marines, who use a testosterone based appeal -- "hey, Bud, you man enough to be one of us?" -- may be having trouble due to how well the Marine Corps has told everyone about all the tough fighting they do every day. Hoist on the Petard of Their Own PR campaign, a curious irony.
That is the short answer. :smoke: Let's ignore the demographics on married soldiers (major difference between now and WW II, for example) and the impact/stress of the two income household on the little lady at home.
The cornerstone of an all volunteer force willingly going to war is, besides being well trained and properly equipped, is belief, and trust, that they are well led and that what they are doing is the right thing to do. That cornerstone is cracking.
I woudln't blame the recruiters. They are trying to sell a Yugo in a Toyota friendly market.
2005-06-03 20:00 | User Profile
Sertorius
Donelly's assertion is scary. He is trying to justify rewriting history to the 1992 base force proposed by then CJCS Powell. The political will in America to "reap a peace dividend" makes his proposals fiscally irresponsible, unless about five tech booms simultaneously happen for the American economy for the next 10 years. I don't see it.
Guns and Butter. He seems to forget the most basic equation. A strategy you can't afford is no strategy at all.
An exaggeration would be:
French guy: "Hi, I am France, I want to take over all of the Magreb, and return the Rhineland to France. I expect to have to fight for that."
Analyst:
"The bill in blood and treasure, monsieur, exceeds your available manpower and your realistic share of GDP for the next generation."
French Guy: "Do you take VISA?"
That is a caricature of what Donelly proposes.
2005-06-03 20:04 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]If the military were to announce that it would henceforth be patrolling the southern border to fight the hostile invasion from Mexico, I bet they'd be turning people away.[/QUOTE] "Looks like SteamshipTime hit that one deep over the Centerfield wall! Home run!"
2005-06-04 02:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Walter,
Other than the conclusion, the editorial makes more sense than the present Bush policy. What I would love to know is how many people are refusing to volunteer because they see this as a war for Israel and oil? I don't think we'll ever see that poll done. The conclusion shows typical p.c. New York Times boilerplate that results from not understanding the military.[/QUOTE]I doubt many. Clearly with all the infighting WN are up to, they aren't capable of undertaking any sort of mass media/propoganda campaign, and TAC is just a tiny blip on the conservative horizon. The country as a whole remains divided between those that don't like/support the military, and those that support the military and think by supporting the administration Israel they are doing that.
Its really fascinating to see the basic lack of strategy on the part of WN's. Here we see the neo-conservative regime collapsing before our eyes, and we often can think of nothing better than ways of propping it up again. Because right now WN has no alternative. And paleoism? With Buchanan gone it seems even more organizationally berift than WN.
2005-06-04 19:31 | User Profile
US lowers standards in army numbers crisis
Jamie Wilson in Washington Saturday June 4, 2005 The Guardian
The US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy in an attempt to halt the rising attrition rate in an army under growing strain as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An internal memo sent to senior commanders said the growing dropout rate was "a matter of great concern" in an army at war. It told officers: "We need your concerted effort to reverse the negative trend. By reducing attrition 1%, we can save up to 3,000 initial-term soldiers. That's 3,000 more soldiers in our formations." Officially, the memo, reported in the Wall Street Journal and posted on Slate.com, ordered battalion commanders to refer cases of problem soldiers up to brigade level. Military experts warned that the move would make it more difficult to remove poor soldiers and would lower quality in the ranks.
A military spokesman told the Guardian yesterday: "It was merely a question of an additional set of eyes looking at an issue before we release potential recruits."
The Wall Street Journal quoted a battalion commander as saying: "It is the guys on weight control ... school no-shows, drug users, etc, who eat up my time and cause my hair to grey prematurely ... Often they have more than one of these issues simultaneously."
Asked what the new policy meant, John Pike from the thinktank Globalsecurity.org said: "It means there is a war on. They need all the soldiers they can get. But it is a dilemma. You need good soldiers more in wartime than peacetime."
The latest controversy comes amid a growing recruitment and retention crisis in the US military. Last month the army announced that it was 6,659 soldiers short of its recruitment targets for the year so far. On Wednesday, the department of defence withheld the latest figures, a move seen by most commentators as heralding more bad news.
The military's target is 80,000 new recruits this year, but the army only managed 73% of its target in February, 68% in March and 57% in April, forcing the expansion of a pilot programme offering 15-month active duty enlistments, rather than the usual four years.
The crisis has even led to fears - despite repeated denials by President George Bush - of a return to the draft system that conscripted 1.8 million Americans during the Vietnam war.
Major General Michael Rochelle, the head of army recruitment, said this was the "toughest recruiting climate ever faced by the all-volunteer army", with the war raising concern among potential recruits and their families.
"Recruiters have been given greater leeway," said Mr Pike. "By doing things to increase quantity you are also doing things to decrease quality, but they have made the judgment that that is the way to go."
One recruiting standard that was about to be lowered was a rule governing tattoos in the navy and marines. "If you have excessively prominent and vulgar tattoos they will not take you right now, but that is about to change," he said.
A commander quoted in the Wall Street Journal linked the growing attrition rate among new recruits to a slipping of standards by recruiters, who were under pressure to meet their monthly quotas.
An army spokeswoman said: "We are doing our best to decrease attrition level, but we have not and will not lower our standards for recruiting and retaining soldiers."
