Army Drops Requirement for High School Diploma
Buzz Davis / Veterans for Peace
TUCSON (June 27, 2022) — Decade after decade of illegal wars and too much killing. Whether this has an impact on recruitment I do not know.
Since the start of the illegal wars in Afghanistan in late 2001, the soldiers who have returned and left the military and are at the VA are the worse damaged former soldiers the VA has ever seen.
Why? The improvements in each decade of battlefield care of the wounded and mortally wounded and saving of their lives plus the head/brain injuries and other injuries that are survived because of protective gear vests, etc, helmets etc. have left many men and women alive that would have been dead in the late part of the 20th century.
And there is also substance abuse and massive mental health issues and a high suicide rate.
For young men and women in high school if they see or talk to any of these former service members who are living or trying to live with tremendous problems or have extended family members who were in the military and are having problems, then they may be finding that the former military folks may not be talking up the glories of wars as did past members.
We certainly have massive poverty for Black Latinos, whites and Native Americans in our Nation and we have had for the last century. So that has not changed
In one way it is good the military is having such recruitment problems in another way it is dangerous.
If we have riots in the streets due to Trump and the Trumpers then if the military is called in my guess is the dumber the boys and girls with guns are the more likely if ordered those sorts of military folks will follow the orders and shoot dumb Trumpers or anti-Trumpers or people at any rally or march that either gets out of hand or is encouraged by cops or other violence prone jerks to be violent thus having the event get out of hand.
I was trained during Vietnam as an infantry officer. We were all college grads who were forced in the infantry school – about 250 or so men. Only 6 or so were non college grads. A few were 18 year of high school grads.
I for one had pledged to myself that I would not follow an illegal order, make my men follow an illegal order or permit my men to commit illegal acts. I accepted that I would be court-martialed or worse but that I would fight back like hell.
My guess is the lower we go with the recruits into the military, the more problems we will have with the military and possibly the more problems our society will have with former military members.
I wonder whether the DOD would be doing this if Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden had been impeached and removed from office for conducting illegal wars.
I wonder where we would be as a Nation. Stuck in the Ukraine? Stuck trying to start a war with Russia and China at the same time. Stuck being dumb?
Peace!
Army Drops Requirement for High School Diploma Amid Recruiting Crisis
(June 24, 2022) — The Army is tossing its mandate for potential recruits to have a high school diploma or GED certificate to enlist in the service, in one of the most dramatic moves yet in the escalating recruiting crisis hitting the entire Defense Department.
On Thursday, the service announced that individuals may enlist without those previously required education certifications if they ship to basic training this fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1.
Recruits must also be at least 18 years old and otherwise qualify for a job in the active-duty Army. They also must score at least a 50 on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, an SAT-style quiz to measure a potential recruit’s academic ability.
A 50 on the test is a relatively low score, with 31 being the minimum to qualify for service. Combat arms jobs such as infantrymen and cavalry scouts need only minimal scores to serve, while admin work such as a human resources specialist or public affairs require scores of 100 or higher.
Previously, the Army would allow people to enlist if they hadn’t finished high school yet at the age of 17 with parental consent. Those recruits typically wouldn’t ship to basic training until they completed school.
The change follows another shift in policy this week when the service relaxed its tattoo rules, allowing potential recruits to enlist with tattoos on their hands and neck, which previously needed waivers.
The Army and its sister services have scrambled this year, offering increasingly generous benefits and policy tweaks in an effort to improve recruiting numbers. The Army has hit 40% of its recruiting goals this year, with the struggle to fill the ranks seemingly so grim the Defense Department reduced its planned total force size because prior recruiting goals were out of reach.
Those challenges come amid a low unemployment rate and a competitive civilian job market, with employers offering increased wages and benefits even for entry-level jobs.
Related
• Inflation Bonuses for Troops Make it into Sweeping Defense Bill
• Army Relaxes Tattoo Rules as It Scrambles for New Recruits
Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Copyright 2022 Military.com. All rights reserved
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
Crisis in the Armed Forces
Sgt. Dan McKnight / Bring Our Troops Home
(June 26, 2022) — There is a crisis in the United States Armed Forces. No one is willing to join!
Every branch of the military is struggling to reach its 2022 recruiting goals, the US Army especially.
To increase the pool of candidates, the Army has liberalized its tattoo policy and even dropped the requirement that recruits have a high school diploma or GED.
An internal survey by the Department of Defense has found that only 9% of Americans eligible to serve have any inclination to sign up. And I can’t blame them.
When I joined the Marine Corps Reserves in the 1990s, and the Idaho Army National Guard after 9/11, I did so for the reasons you’d expect.
I was young, middling through life and needed direction. And later, I felt compelled to serve and protect my country after it was attacked.
Twenty years later, our country is still at war. We finally left Afghanistan, but still have thousands of soldiers in Syria, Iraq, and across Africa.
In the twenty-first century our soldiers have not been used to defend the US Constitution, our sacred rights, or the sovereignty of our nation.
Instead they’ve been sent to play nation-builder in the Middle East, fighting and dying in wars with no intelligible mission or end-point, too often working as a hired gun for the military-industrial complex. And they know it.
A year ago, Bring Our Troops Home ran a profile of ret. Brigadier General John Bahnsen, who invited us into his West Virginia home. Bahnsen, who served in Vietnam leading an air cavalry troop of helicopters, is the most decorated American soldier still living.
Facing the enemy in over 300 combat engagements, he received the Distinguished Service Cross, five Silver Stars, four Legion of Merit, three Distinguished Flying Cross’, four Bronze Star Medals, two Cross’ of Gallantry, two Purple Hearts, and fifty-one Air Medals, among others. And he told us that under the circumstances — fighting multi-generational, endless war s— he wouldn’t recommend young people join the military today. I think that says it all.
The United States deserves the best national defense in the world. That means defending the borders and rights of the American people, not trying to police the world or impose our way of life on people who don’t want it. An America First foreign policy would rejuvenate the national spirit, and give potential recruits a meaning and a mission that they currently lack.
These hemorrhaging numbers prove that intuitively soldiers know they ought to be serving their nation and Constitution, not the empire.
We’re a veterans organization founded and run by veterans of the Global War on Terror who seek to bring our brothers and sisters in uniform home from these endless, unconstitutional wars. I dare you to find a better cause, or one more deserving of your efforts.
BringOurTroopsHome.US is an organization composed of veterans of the Global War on Terror and their civilian allies who are dedicated to ending American involvement in our endless wars in the Middle East and bringing our troops home.
We insist that the Constitution of the United States be respected and enforced, requiring a formal declaration of war by Congress before US military forces are deployed into combat overseas. And we are committed to returning to a foreign policy befitting a limited government republic, one that puts “America First.”
To achieve these goals, BringOurTroopsHome.US will utilize public education, political action, and legislation, including passing “Defend the Guard” bills in state houses across the country.
Comment
John W. — The author, Dan McKnight, is a conservative — an impressive man and justly angry about US Imperialism Hegemonism. BringOurTroopsHome is trying to get Defend the Guard legislation brought before the California legislature.
The legislation would prohibit the governor from sending the National Guard abroad to fight UNLESS a formal declaration of war is issued by the US Congress. BIRH has legislation introduced by legislators in 40 states but they have been unable to find a single California legislator to introduce it. That says an awful lot.
