US Military Needs Recruits

The Daily Escape:

Old Victorian farmhouse between Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA – photo by Dave Alvin

The NYT has a report about how hard it is for the US military to find new recruits:

“Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.”

More:

“The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and….As of late June, it had recruited only about 40% of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”

Still more: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.”

This is shocking. You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to join the Army. Too many young men have prison records. The military should seriously consider issuing waivers for criminal history. A willingness to die for one’s country should be seen as a gigantic step towards rehabilitation.

And since just 10% of potential recruits are willing to consider serving, young people have obviously understood the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why would young people want to die for wasteful wars of choice that have nothing at all to do with protecting their country?

These shortfalls put pressure on the military to bring in people who are either marginally qualified or unqualified. Wrongo ran a US Army unit in Germany during the Vietnam war. Back then, the US Army couldn’t recruit enough people who met its basic standards. The DOD came up with a program called Project 100,000 in October 1966 to recruit new soldiers who previously had been below the military’s mental or medical standards.

Project 100,000 personnel died at higher rates than other Americans serving in Vietnam. In Germany, more of our Project 100,000 soldiers served time in military jails than did our regular recruits. The project was ended in December 1971.

It looks like the Army is currently walking toward implementing a similar solution to the same problem it had 45 years ago.

Since jobs are plentiful in America, and wages have increased, the military has to compete by sweetening their deal with signing bonuses (up to $50,000). The military has also downsized. The number of active-duty service members is now about half of what it was in the 1980s and it’s projected to keep decreasing.

Also, the shabby way we treat our veterans hasn’t gone unnoticed by young people. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They say that more than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits. This is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle. Many get permanently injured.

And most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid, and will continue to accrue for years into the future.

July marks the 40th anniversary of doing away with the draft. We instituted the all-volunteer army because during the Vietnam War, significant numbers of draftees didn’t want to serve. The all-volunteer army was a bad idea then, and it’s still a bad idea. The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military.

Leaving aside their bravery and personal sacrifice, which was profound, how do you think they did?

On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans. But over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

We need to re-institute the draft to spread the responsibility for our defense to all Americans. Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue to decline. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reaches its peak, few Americans will have a direct relative who was involved in those wars.

The other benefit of a draft is that it exposes young people to others of all races, ethnicities, and beliefs, and forces them to find ways to get along to accomplish a mission.

That would be both a refreshing and necessary change.

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More Thoughts on Afghanistan

The Daily Escape:

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley, California photo by Gerold Guggenbheul

Wrongo is as tired of writing about Afghanistan as you are reading about it, but the time to say what needs to be said is when people are paying attention. So, let’s talk about the media’s response to Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Wrongo pointed out that out of a combined 14,000-plus minutes of the national evening news broadcast on CBS, ABC, and NBC in 2020, the year Trump made his deal with the Taliban, a total of five minutes were devoted to Afghanistan. Now, many more minutes are focused on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and much of that is critical of Biden. From Eric Boehlert:

“Led by the New York Times’ and CNN’s frenzied reporting and analysis, the media have gone all in with the narrative that Biden’s presidency sits on the precipice of ruin in the wake of US’s long-expected troop departure from Afghanistan. (Fact: It does not.)”

Various Biden critics are engaging in fantasies about Kabul’s collapse: if only we’d used more force, demonstrated more will, stayed a few months longer, then the Taliban would have adopted a different strategy. Ryan Crocker, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, was sharply critical of the withdrawal of the last 3,500 troops. Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, argued that “keeping American military forces in Afghanistan indefinitely” would be “worth it.”

Another NYT column recently said that Biden should “save his presidency” in the wake of the Afghanistan controversy. Biden’s ending an extremely unpopular war and is bringing the troops home, at least so far, without a single US casualty. But he must “save his presidency”?

It is a huge relief to find out America has been filled all along with people who know, with 100% certainty, how to properly extract the US from Afghanistan.

From Cheryl Rofer: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“As we try to look past the abysmal reporting on the evacuation from Afghanistan, one of the things that strikes me is the inability or unwillingness of reporters to visualize what is required to make things happen in the real world.”

More:

“An evacuation takes coordination among an enormous number of entities – getting the right people in the right place at the right time, along with the airplanes and their fuel, which involves other airports, air controllers, logistics people keeping track of where the planes are, and the military personnel helping out….And then there are the State Department people who are checking identities and preparing paperwork to get refugees into the US.”

