Dropout recruits raise Army quality concerns

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0503/13/A01-115683.htm

WASHINGTON -- Struggling to boost its ranks, the U.S. Army is recruiting a higher number of high school dropouts and recruits who score in the lowest category on military aptitude tests, raising concerns among senior officers and defense analysts that the quality of the force will suffer.

Five months into the recruiting year, the percentage of recruits in the active-duty Army without high school diplomas is more than double the percentage of last year.

The number of recruits who scored the lowest on the aptitude test has more than doubled from last year and is the highest since 2001.

According to statistics provided by the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, for the first five months of this fiscal year, there were 1,184 recruits accepted who earned a diploma by passing the General Educational Development, or GED, test -- as opposed to graduating from high school -- and who scored 31 to 49 on the aptitude test, where the highest score is 99. That is about 3.3 percent of the 36,314 recruits who have either signed a recruiting contract or shipped to basic training. snip

Moreover, the Army has recruited 667 soldiers this year deemed Category 4, those who scored less than 30 points on the military aptitude test. That is 1.8 percent of the recruits so far this year. Last year, the Army accepted 440 soldiers from Category 4, or about 0.6 percent.

more

[bemildred]

1. Beggars can't be choosers, can they? nt

[saigon68]

5. McNamara's MORANS

THEY CALLED IT PROJECT 100,000.

They drafted 100,000 knuckle dragging rustics, who didn't want to be in the service in 1966.

Out of this lot of losers came 89,000 undesireable, bad conduct, and general discharges.

I used to supervise some of these CRETINS

Their favorite saying was-- "what are you going to do??? Send me to Viet-Nam" ???????????

[bemildred]

11. Yep. This is what the volunteer army was supposed to avoid.

But here we are again. I wonder who they will blame for it
this time? I don't expect it will still work to blame in on
Jane Fonda.

It's amazing to me. I worked with the military for most of twenty
years in the 80s and 90s, and it was all fairly professional, and
the Bushites seem to have completely trashed it in only a couple
years.

[Laurab]

44. Well, what haven't the Bushites completely trashed

in a couple of years? Aside from the things they're still trying to trash I mean. There's not a whole lot left to trash.

[LizW]

12. Remember the reason for Project 100,000?

It was so Johnson didn't have to take away college deferments from the rich kids. So McNamara went to the Appalachians and the deep South and got the lowest IQ kids who had no future anyway.

It was cynically sold as part of the War on Poverty. The pretense was that these kids would come out of the experience with better abilities. Problem was, they went straight to the front lines and died in much greater numbers than the general population in the military. And according to studies of the ones who made it back alive, they fared no better after Viet Nam than others of similar ability who didn't go. The same levels of unemployment, drug abuse and criminality were still found.

And that doesn't even take into account how many soldiers got killed due to the incompetence of these low qualifying recruits.

And here we are again, apparently making the same stupid mistake.

[NNN0LHI]

13. And so politicians kids like Chickenhawk George could hide out in...

...the National Guard.

Don

[AuntiBush]

28. And Chickenhawk's Croonies! Shameless Bas*ards

[Blue_Tires]

21. was that also the program where

judges would give petty criminals the choice of military service instead of prison time?

[bleedingheart]

22. My cousin's husband was a convicted Rapist who was given the

choice of prison or the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War...He of course joined the Navy and made a career of it.

However, the jerk should have served his prison time. The young girl had been gang raped by 4 men...and all they got was a "career" in the military.

[saigon68]

46. Not a lot of "Hand to Hand" fighting in the Navy

Except in Olongapo City.

Sorry to the 5 seals who actually were fighting "Hand to Hand".

[Divernan]

2. Inverse correlation between IQ and willingness to enlist.

NT

[mom cat]

3. Dumb dumb dumb dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb DUMB...

to the tune of the theme from Dragnet.

[LibDemAlways]

4. These are the kids who will

be first in line to be cannon fodder. Their choices in life are limited to begin with. Put on a McDonald's fry cook uniform or take your chances with an army uniform and a one way ticket to Iraq.

Think Rummy or Wolfowitz are losing any sleep over these kids' plight? Think again.

[Joey Liberal]

34. The DI's and Drill Sergeants will have a field day

What worries me is the way these kids, as well meaning as they are, will be treated by those stress monsters in the brown smokey the bear hats. You get a kid who isn't that bright, and put him or her under that sort of extreme stress - I feel sorry for them. And to be fair, it will make it tougher of the DI's and Drill Sergeants who will have to train these individuals. When you start taking the lowest qualified recruits, you can expect the lowest possible quality and results. Hey, where are all of the highly qualified sons and daughters of the republicans in the red states? Why aren't they rushing to enlist in the war they voted for?

