Huh? Was he in “Schrodinger’s Ball”?

Might have to find a different scapegoat. Now the White House is setting up the Iraqis themselves as fall guys for failing to “step up”.

A propos the lowered recruiting standards, think about this for awhile: the ones who don’t get blown up by an IED will come back to the U.S., eventually, with detailed training in how to kill with advanced weapons and still a 34% aptitude level on a 9th grade test. I’ve read in at least one article that they’re already having problems with gang affiliations. The Latino street gangs already have heavy weapons; do we really want them to have heavy weapons and military training??

Where do the troops come from? He can’t pull them out of Germany, South Korea, etc. so he has to try to add kids. Money is no object, it all goes on a credit card anyway, and it will be added to the mess that others have to clean up. So here’s a new Corvette kid, just sign on the dotted line.

Bush doesn’t know his *ss from second base. Yes, in his speeches lumps everything together as a war on terror, and it is all meant to avenge 9/11. Yaddah yaddah yaddah.

What *I* am talking about is the actual military policies.

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afganistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom are 2 separate, distinct entities in terms of DOD policies. If you are mobilized for one theater, it has absolutely no effect on your potential to be mobilized for the other theater. A soldier/sailor/arman/marine who is coming off of 24 months of activation in Iraq cannot be forced back to Iraq for 2 years. They can be forced to Afganistan the next day, because that is a *different* war. They have not been sent there, so there is no impediment to their deployment, they have a totally new clock to start. Also, the DOD can ‘request’ units waive their full 2 years of home rotation to go back early. And some troops that are mission critical can also be sent back early due to operational needs.

This is why we have troops in total burnout.

I laugh at the blind assumption that we are going to be able to increase troops by 10s of thousands, just because POTUS says so. We are offering unheard of incentives - bonuses up to 20K, extra pay, etc etc etc and we are loosing troops at a faster rate than ever, and we are having trouble meeting recruiting levels right now, much less increasing by thousands.

Kids aren’t lining up saying, “pick me, pick me! I want to go drive a HUMVEE and pray I don’t get killed by an IED or randlom Iraqi on the street.”

Also, right now, kids that would have never made it into the service 7-10 years ago are being let in by the thousands. Test scores are being dropped….. the military gives everyone considering the service a standardized battery of tests called the ASVAB…. basic math, reasoning, reading, direction following, mechanical aptitude, etc. etc. Nothing was above about a 9th grade learning level. To get into a specific branch of service, you had to score a minimum amount, Air Force was the highest cutoff, Army was the lowest at 39%. Your actual score determined which job or jobs you could pick from. Each job within the military has a minimum ASVAB score associated with it. (A very few specialized positions require prior learning before entering the military.)

The Army has now dropped its’ enterance minimum to 34%. Think about that for a minute. 34% on a standardized test at the 9th grade level, from kids who have graduated high school. these are the kids that can’t even get a job asking, “Would you like fries with that?”. (And before I get a barrage of hate mail, I am in no way disparaging people who, for one reason or another, have a very low apptitude. I am merely pointing out that these MAY NOT be the people you want in a war zone. We have had enough friendly-fire deaths.)

So, either the DOD institutes a total stop-loss over all branches of service (meaning that no one can retire or leave at the end of their contract. During stop-loss, you are forced to continue serving until the stop-loss is lifted.) and/or they will have to seriously look at reinstituting the draft. (And then there will be an outcry to end the war).

katie

(Catch-22 is my 2nd favorite book all time! But I can’t go back and read it now because I try not to read it more than once every 5 years, so there is some process of re-discovery each time.)