Rofer closes with: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The first inclination of too many reporters seems to be to find someone to backbite someone else. It should be to understand the [physical] situation…”

The criticisms downplay the impact of the deal with the Taliban. Once the Taliban had secured an agreement that the US would be pulling out, and that forces would be reduced to minimal numbers BEFORE Biden’s presidency began, they merely had to wait. Trump’s special skill as president was that he accomplished nothing, or he made things much, much worse, in every way.

So far, the airlift from Afghanistan is performing better than the news media’s record over the past four years, when they were reporting on everything Trump said. Now they’re saying that Biden can’t eat the shit sandwich Trump prepared so well.

But here’s a subject that has gone unnoticed by the media: the cost of caring for our veterans. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They just released an update on the ongoing costs of caring for the military who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“Between 2001 and 2050, the total costs of caring for veterans of the post-9/11 wars are estimated to reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion….This estimate is double the author’s previous projections in 2011 and 2013.”

They say that most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid and will continue to accrue long into the future. The costs are $1 trillion higher than earlier estimates for two primary reasons. First, the number of post-9/11 veterans with disabilities is far higher than originally projected. More than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits.

Second, the VA has ramped up their levels of responsiveness. They have expanded the geographical footprint of VA health care, hired thousands of additional medical and support personnel, and expanded clinical specialties in areas such as women’s health, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

These expenditures are already baked into the system. We should be focusing on the fact that these costs will DOUBLE America’s projected military expenses of $2 trillion for Afghanistan.

The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military. On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans, but over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue declining. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reach their peak, few living Americans will have direct relatives who were involved in these wars.

So, two hidden costs of the Afghanistan war: A lazy media, and a 40+% casualty rate which is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle.

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Monday Wake Up Call – Veterans Day Edition, November 11, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer, France – 2016 photo by Wrongo

Wrongo’s service occurred during the Vietnam War. His father was a WWII veteran. His grandfather, a WWI vet. Wrongo salutes all who have served!

While none of his kids have served, we all carry scars of our nearly two decades-long mistaken adventures in the Middle East. For some, it is poorer roads, bridges and airports. For others, it’s a huge budget deficit that won’t be paid off, even by Wrongo’s grandchildren’s children.

Of the 2.7 million who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Department of Veterans Affairs says that 35% have some form of disability. Over 970,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veteran disability claims have been registered with the VA. Over 6,900 US troops have died, as have approximately 7,800 contractors. These 20 years have also produced around 2,000 amputees.

From the Economist:

“Iraq and Afghanistan vets represent less than 1% of the population, and America lost eight times as many soldiers in Vietnam in less than half the time, when its population was two-thirds the current size.”

The Economist tries to tell us that the body count in Afghanistan is a great result. That’s neoliberal BS. People died, people were wounded and many thousands continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Since we ended the compulsory draft in 1973, Americans are no longer connected to our wars, or to our veterans. These wars have been funded by debt, so younger Americans will pay for wars that they hardly know about, or why they happened.

This disconnect helps explain why the country’s civilian-military relations are so distant. It also explains why America has gotten locked into long and unproductive conflicts.

Some think that Trump will get us out of Afghanistan in the coming year. Some think that Trump was correct to cede northeastern Syria to Turkey and Russia.

But, as we sit here on Veterans Day 2019, the messages from the Trump administration are very mixed. The Guardian reports that two weeks after ordering a complete evacuation of US troops ahead of a Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria, Trump has changed his mind.

He’s now said some US troops should stay to “secure the oil”. That’s oil that is the rightful property of Syria. Reuters reports that Defense Secretary Mark Esper said:

“The United States will repel any attempt to take Syria’s oil fields away from U.S.-backed Syrian militia with overwhelming force, whether the opponent is Islamic State or even forces backed by Russia or Syria…”

Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said that US forces may continue this effort for years to come.

So, we’re “protecting” Syrian oil fields to deny access to ISIS and/or to the Syrian government? For years to come?

Here we go again with oil fields in the Middle East. It’s the same old story: oil companies are again directing the use of our troops, and how we should spend our taxpayer’s money. That’s the money that could have been used for many more important things. Follow the oil, and you’ll know Trump’s military policy in the Middle East.