[saigon68]

48. LIke Cheney these MODERN DAY Chicken Hawks

Have other plans for their future.

Like looting the Treasury and sending minorities to die for ill-gotten Neocon Corporate Profits.

[rodeodance]

49. no, their only concern is to get people/youth in boots!!

[ckramer]

6. What choices do they have?

There's a war, There are deaths, people are scared.

But when people have no job and hungry, they go where the food is.

The army is hiring! Guarantee you a bed, three meals a day and get to shoot guns. It's a government job!

[Joey Liberal]

7. The Army is Desperate

Moreover, the Army has recruited 667 soldiers this year deemed Category 4, those who scored less than 30 points on the military aptitude test.
===========
I'm a veteran. If a person scores less than 30 points on that test......well........let's just say they will soon be cannon fodder in Iraq. And they wont be smart enough to even realize it. Personally, I feel that any parent that let's their son or daughter join the Army or Marines at this point in time is nuts. We are witnessing the ruination of our armed forces due to the Bush war for oil in Iraq. In the meantime, Bin Laden is still a free man.

[NNN0LHI]

8. "And they wont be smart enough to even realize it." Thats the plan Stan

Welcome to DU Joey Liberal. Glad you found us.

Don

[Joey Liberal]

29. Thank you Don!

I'm glad to be here among the DU'rs! I'm a refugee of the ABCNews.com message boards where I was banned for calling Bush bad names, such as moron, imbecile, idiot, thief, etc. The bastards banned me with no warning.

[NNN0LHI]

30. You are welcome, Sir

And I promise no one gets banned around here for calling the Crackhead In Chief names. Take care and see you later.

Don

[Joey Liberal]

32. Cool

And I promise no one gets banned around here for calling the Crackhead In Chief names. Take care and see you later.
=======
That's nice to know and thanks again.

[0007]

14. During the early 50's all a guy had to do was take the test it

didn't matter what the score was. I was in the service with many that could barely read or write, and some couldn't.

[Joey Liberal]

31. That was then, this is now

I was in the service with many that could barely read or write, and some couldn't.
========
The problem is that compared to the "old Army", today's Army is high tech, and they need bright young men and women to operate and maintain their new weapons and equipment. The infantryman of today has to learn a lot more than the infantryman of the 50's. A soldier that cant read or write could not last one day in the U.S. Army today. However, they could become President as Bush has shown:)...........

[jmowreader]

45. Old war story time...

My father was a medic in the Korean War--he served in a MASH unit.

When he went to basic training, there was a guy who had grown up in Kellogg, Idaho, and had smelted lead for ten years starting at age 15 before the Army got him. 25 years of lead exposure will fuck with your brain, man; this guy was so slow he literally could not learn the difference between his left and his right. The drill sergeant realized that smacking the dogshit out of the trainee all the time would just make his hand tired, so he called the guy out in front of the formation one day. He put a stick in one hand and a rock in the other, and told him "when I say stick-face, you turn in the direction of the stick, and when I say rock-face, you turn in the direction of the rock." For the rest of my dad's cycle, they did a lot of column-stick and rock-face, and after basic training graduation they gave him a hand truck and put him in charge of issuing belts and socks to trainees. (Sending him to Korea would have been counterproductive--he would have gotten a LOT of our men killed, and what's the point in that?)

I'd assume that after the war was over, they sent him back to Kellogg to smelt lead for the rest of his truncated life.

[meganmonkey]

16. Hey Joey Liberal!

:hi:

Thanks for your observations, and

Welcome to DU :toast:

[Joey Liberal]

27. Thank you

Thanks for making me feel welcome, Meganmonkey (love the name!).

[Hoping4Change]

19. Hi Joey Liberal. Welcome to DU.

Glad you're here.:bounce:

[Joey Liberal]

25. Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome H4C! I'm happy to be here!

[LizW]

9. Love the "solutions" offered!

Let gays, women and undocumented aliens serve as cannon fodder, too.

Jeez.

These people never once consider the obvious: the vast majority of Americans are not willing to die for Bush's Doctrine of Preemptive War.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Just imagine putting a fucking machine gun into these guys hands

And with bullets too.

