OUR MILITARY IS FACING A PERFECT STORM
By R.C. Murray
July 3, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient…” -Romans 1:28
Storm clouds have gathered against our military forces before, and in every case, American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Coasties have met the challenge and protected us from every outside threat. But a new storm, an internal, perfect storm, if you will, now threatens to destroy our military and the country with it.
Soon the U.S. Senate will vote to repeal the Clinton-era policy of “Don’t ask; Don’t tell,” thus opening our military to the most terrible social experiment in U.S. history.
Those who support this paradigm shift in military policy don’t realize they’ll destroy unit morale, cohesion and discipline and cause tens if not hundreds of thousands of God-fearing, flag-waving servicemen and women to leave the military en mass. Then again, maybe they do know this, and that’s why they’re trying to destroy the country by destroying the military. Maybe they want to replace real Americans in our military with Obamunist storm troopers ready and willing to do That One’s dirty work.
A confluence of three serious but not-by-themselves-lethal pressure systems – multiple deployments, manpower deficiencies, and one, already failed social experiment – has put our military in a position for a monster storm to develop instantaneously should a fourth pressure system be added to the fray.
For nine years our armed forces have been involved in a protracted war in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention humanitarian missions like the one to Haiti. Constant deployments have taken their toll on both servicemembers and their families. It’s not easy leaving your spouse and children behind for a year at a time, and it’s just as hard on spouses and children who worry their loved one might be the next victim of IED ambush or whether the war will change him or her when he comes back home (a.k.a., TBI or PTSD).
Consequently, divorce rates are way up among military families, as is domestic violence, child abuse and child neglect. Binge drinking is a big problem too. Those of us willing to suspect there’s a connection between increased divorce rates and binge drinking with continual family separations and the stress of multiple deployments are not the least bit surprised by an even greater problem – an increase in the number of suicides. So nine years of war have already put morale at an all-time low. And the effects of low morale have manifested itself in military’s ability to attract and maintain those who would serve, causing manpower deficiencies.
Since the early ‘70s, we’ve had an all-volunteer military. Everyone who enlists or accepts a commission in one of the services does so of his or her own free will. Yeah, it cost a little more than a military draft, but it relieves the public at large of any responsibility to defend this country, and it fits well with Americans’ attitude that says, “Let somebody else do that.”
In fact, the only thing most Americans know about military service or life in the military is what they see on the anti-military news every evening or Hollywood’s fictional garbage on TV and the big screen. They can’t possibly understand why anyone would want to jump from a perfectly good airplane or spend weeks at a time in a tin can under the ocean. What they might like to know, however, is there are fewer and fewer people willing and wanting to do these things, which is forcing the services to lower their recruiting standards.
You probably didn’t know the Army had stopped accepting high school dropouts back in the ‘70s. Didn’t need them. They do now. Since fiscal year 2009, 25 percent of the Army’s recruits can be high school drop outs. Other services are having to make the same kind of compromises. Those of you who’ve read my other NWVs articles or especially my last book, know today’s high school graduates have some very serious academic deficiencies.
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Those who drop out have any bigger problems, one being an inability to finish something they’ve started. School was too stressful, so they quit. But do you think the military is less stressful than high school, particularly during a war and a bad economy under a president that has only contempt for those in uniform, even the hundreds of thousands of servicemembers who voted for him? I’ll talk about the demographics problem in a moment.
My neighbor is an E-7 motor pool sergeant, currently deployed to Iraq. Before leaving, he talked with me about the new soldiers he has to train and discipline – physically unfit high school drop outs who can’t understand why they can’t just “quit” being a soldier when they get “stressed out.” Too many of his new soldiers not only lack the academic skills to understand how to inspect and maintain a vehicle, they’re too immature to be trusted with doing the simplest task without direct, constant supervision.
When he returns from this deployment, my neighbor said he’s going to submit his retirement paperwork. He’s had enough “baby sitting.”
He wasn’t surprised with some information I shared with him about disciplinary actions being taking during one month at our nearby installation. Being a much older soldier of an Army much different than today’s Army, I was appalled at the number of general courts marshal being tried in a given month and sickened by the outrageous number of non-judicial punishments being handed out under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. As I said, he wasn’t surprised.
My first reaction was that NCOs were not doing their job and enforcing discipline then I remembered the kids I used to deal with in my classroom as a high school teacher. As surely as my hands were tied when it came to maintaining classroom order, so now are the hands of NCOs. What’s left is not discipline at all but punishment. There is a difference, but I won’t pause to explain it in this article. Maybe later.
