Fatter, Slower, Dumber, Older

The army’s fine. According to the president and any number of official DOD spokespersons, the Iraq War has done little damage to the army other than making it battle hardened and to even suggest that it is overstretched is simply wrong. But today’s Boston Globe carries a major story that shows that line to be an absolute sham and falsehood. (Sadly, I’m unable to include a link to the article, Struggling for recruits, Army relaxes its rules.)

The author, Douglas Belkin, demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that aside from the human (more than 2,000 dead and 16,000 wounded) and financial cost (a quarter of a trillion dollars and only beginning to count) of the misadventure in Iraq that we will be saddled with an army that is less capable and more expensive than would have ever been dreamed before the nightmare that is Iraq began.

Fitness, education and age requirements for recruits are being reduced even as you read this in order to meet the quotas needed to maintain troop strength. If you don’t think that overweight and less fit troops are less effective soldiers, you obviously haven’t served in the military, played high school football, or gone on long volksmarches. If you think that the technological marvel that is the modern military will be as well off by reducing its intelligence test scores and educational requirements for recruits, you weren’t paying attention to army recruiting ads prior to the war. And if you think that by permitting accepting recruits into basic training up until the day before their fortieth birthday will permit the maintenance of just as fit a fighting machine, you… well you’re lot younger than Wild Bill.

Since WW II, the United States has been dependent on armed forces – including the army – that are lighter, more mobile, and more technically advanced than its potential adversaries. You cannot reduce standards for recruits without sacrificing something – many somethings; greater medical costs for active duty personnel, long term health impacts such as diabetes, less proficient users of technical equipment, loss of mobility without more vehicles are among the things that come quickly to mind.

The army is rapidly expanding its centers to test recruits that would have been automatic rejects in the past. There can be little doubt that by such tactics that the army can continue to meet its recruiting numbers, but it is very clear that the quality of the human input is on a downward spiral. I urge you to go to boston.com and read the article.

Oh well, Fortunes of war!

Blog on!

Wild Bill