Don

[IndianaGreen]

15. They love shit like that!

It would be the first time in their empty lives they would feel a sense of power. I pity the civilian population that they will face.

[Mika]

17. Don, they'll have memorized the Geneva convention..

.. by the time they get to the front lines w/gun in hand. :eyes:

[LibDemAlways]

36. Defense contractors are busily

designing and building all kinds of sophisticated, powerful weapons systems that will find their way into the hands of these kids - the same kids who'd have difficulty figuring how to work the register at Wal-Mart.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

18. They only want high-quality, Grade A meat for their grinders

If all that cheap stuff is added to the mix, how can we ever find peace with honor?

[leftofcool]

20. If all you want is cannon fodder................

why give a shit if they graduated from high school or not. Fuck the military and fuck the "senior officers."

Left of Cool

[bleedingheart]

23. Just two years ago, my one cousin was refused by the Army

he is a high school dropout with very poor reading and communication skills.

I bet if he tries again they will take him.


What he really needs is someone to mentor him before he gets into trouble..someone to help him get his diploma.

[lovuian]

33. This is what bush wants a non thinking Army

problem is dumb troops don't win all they do is get themselves killed

Anybody with a brain knows they don't want to go to Iraq!!!

[w4rma]

38. You are mentoring him, I assume.

He is your cousin and it sounds like "someone" is going to be "noone" if it isn't you.

[VegasWolf]

24. Well, how bright does bush's cannon fodder need to be? n/t

[Demeter]

26. How Much "Quality" Is Required for Being Car-Bombed?

In fact, why don't we save everybody a whole bunch of grief and pain and just send cardboard copies of the Terminator (left over from movie promotions) on little motorized skateboards. They'll be just as effective, especially if they are rigged to explode, too.

[bemildred]

35. Booming Economy, Not Iraq, Keeping Recruits Out of the Army

For the first time in five years, the U.S. Army failed to meet its recruiting goals, falling 27 percent short in February, 2005. That means there were 2,000 fewer recruits than were needed. The army reserves failed to meet their recruiting goals for the second month in a row, coming up 330 recruits short. The current size of the active army is 512,000. The army has been anticipating this problem for over a year, and has been expanding the size of its recruiting force. In addition, more money has been devoted to advertising, and recruit standards have been lowered. While the war in Iraq is part of the problem, the major cause of the recruiting problems is economic growth. The last period when the army had recruiting problems was in the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom.

Good KoolAid, grape.

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200531013.asp

[Coventina]

39. Now that "laugh out loud" funny!!!

booming economy!

Please...stop....my sides....oh...

[K8-EEE]

37. But...But...MILLIONS of GWB Voters Should BE LINING UP

For the HONOR of serving in the glorious liberation under their hero, GWB!! If just a FRACTION of the "war on terra" fanatics actually put their OWN BUTTS on the line, they'd be turning the away in droves.

Guess chicken hawks vote for chicken hawks!

[artemisia1]

47. Hey, Dr. Laura's son

enlisted for the "Special Forces". Heard it on the radio myself. Probably he ends up a clerk/typist or in a transportation company, but hey, the good lady put her money where her mouth is and sent her only son to fight for GW...

[despairing optimist]

40. Anyone else feel a draft?

The rhetorical advance work is being done. Recruitment goals are missed, quality of recruits is falling, new laws protecting high-schoolers from aggressive recruiters are being considered. Tours of duty are being extended indefinitely, troops and their families overstressed and near breakdown, rules of enlistment changed after contracts are signed. National Guard units are serving long tours of duty far from their home states, and governors are starting to speak out.

Even worse, if that's possible, are the repeated assertions by * & Co. that there will be no draft, that "rumors on the Internets" won't amount to anything, that the new Army doesn't need many boots on the ground. All that's missing is the cataclysmic event that will "change everything" and force a reluctant president to "do what it takes to keep America safe." Only for a short time, mind you, but for as long as it is needed, until the threat is defeated and peace can once again bless our shores.

Did I get the language right, at least a little? I know, the tone could be more upbeat, but PR isn't my strongest suit.

[NNN0LHI]

41. Yes you do have got the language right n/t

[DawgHouse]

42. Yes, that sounds pretty close to what we can expect n/t

[Divernan]

43. Truly time to praise the lord and pass the amunition!

Sarcasm off

[oasis]

50. Lynndie English can get her old job back at Abu Gharib with bonus pay.

:eyes: