Our Military is in trouble

Most of us have heard or read that the recruiting goals of the U.S. military are not being met.  And for whatever the reasons, this phenomenon has affected every branch of the service.  Unfortunately, though, the real problem is that the situation is worsening, begging, the question of why.

It wasn’t that long ago that our military inspired fear & respect around the world and was admired by most Americans.  But I’m not so sure it retains that mystique, and frankly, neither do most Americans.  Recently, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute conducted its periodic poll of attitudes toward the U.S. military. The results nothing less than alarming.  Currently, only 45% of Americans polled expressed a great deal of trust in our armed forces.  Confidence in our military had dived 25 points since an early 2018 poll and 43 points since Reagan was in office.

So, why is this happening?  Might the abrupt and without warning abandonment of both our allies and the Afghan people that effectively gave the Taliban $80 billion in sophisticated military equipment and a retreat that changed the world’s perception of America have also changed the perceptions of millions of American young people?

Our retreat from Afghanistan soured thousands of young men and women.  Think about it, if you were between the ages of 17 to 22 –and saw twelve Marines and a Navy Corpsman (all clean-cut youngsters of about your own age who had been in the States just days earlier) slaughtered in cold blood due to the incompetency of your country’s military, and then to discover that our government “retaliated” by killing seven children and their mothers in a wayward drone strike, how do you think you might react?  So yes, I think it’s fair to assume spectacles like the aforementioned have an effect on young people.

Another reason is the ‘let’s purify in military with forced wokeness’ that began during the Obama years.  Trump was so beset with other issues like the collusion hoax, threats of impeachment and his own ego that he failed to eradicate the cadre of Obama acolytes imbedded in the Pentagon.  As a result, we have “woke” generals such as Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, who unbelievably (and perhaps even illegally) took it upon himself to contact his counterpart in the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) to reassure the Chinese the U.S. wasn’t planning an attack in the final days of the Trump administration.  You can’t make this stuff up folks!

Meanwhile, while our military is facing historic resistance to their recruiting efforts that are bad, so bad in fact that if a solution is not found quickly, the military will be faced with a choice – radically shrink the size of our forces, which are already spread thinly around the world, or be forced to lower standards further—or both.  But how low can we go?  Even our Special Operations Forces have lowered almost all their standards, but one is particularly concerning, i.e., fitness standards for women in the military are being drastically lowered and it does not bode well.

A friend of mine had a stepson who joined the Marine Corps.  He won the top recruit award in boot camp—which is no easy task.  He planned to make the Corps a career but left the service after his first tour citing political correctness and wokeness run amok, especially amongst the officer corps.   Meanwhile the Marine Corps lost a potential career NCO.  Another friend’s son was a major in the U.S. Air Force flying F-22s, which is about as Top Gun as it gets. But as my former squadron mate Bob told me, “Butch, he couldn’t deal with all the mandatory inclusion, diversity, and CRT training and left.”

Wouldn’t you like to ask General Milley how mandatory indoctrination about “white rage” for new recruits benefits America?  Or to provide hard evidence that being issued the “antiracist” theories of Ibram X. Kendi, asserting that our very culture is racist to the core is a good thing.  But the tragedy in this is that you and I can’t ask those questions and the media won’t.

Tangential to this discussion is the perception of our allies, and to be clear, the only reason NATO members are playing nice-nice with Biden regarding Ukraine is because the Russians are on Europe’s doorstep and have their foot on their throat in the form of a pipeline.  One would have to be obtuse not to recognize that no European leader actually trusts Joe Biden…or his judgment!

Joe Biden is following in his hero’s footsteps and is using our military for social experimentation.  In fact, since Biden took office, the U.S. military had spent more than six million man-hours (6,000,000) on woke training. It makes me wonder how many were spent on the firing range or learning emergency first aid.  During bayonet training in OCS, we were taught the ‘spirit of the bayonet’ – vicious, savage, aggressive and ruthless.  And those who’ve experienced combat understand that.  So why is the military so focused on diversity, inclusion, and equity?

When the military looks for reasons why their recruitment is down, they should look no further than the “leadership” of Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley.

Quote of the day: “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor”—Stephan Sondheim