Posted on 02/26/2024 9:55:35 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It's no secret that the US military has repeatedly missed some or all of its recruitment goals over the past several years. Various reasons have been offered, ranging from low pay to low unemployment rates and better opportunities in the civilian world. Others have suggested that our endless wars in foreign lands act as disincentives to enlistment because of the higher risk that recruits will end up coming home in a body bag rather than reaching retirement. But during a recent hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, one Army veteran and former Senate candidate, Jake Bequette, offered a potentially more digestible rationale. Why would young people want to sign up to serve their country if the public school they attended spent years convincing them that our country is historically awful and unworthy of their service? It's some bitter food for thought. (Washington Times)
Recently, Ashish Vazirani, the Pentagon‘s acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, testified to the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. military missed its 2023 recruiting goals by 41,000.
Jake Bequette, an Army veteran and former U.S. Senate candidate from Arkansas, responded to this report by suggesting that no one should be surprised. Why? Because of what we’re teaching in our nation’s schools.
“In our education system today, so few young people are hearing real history,” Mr. Bequette said. “They’re hearing our American heroes being represented as evil racists … who were doing all these terrible things to disadvantaged people. And that really is shaping the views of America’s youth and making them have less respect for our institutions, have less respect for our history, and therefore making them less liable to want to put their lives potentially on the line to serve in our country’s military.”
The Times cites some examples of public school and college malfeasance that most of you probably don't need to be convinced of this. They point to a University of Minnesota professor named Melanie Yazzie who teaches her students that America is an occupying force that needs to be decolonized and dismantled to protect indigenous communities. A Milwaukee public school is sponsoring a program focusing on "restorative justice" and globalism while pushing "queer affirming" and "transgender affirming" experiences.
More examples can be found around the nation and we've covered many of them here. You will recall that when the streets were filling up with angry, antisemitic, pro-Hamas protesters, the vast majority of them were young people. Many colleges and universities were represented. They don't randomly pick up ideas like these in a vacuum. This sort of anti-American (and anti-Jewish) hatred has seeped into their culture and they're hearing it from their instructors.
If you are taught that America is so completely awful and broken, why in the world would you volunteer to put on a uniform, pick up a rifle, and go fight against our enemies? You're far more likely to invite our enemies into our homeland to do the job for you. Perhaps that's why we have so much less pushback against the Biden border crisis from the youngest voters. They have been conditioned to believe that we probably had it coming.
It's not as if there aren't families out there trying to dismantle these trends. Traditional parents have been running for positions on school boards around the country and trying to flush out the leftist, globalist teachers who have been infecting our youth with all of this destructive rhetoric. That is no doubt why the Biden administration finds such parents so threatening and sends out the FBI to begin tracking them. When the White House responds to this "problem" by forcing the military to reduce standards and begin accepting transgender and "diverse" applicants, the situation is not improved.
Unfortunately, even if you booted all of those teachers today, the damage has already been done to far too many students and young adults. It could take an entire generation to get this country moving back toward its moral center. In the meantime, we will no doubt keep missing our recruitment goals. And our adversaries are watching all of this unfold with anticipation.
Whole lot of truth to this.
My father was military, ALL 3 of my brothers were militarchy, my son was military and my daughter served in the DOD in intelligence.
We have nothing but contempt now for the people running the military and abhor how the generation sees America.
There is little reason left to risk your life in service to the current government and social engineered culture.
If the country burns we will fair better than most, not to mean we won’t get caught up in something horrible, just we are prepared and can accept such difficulties.
We have a running joke of who is allowed in the compound, half serious, you have no life skills, you live outside in the wilderness.
Oh and I was military
They mean to say it has nothing to do with ‘woke’ crapola???
The cultural environment certainly has changed since I served in the 60’s!
Doesn’t change the fact that 70% do not qualify to enlist for various reasons. The pool of applicants is getting smaller.
My solution is to pull out of NATO. The Mansfield amendment.
They don’t qualify again because we have a sick culture that feminizes men and the whole idea of being a boy.
What you presented is the effect, not the cause.
Again, goes back to the social engineering of our country’s and culture’s destruction.
Yes, and there were times not so long ago that US Military was THE most trusted institution in America. Of course, Congress and the MSM were the least trusted. I think they did this on purpose to get back at the military who was 80% faithful to Trump.
>> just we are prepared and can accept such difficulties
I agree with you. The prepared will fare better. I would not leave my rural “compound” and return to the Big City for any amount of $$$.
Still, wouldn’t it be better to avoid the whole bloody civil war thing by having a huge Christian Awakening and Reformation that converts, and DISCIPLES, a billion souls worldwide? That’s what I’m praying for (even as I prepare for less desirable outcomes).
>> I think they did this on purpose to get back at the military who was 80% faithful to Trump.
I wonder what the percentage of “faithful to Trump” is right now?
Our extended family’s young Marine is 100% Trump. He was brought up right. :-)
I hope the military right-minded faithful are well north of 50%, and I’d be thrilled if it were 90%.
Any earnest American youth who is actually interested in serving and protecting America is going to see that joining the US military is not the way to achieve those goals.
Had a bunch of idiots younger than me try telling me that the Bill of Rights was somehow racist.
They couldn’t point out what was racist in it, but they were absolutely convinced that it had to be racist.
And they vote.
Towards the end of my time in school they had started with how great China’s “great leap forward” supposedly was, and hiw caring Islam is with the five pillars of Islam.
This was in the early 90’s.
It’s gotten worse since.
That too.
And fursuits ,pup masks, etc etc.
And West Point itself putting out a paper under Obama that said that Patriots and soldiers returning from deployment were terrorists and extremists.
I agree. You only have to listen to these kids to realize
they have had their loyalty to this nation completely
destroyed.
Wish I could say the Left were the only ones doing their
best to destroy any respect for the nation these days.
Yeah, you can try and blame it on our disgusting leadership,
but real patriots try to push to basic concepts of our
existance, and what we would like to return to rather
than make folks believe this nation is far worse than
others.
It isn’t.
If you think things are bad now, just wait ten years
until this is described as the “good old days”. It will
happen some of us don’t pull their heads lout and try
to build this nation up, and still criticize the bad
stuff on point.
Don’t paint with a roller. Paint with a small focused
brush.
Now the Mexican Cartels could invade and the USA would be powerless to stop them. None of our soldiers can carry guns in the USA proper. Leaders, I believe are in the pockets of the cartels will do nothing as state after state falls.
I’m the last of the Navy tradition in my family. I asked my son not to join. It has nothing to do with education. It’s all about racism against whites and allowing trannies in there
It’s worse than that now.
Only 23 percent qualify.
All The woke stuff will end when the big war comes (and it is coming). It will be woke for a week or too until the first big defeat. Our vaunted GI Janes, raped and murdered by a heartless foe, Gays exterminated. It will be like Bataan, Then he men will be heroes. I hope wiser heads rule and stop this march for war. Invading Russia is never a good idea, just ask Hitler.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.