Posted on 04/12/2007 8:59:57 PM PDT by PAUL REVERE TODAY
WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army is struggling to convince recent West Point graduates to make the military their career. Recent graduates of the U.S. Military Academy are exiting active duty at the highest rate in more than three decades, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday. Many military specialists say repeated tours in Iraq are driving out some of the Army's best and brightest young officers.
Of the 903 officers who graduated from West Point in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service in 2006. More than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, Army statistics showed.
In most years during the last three decades, between 10 percent and 30 percent of West Point graduates opted out after their mandatory five years of service, the newspaper reported.
Its the signs of the times, America is in decline, she is too corrupt to survive. Corporations are farming our jobs overseas. While the people running them only care about their golf game.
No one wants to risk their life for their country and why should they. I am sad to say its on it way down.
Didn't scare our friends' daughter. She entered West Point in 1998, graduated in 2002, and went to Iraq in the summer of 2005. She was in the group that was the first to have their tour extended by four months, and she, thankfully, arrived home from Iraq just before Christmas. She finishes up her required five years this June, and will leave the Army to attend Med. School.
I think many just have so many other opportunities nowadays, that they don't feel the need to make the Army their career. Her older brother, on the other hand is an AF Academy graduate of 2000, and he's still in; going back to the Gulf in the summer. Their youngest brother is a recent Annapolis grad, and he's training to be a navigator. Great family!
I have no idea where you got THAT idea. I've never seen him speak about it with anything but seriousness and respect for the men and women fighting it. He said at the beginning that it was going to last a LONG time and there would be casualties, but that the effort was worth it because we're dealing with an enemy who wants nothing less than our annihilation.
You’re a licensed lib, which doesn’t grant you absolute immunity. Take one week off.
Can you answer my question?
OK, now that you’ve got that out of your system...pls answer the question.
And exactly what is your question?
My initial response to this statement was a poorly stated inference that "best" and "brightest" are not mutually inclusive traits.
It got personal when Jude24 inquired about my bona fides. Then you called me an armchair general and it went "nasty" from there.
Democrats don’t have nearly enough faith in the military, but sometimes I think Republicans have too much. Military men and women are warfighters. They’re not magicians. They can’t wave magic wands and make people like us, no matter how many schools and hospitals they build. They can’t make ancient animosities go away, and they can’t make people embrace constitutional democracy. They also can’t keep the mad mullahs running the dictatorship next door out of the fight if they have to be concerned with collateral damage and winning hearts and minds.
What the military is designed, trained and equipped to do it does brilliantly. Witness the first few weeks of the war when we dispatched Saddam’s “Elite Republican Guards” while hardly breaking a sweat.
Hand your average piano player a violin and they’ll make a screechy noise with it. The military has, by and large, had their piano taken away and been handed a violin.
I don’t lay all the blame at the feet of the President. I believe he’s had the best of intentions, but he’s been too much of an optimist and not enough of a realist where the limitations of military power are concerned. I believe that his advisors and many in the upper echelons of the military have been blowing smoke, telling the boss what he wants to hear instead of the unvarnished truth. Like I said earlier, many of those who survived the Clinton purges are running the show now, and they are a risk-averse group of bureaucrats, to put it nicely. And Dubya has a history and a habit of trusting his advisors.
I hope and pray the surge works. Maybe more troops will do the trick. If not, we can expect a withdrawal and most likely some sort of Pol Pot-like butchery to commence. That would be a huge, huge win for the Iranians, and very bad news for us.
We'll know soon enough, that's for certain, if the Iraq adventure is manageable. General Petraeus is executing his plan, the results are forthcoming. The real test, at the end of the day, will be the actions of the Iraqi Security Forces, and if they will be willing and or able to keep the security up, when it is completely handed over, or if they allow the Government in Iraq to collapse.
“It isn’t that the “military is over sized, it is that the Navy and Air Force are over sized, while the Army and Marines need men.”
The air force, I don’t know. but the navy, well I believe it is just capable to manage the ships, planes, and shore facilites and commands. Now, obviously, the lack of soldiers available to fight two wars (iraq and afghanistan) AND to maintain our defensive capabilities elsewhere, means the navy has had to fill duties normally handled by army guys. Not a big deal, but after a few back to back deployments, people will vote with their feet, which may be what we are seeing. Bottom line is we do not have enough active duty troops to do what Bush wants to do. So we need to get them. We are trying to fight these two wars on the cheap. If these two wars are important as all the rhetoric professes (and which I happen to agree, although I’m not some glassy-eyed lemming sap) then why isn’t our nation on a war-time footing with a total war concept? What is so bad with having a draft? Let’s draft all the congress’s kids and let them fight for their country. I’m sure that there will be comments of, “we don’t need a draft, you only get druggies, and what-not, i don’t want draftees, yada yada.” Well, we don’t have enough troops based on that mode of thought. We needs troops that kill, and then these other nations need to step up and take over. You hang out too long and like welfare and Section 8 housing, they become dependent on the U.S. teat.
And if your comment is “Well congress would never approve a total war approach,” well then just what ARE we doing then? How in the heck can you fight two wars with not enough troops? The guard? Well, that machine is starting to break down. What about troops training for other wars, like in the artic, jungles, other parts of the world? They can’t because they are being over-rotated in Iraq and Afghanistan. I do hope all our future wars are in the middle east because that seems to be the only place we are currently able to train to fight. We do not have enough troops and we need to figure out a way to get them, or fundamentally change eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeverthing that we are doing, regardless of how it sounds.
Immigration, free trade, outsourcing. Sooner or later you figure its not worth fighting for the country that won’t fight for you.
War is likely to dominate the future considering the sad state of moderate Islam. We’ve stopped teaching our kids history, civics, responsibility, noble causes, honesty and integrity. Are we really surprised that todays kids are selfish, self centered and aren’t willing to tackle the worlds problems when they could use their education for personal gain?
You do realize that these men and women have completed their obligated service and left the military honorably? Do you honestly believe that an academy education should incur a 20 or 30-year military obligation? If so, expect to get no takers to go to the academies.
These men and women aren’t selfish. They did their time and have left the military to pursue other careers as most junior officers do. They should not be impugned for that.
Good call!
Well, so far the only one I see obsessing about sex is you. I've spent 37 years with the Army. I've seen your type before.
They lose few after the second year because if a cadet or middie continues into the third year and quits, he will most likely be required to serve a commitment on active duty in the enlisted corps.
Now it appears that perhaps 50% of those who graduate are deciding to leave after their five year commitment is up. If that's higher than in previous years that's probably a reflection of the rigors of the WOT operational tempo. It's bound to influence some to leave for family reasons, higher pay and less stress etc.
That's okay. Let them self-select out.
Fully half of the cadets and middies are choosing to make a career choice to remain beyond five years after commissioning despite the Ops tempo. These are the cadets and middies we want to stick around to fight and lead our wars. These exceptionally bright and well-educated men and women, most of whom could substantially increase their incomes in the private sector, have examined and tested themselves against the toughest challenges raised by our most bitter enemies and they have made a conscious and fully-informed decision to stay for the duration.
God bless them for their honor, dedication, and sacrifice.
Sunshine patriot, I doubt these guys would agree with you.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1817285/posts
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An utterly baseless speculation that demeans every USMA grad of that time period.
You want a President who will fight for this country? Vote for Duncan Hunter - He is a real American Patriot, who is fighting for this country as we speak. Read Ultra Sonic 007’s profile page, and check in on all Hunter threads.
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