Posted on 03/18/2005 7:39:02 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
FORT BENNING, Ga. - (KRT) - After two years of war, the Army is finding it harder to fill the ranks and is cutting corners on how it turns civilians into soldiers ready for war.
Although top brass insist that high standards are maintained, the gritty drill instructors and officers at this legendary post near the Alabama border bluntly disagree with their superiors about the quality of the raw recruits and their basic training.
"I won't lie to you - the Army is not being as picky as we used to be," said one ranking officer.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
If true, I am not worried.
99.99% of being a soldier is heart. .01% is physical (that can't be overcome).
Current recruits know exactly what they are getting into and are joining for all the right reasons.
I know that the local recruiters are more willing to look at guys with criminal charges pending than they were five years ago. We aren't back to the old days of having burglars and car thieves told to join the Army or go to the pen, but standards have been loosened.
Now, the Constitution, on the other hand, is a living document and ought to be re-interpreted every few years to make sure that it stays in line with current thinking and international laws.
[/sarcasm]
Reinstitute "judicial" enlistment.
3 years in jail, or 3 years in the Army. Once in the army, increase the desertion penalty to 25 years in Levenworth.
Military service has straightened out alot on non-hardened criminals.
One of the reasons I joined the Corps...
The Marines are "picky" LOL
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Absolutely. Marine Corps applicants are carefully screened, and those who actually put the square peg in the square hole are disqualified on the spot....#;-)
"Reinstitute "judicial" enlistment.
3 years in jail, or 3 years in the Army."
Back in '90, I was on a plane to Great Lakes Naval Recruit Training. One of the guys on the plane told me a story.
Him and 3 of his buddies were trying to buy weed in a BAD part of town. A supposed seller approched their car and they rolled down the window and placed an order. One of the guys in the back pulled out his wallet and the "seller" went for it. They took off, dragging the seller along. He ended up under the rear wheels of the car and they took off.
After reading about a fatal hit and run in the paper, they turned themselves in and told the judge the whole story. This was 1990, mind you and the judge told them, "Military or jail". Two of them joined the Navy and two joined the Army.
I never saw the guy again after bootcamp, but he was a good sailor in bootcamp. Hopefully it did him some good.
Theyneed to relax the standards... They say I'm too old..
Hell, if I am, keep me stateside and let the clerks sitting on computers go shoot!
LOL
They need to consider this option.
Current enlistment standards are out of whack. Audie Murphy and Alvin York would both be sent home if they walked into a recruiting station today.
The standards of enlistment were racheted up after Desert Storm, because the Army was downsizing. Now we are in a situation where we need recruits and the standards are higher than they have ever been in history.
There is something to be said for the "bootstrap" army. The army has a responsibility to help raise the general population by their bootstraps and give them opportunities they never would have seen otherwise. Current recruiting standards are as high as four year colleges.
I'm not advocating opening the prisons, but "go to war or go to jail" saved a lot of people from a lifetime in jail.
My dad was born in 1906 and was a little too old to step forward after Pearl Harbor. They took him anyway in the China-Burma-India theater and he flew C-46s over the Hump as a civilian pilot.
Wow, I'd hate to hear the media's take on the quality of volunteer recruits in the Civil War, WWI or WWII.
A ren't
R eally
M arines
Y et
I don't remember the peg/hole test but my neighbor who was an Army Sniper in Nam didn't seem to mind us Marines choppering him out of a hotzone when you guys failed to come get him!
And to this day, I don't have to buy a drink as long as he is in the bar. ;-]
Semper Fi
Do or Die!
Kelly
well they took me 7 years ago....they must not have had any standards then!!! :-P
Totally unmitigated bullsqueese!
The military is NOT a social worker's program.
Old Army mind game. Glad to see it still works on you devil dogs...:-)
"We aren't back to the old days of having burglars and car thieves told to join the Army or go to the pen,"
Ah, The good ol' days....
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