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.
’ AND there is no point in making the military your career when they’re slowly taking away healthcare for when they retire.’
LOL, that’s a good reason for a military career! And I thought it was just for college money and travel to exotic places.
Have a lovely day!
We should. We need more troops, more officers, so we just don’t rotate the same guys/gals over and over again. Again, if we are going to sustain two wars, for the next 5-10 years, you gotta have the manpower. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Rumsfeld, you go to war with the officers you have left, not what you wished you had.
Sadly, I must agree with you, middie. We have had to watch our beloved country go down the tube to outright Communism. All the warnings of all the signs I’ve made were met with rolling eyes, which broke my heart over and over. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. God bless us all, and God bless America!
I don't believe the Globe's numbers for the 1970's, the year groups I'm most familiar with. A lot of Pointers got out then, too.
That said, we do need a bigger Army. This rate of deployment puts too much pressure on families and will lead to people leaving the service.
BTW, do you remember the post Vietnam era wherein the RIF also included, for the first time, USMA grads?
Oh, horsecrap. There's easier ways for people that talented to get a free education than enduring West Point.
Have you done multiple tours in Iraq, or are you another one of these keyboard commandos who talks big on FR?
what's happening is that the people that graduate are serving their required 4/6 year terms and THEN leaving. They are not breaking any contracts or anything; it's just that a military career is looking less and less appealing for a variety of reasons (low pay, chance of prosecution for actually fighting a war, PCness and other stuff)
People who go to the military academies don't attend on a whim. For almost all of them it's the culmination of a process that they started in junior high, and anyone who honestly believes that the motivation of those who feel called to military service are different under Democrat presidents than under Republican presidents are damned idiots.
What is your follow-up question?
Hey, wait a minute. This morass is not Bill Clinton’s fault. Cohen was a damn good SecDef and DoD was well run and effective. I’m not Clinton devotee, but the truth is the truth and that allegation is ass-backwards. The force was in fairly good shape to carry out the National Strategic Plan after the Bush I creation of the two-war concept. If there’s anything at which the Clinton administration failed, it was the understanding of logistics and the need to keep resupply depots stocked with spare parts. Otherwise, the fielded force was well trained, properly led and efficient. Please keep ideology out of the equation pre-2000. This 100% GWB’s war, no one else’s.
Reed was the only "expert" Bender quoted, and Reed's "proof" was extremely anecdotal at best---something about the operational tempo as a result of Iraq.
As we Freepers well know, correlation does not prove causation. Just because you take a piss every morning before the sun comes up doesn't mean your piss causes the sunrise.
Bender, the Globe and UPI thinks you're all a bunch of idiots. Don't bite off on this BS.
Oh, and by the way:
Not even remotely in the sense of the expression as its commonly used when discussing politics. Everyone who aspires to attend a military academy has to fight for an "appointment" first, from a senator or congressman, but the candidate's personal politics do not factor into the equation. Nor does the politician typically have anything to do with you if he or she gives you his or her nomination. It's just a process you go through when applying to a service academy.
I got John Kerry's nomination. I'm a Freeper. You do the math.
In fact, the actual invasion and deposing of Saddam was consistent with that belief. It was the total lack of understanding how to occupy a defeated nation and stabilize it that caused the present international insurgency confronting our troops. The rejection of real generals who attempted to tell truth to power and the interposition of their own arm chair Commander in Chief phoney baloney strattegy, like Adolph and his General Staff in the early 1940s and Saddam in Gulf War I, neither bush nor Rumsfeld had any idea of how to accomplish the mission. And when the generals told them how much in error they were, it was retirement or banishment to the boondogs for those guys. They then rolled in the Perfumed Prince Generals who told the dumb president and his even dumber SecDef that whatever they chose to do could be accomplished easily and with very few troops.
Bush and his cabal are a travesty and monument to ineptitude born of ignorance and arrogance.
No it wasnt.
If you'll recall through the '90s we went from: "Have the ability to fight and win two wars simultaneously"
to
"Have the ability to fight and win two wars very nearly simultaneously."
to
"Have the ability to fight and win one war and delay one regional conflict simultaneously."
to
"Have the ability to fight one war and one regional conflict very nearly simultaneously."
That was the force GW Bush got when he entered the oval office.
I watched as the Army was cut in half.
As far as the Iraq "morass", would you have preferred that we had enforced the sanctions and no-fly-zone indefinitely?
At what point would policing the No-fly-zones and enforcing the sanctions cost as much as a war?
Really, calling an elected US President and his cabinet a 'cabal' makes you look dumb... and rabid....
Pretty much you got it all in there: "Troof to powah", "Bush is Hitler", "Rumsfeld is stupid", "absence of real generals".
I think you hit all the leftist agitprop points there.
Me? I'm still enjoying my General Shitsacki Self Esteem Beret.
sounds like verity is an armchair general.
Since you feel I must be one of what you call a “damned idiot,” does that negate my 8 years active duty U.S. Army, including 18 months boots on the ground Viet Nam, mid 69 to Jan. 71?
Some of us “damned idots” may not be as ignorant as you think about the military!
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