Yet in March 17.4% of all new army recruits failed to complete training, while another 7.3% did not finish the first three years with their unit.
Last month it emerged that one recruiter gave advice on how to cheat a mandatory drug test to a potential would-be soldier who said he had a drug problem.
In another incident in Texas, a recruiter threatened a 20-year-old man with arrest if he did not turn up to an interview. As a result all military recruiters stopped work for one day to attend retraining classes on acceptable practices.
-- > look's like we're removing all remaining barriers. I don't see this making much of a change, maybe 2 %. Look at April numbers. Only 57 % of recruitment target acheived. <--
2005-06-04 21:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]This editorial makes little sense to me.
The shortfall in recruitment in the Army and Marines isn't a result of poor treatment of our ground forces, it is rather a function of the fact that this war wasn't the cakewalk promised. Young soldiers and Marines are getting killed and wounded over there, and no amount of combat pay and college tuition benefits can make that worthwhile. For the same reason recruitment in the Navy and Air Force is still up to snuff, because sailors and airmen risk much less. Car bombs generally don't bring down aircraft of sink ships - they do blow to bits near standing human bodies, whether or not they're wearing an American uniform. [/QUOTE]How long til we start seeing "shore details" for USN sailors, with a quick refresher course in basic infrantry tactics, as well as increased "airbase security" details for USAF airmen? They are going to do whatever it takes to keep the numbers of warm bodies in harms way; anyone going into the navy or air force under current conditions is taking a gamble.
After all, anyone can drive a truck or do guard duty. What with the closing of so many "homeland" military bases, I expect we'll be seeing quite a bit of "freeing up" of manpower for use in Iraq, regardless of which branch of the service one happens to be in. I wouldn't be surprised if we mothball a few ships ahead of schedule, too.
2005-06-04 23:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=grep14w]How long til we start seeing "shore details" for USN sailors, with a quick refresher course in basic infrantry tactics, as well as increased "airbase security" details for USAF airmen? They are going to do whatever it takes to keep the numbers of warm bodies in harms way; anyone going into the navy or air force under current conditions is taking a gamble.
After all, anyone can drive a truck or do guard duty. What with the closing of so many "homeland" military bases, I expect we'll be seeing quite a bit of "freeing up" of manpower for use in Iraq, regardless of which branch of the service one happens to be in. I wouldn't be surprised if we mothball a few ships ahead of schedule, too.[/QUOTE] That has been happening, on the first case, since 9-11.
And more to the point, there was last year a bonus, I think, for certain MOS' in the Air Force to reenlist as soldiers in the Army. Not sure if they met the goal or not.
Funny, the ship mothballing issue is right now hot and heavy concerning the USS John F Kennedy. CV-67.
2005-06-05 13:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=grep14w]How long til we start seeing "shore details" for USN sailors, with a quick refresher course in basic infrantry tactics, as well as increased "airbase security" details for USAF airmen? They are going to do whatever it takes to keep the numbers of warm bodies in harms way; anyone going into the navy or air force under current conditions is taking a gamble.
After all, anyone can drive a truck or do guard duty. What with the closing of so many "homeland" military bases, I expect we'll be seeing quite a bit of "freeing up" of manpower for use in Iraq, regardless of which branch of the service one happens to be in. I wouldn't be surprised if we mothball a few ships ahead of schedule, too.[/QUOTE]
Good points.
I think the main thing is that you just couldn't trust them to let you out on the agreed date. There are lots of good guys and gals out there with critical skills who might be pursuaded in a fit of patriotic fever (aided perhaps by a few shots of bourbon) to sign up for a couple years. But then after you sufferred all the financial and familial disruptions and did your tour, then they'd sneer and say "Sorry. You have to stay. We need your skills. It's called "Stop-Loss." You screwed up. You trusted us!"
I think that scenario really takes away the proverbial punchbowl from right many boozy patriotic male bonding sessions among middle aged professionals.
I have skills I know they could use, but there's no way in hell I'm going near a recruiter's office. Once you go in, you can never be sure they'll ever let you out.
2005-06-05 17:55 | User Profile
Walter, for shame, using anecdote as evidence. :glare:
[QUOTE] . . .there's no way in hell I'm going near a recruiter's office. Once you go in, you can never be sure they'll ever let you out[/QUOTE] That idiot recruiter's hard sell not only shut down recruiting for a day, but I hear rumor got him censured most thoroughly. (Don't have any ready proof on that.) Dirty pool is dirty pool, even the brass know that.
Stop loss is extremely old news. Been part of the regulations for years, and the regulations are lawful, have the full weight and force of Congress, administrative law, etc. Anyone who bothers to read his enlistment contract, and you have to spend some time doing that, will see the caveats about lenght of enlistment. I am sure you are aware of the caveat concerning knowing what you are signing. :smartass:
I don't blame recruiters for emphasizing the positive aspects of military service, that is what any good salesman does to make a sale. What should not happen, and what should be punished, is out and out fraud and falsehood.
I am sure the brass could use a little Congressional boot to the arse about making sure their folks are playing with clean hands. It is incredibly damaging to the integrity of the honest recruiting effort to have factual cases of malfeasance documented.
You'd think integrity would be enforced over numbers, with a view toward long term public relations wouldn't you? Whoops, in America, long term thinking is not well practiced.