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Originally Posted by Ducimus
The only thing that bothers me, is the stain this incident puts on us. Naturally they have to show those two dumbasses service photos with our flag behind them.  |
I agree completely.
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I wonder if this is partially a result of lowered recruitment standards. It's my understanding the Army will take just about anyone these days.
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These days? These days!? Army recruitment requisites have always been lousy in this nation. Even in the recent past the Army accepted people who scored a 30 out of 99 (or somewhere thereabouts) on the ASVAB. In case you're not familiar with it, the ASVAB is just about the easiest standardized test ever made, and scoring a 30 on it places you just a step ahead of people who score a 15 or below and are legally unfit for military service. And there are waivers for people who score below a 30! Even my own Marine Corps, which I immensely proud of, allows ASVAB waivers and drug waivers, amongst other things.
The goal of these measures is not to produce good soldiers, but rather to ensure a steady supply of people stupid enough to perform basic tasks or willingly serve as infantry, but not so stupid that they are incapable of following orders. Then we send these same people into a culturally volatile environment and expect them to exercise sufficient discretion. And we wonder why incidents like this happen
IMO, we need to re-think the structure of our military from the ground up. What we are doing now is the national equivalent of hiring McDonalds employees. If we are to perform our assumed role as the leader of the free world we must have troops capable of representing that role. That means recruiting the best our society has to offer, or at least not the worst. The most efficient way to do that is to use PMCs. PMCs
arethe private sector that steals the best recruits. Why not allow them and emulate them?