Back to the demographics problem I mentioned earlier. It is a problem, depending on who is looking at it. Five years ago, Charlie Rangel thought it was problem enough to suggest a need to return to a draft. He noted as do folks equally concerned but for opposite reasons that the proportion of blacks and Hispanics in the military do not reflect the same proportions as the U.S. population. That is, depending on which branch of the service, military occupation specialty and whether enlisted or officer, blacks and Hispanics tend to represent as much as a third of our military.
Had these proportions been achieved through a draft, the news media would have been all over the story, but as this is an all volunteer military and since, even in the military, blacks and Hispanics tend to favor left leaning politicians, nothing is said. In fact, to suggest a problem at all will cause some to reach for the Race card.
Every member of the military is sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and we are also sworn to obey the orders of the president and officers appointed over us. But – somebody has to ask this question – what if the president orders our military to do something unconstitutional? It has happened before.
In a hypothetical situation I pray never happens, will the 99 percent of black Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 and are currently serving in the military defend the Constitution, or would obey an unconstitutional order to attack the people of Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri or any other state currently exercising states rights?
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and the Grand Army of the Socialist Republic chose their president over the Constitution. If you know anything at all about American history, you know Mr. Lincoln’s War Against the Southern People was an unconstitutional war. Though he may have saved what he considered a Union, Lincoln destroyed the Republic founded by Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison. A similar war caused by a Lincoln wanna-be would destroy everything left.
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I’d hope many black American servicemen and women are having the same sort of “buyer’s remorse” as Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and I know their zeal for That One would be tempered by the other members of the services. But what if a majority of those other members have left the service because of a repeal of Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell and the number of Obama supporters in the services was doubled or even tripled?
Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell has been called a meaningless policy that did nothing to change military tradition. However, it opened the door to future social experimentation, and that was the plan all along. A current social experimentation already proven a failure is getting very little media coverage, as if that’s a surprise. I mentioned MOSs earlier. For non-military types, they’re broken down in three categories: combat arms, combat support and support MOSs.
Combat arms are the fighters, the ones who close with and destroy the enemy – infantry artillery, armor, etc. Combat support back up the fighters and ensure they can do their jobs – combat engineers, combat medics, aviators, intelligence, etc. Quite often these guys are part of the fighting, if only because of their proximity to those they support. Support MOSs are the beans and bullets folks – the clerks, cooks, mechanics, supply specialists, public affairs, etc.
As a general rule, females in the military were found in this latter category, but starting back in the ‘80s, a politically correct push was made to bring women to the front – literally. About five years ago, the Army’s modularization program and creation of combat brigades changed the whole complexion of the Army.
The concept was simple. Instead of the above three-layer categories spread out over an entire theater of operation, give the brigade commander all the support he needs to fight and defeat an enemy. That brought thousands of women from the rear to as close to the front as they’ve ever been. Sure, there are still no women actually in combat MOSs and certainly not in elite units, like Rangers, Special Forces, Marine Recon or Navy SEALs. Still, though you won’t find any female infantry paratroopers, there have been female clerical, medical, logistic – you name it – paratroopers since December 1974. Has there been problems? You betcha!
Having women working next to you in an office environment or even in a motor pool is not the same as having a women working next to you in the close quarters of combat. Our military is now as much at war against human nature as it is against terrorism.
Six months ago, Task Force Marne Commander Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo came under fire for suggesting female soldiers who get pregnant in a combat zone or male soldiers who impregnate a female soldier in a combat zone might face a general court martial. Apparently, women’s equality is far more important than the good order and discipline necessary to conduct a combat mission. You can bet the extra-constitutional rights being written for homosexuals will supersede the good order and discipline of any unit to which even one of these federally-protected species is assigned.
An even bigger problem than consensual pregnancies is sexual assault. Sure, those who commit these assaults deserve to be hit with every statute under the UCMJ, but the military should never have been forced to put women in traditionally male roles, to put our country at risk for the sake of a social experiment! The radicals who put these women in harm’s way are just as much to blame as those committing the assaults. Now the radicals want to go for broke and add homosexuals to the mix. Do you think there won’t be more assaults and subsequently more court marshals? When will our military have time to fight a war with so much of its resources dedicated to the courtroom?
I’ve talked with soldiers and recently one young Marine. All agree with quiet discretion that if the government opens its doors to homosexuals, they’ll submit paperwork for retirement or leave the service at the end of the current enlistment. When these real heroes are gone, who will fill their boots? The hooahs and ooh-rahs we’re so used to hearing when a military formation marches by will be replaced with whoopee!
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Your fellow soldier, Marine, sailor, airman and coastie is supposed to be someone you can trust to watch your back – not your butt. If Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell is lifted, yet another scenario I depicted in Prole Nation will come to pass. Our military as we know it will be washed away with the storm, and what’s left will become a tool for new Fuhrer.
� 2010 - R.C. Murray - All Rights Reserved
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