It isn’t honorable for America to squat down uninvited in another country. It isn’t honorable to take control of Syrian oil fields while saying we’re stopping ISIS from using it. FYI, the US bombed that oil infrastructure years ago. It isn’t producing much oil today.

With this much dishonor, most of it at the Pentagon and the White House, no one who is signing up now to serve voluntarily should believe that what we’re doing in the Middle East is defending the Constitution.

We should honor the service of our veterans, and that of those currently in uniform, but that’s not all that we have to do. It’s time to wake up America!

We need to see that Trump’s so-called “bring the troops home” stance only means that he hasn’t opened a new theater of war for the last 3 years. He’s continued to shuffle a few of our existing pieces around. Has he closed any of our 800+ military bases around the world? No, in fact, more have been added. Has he stopped any of the active wars that the US currently is engaged in around the world? No. Has he reduced the military budget? No, he has increased it.

The American people are sick and tired of these military quagmires. It’s time to take action at the ballot box in 2020 against the war mongers in both parties.

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Monday Wake Up Call – Veterans Day 2018

The Daily Escape:

“Sands of Remembrance” sand sculpture, Normandy, FR – done for D-Day, 2004

Wrongo still thinks of Veterans Day as Armistice Day, probably because he’s old enough to remember when we celebrated it as the ending of WWI. Now, Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans—living or dead—but especially gives thanks to living veterans. President Eisenhower officially changed the name of the holiday from Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954.

Let’s focus today on the closing hours of WWI, and then add a few thoughts about Vietnam.

First, WWI: In the eleven hours of that final November day, the different countries of the Allies were still launching attacks even though they knew that the cease-fire was set for 11 am. In fact, the French commander, Marshall Foch, refused to agree to a cease-fire. The American generals also wanted to make a point with the Germans, and that day, about 3,000 Americans were killed and wounded.

There was a Congressional Hearing after the War about the 3,000 Americans casualties, but they never published the results, because it would have made the American Generals look bad.

In the many centuries of European history up to 1945, an army crossed the Rhine on average once every 30 years. War was historically what the major nations of Europe did. In the 73 years since WWII, they’ve decided not to do that to each other, an astonishing and humbling fact.

On Saturday and Sunday, we saw the strong expressions of unity between France’s Macron and Germany’s Merkel, along with Merkel appearing on Sunday morning in London. These were mere symbols for peace, but it mattered very much for the world to see them, even if they are immaterial to the current US president:

On Vietnam: Few know that there are eight American women listed on the Wall. Each are nurses, who dedicated themselves to taking care of our wounded and dying. They were part of the more than 265,000 American women who served during the Vietnam era. Approximately 11,000 served in Southeast Asia. Close to 99% were nurses.

A small number of women served in civilian capacities, such as with the American Red Cross and the USO. More than 50 civilian American women died in Vietnam.  Others worked as physicians, air traffic controllers, intelligence officers, clerks and in other capacities.

It wasn’t until November, 1993 that the patriotic service of all women was honored in the nation’s capital at the dedication of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial.

Every holiday offers the opportunity to remind ourselves of who we want to be as a nation. The day after every holiday gives the opportunity to start down the path of doing something about that.

As Fabius Maximus says:

We ask our men and women in uniform to fight for us. The right or wrong of the conflicts – the responsibility for them – lies on us, the citizens at home who elect our leaders, not on those who carry out our orders. On this day we celebrate their service, without which the Republic would not have survived.

Since every “Support the Troops!” celebration inevitably becomes a “Support the War!” celebration, it’s curious how a celebration about the end of a war has gotten so twisted in America. There is no better way to support our active and veteran service members than to make sure we never commit to war, unless absolutely necessary.

So wake up America! Here’s what we have to do, starting today:

Stop under-funding care for veterans. Every month, we hear about active duty military and veterans suffering poor medical care, or having to wait years for the care they need. The military can always find funding for big-ticket weapons, but not for our veterans.

Here in America, we will say anything to support our troops, but we won’t fully fund the Veterans’ Administration. We won’t provide truly first-class aftercare to the wounded and maimed. And we won’t ensure that widowed spouses and children are cared for adequately.

Stop Congress from giving Presidents a blank check to conduct military operations that are not purely defensive in nature. Rewrite the AUMF. Put Congress back into its long-abandoned Constitutional role of approving wars that are recommended by the president.

With a Democratic majority in the House, these two things are possible.

Since its Monday, tell your Congresscritter to get busy on them right away.

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