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.
Sounds like you are a girl scout.
No, but I speak from almost 30 years commissioned experience as a Navy officer, active duty and reserved, as an NROTC DMG, and someone who served with a whole host of Canoe U. grads. And whatever failing they may have had, a dedication to country, love of the military, and desire to serve their country regardless of what boob happened to sit in the Oval Office at the time were not among them.
Your kidding right.
Lets see the Clinton years when tanks were only allowed to drive so many miles a year.
You realize that Clinton took out a fourth of the army firepower. Let me explain, yes under Bush I the army went from 18 to 10 divisions. Now let me explain the Clinton cuts. An armor battalion had 4 companies of 14 tanks and two in the battalion for a total of 58 tanks. I think in 94-95, all armor battalions dropped a company so the battalion had 46 tanks. All the associated people who supported this company were also dropped, the battalion commo, maintenance and commo section and also the Direct Support sections from the Forward Support Battalions.
Those outside the army didn’t notice since there were still 10 divisions.
I never did understand how “Just in Time Logistics” was suppose to work during a war.
Repent, you must be the son of a devil if you are Kerry’s nominee.
LOL.
verity,
I am in a Reserve unit where half the officers are West Pointers. They all have their own personal reasons they didn’t stay on active duty. For you to lump and disparge these soldiers the way you did is just as wrong as for me to say all Vietnam vets were pot smoking draftees who couldn’t get a college deferrment.
For the time frame when I was on active duty, I did my time in the first gulf war and Somalia. Some people are selected to go to war and some aren’t, it is what it is. I wonder what percentage of active duty field grade officers haven’t been to Iraq or Afghanistan.
!!!!!
Could be worse: One of my good friends at the Academy was Barney Frank's nominee. I never had the heart to ask him what he had to do to get it.
The debacle of the ‘90s was the fault of Bush 41, Clinton and Congress, all of whom were only too happy to spend the “peace dividend” (har, har) buying votes. I survived the Clinton purges and left the Navy on my own terms, but I know one, count ‘em, one officer still on active duty from those days. A lot of really good, really smart, really dedicated people got the shaft because the Berlin Wall had fallen and that meant the world was suddenly a safe place and everybody loved us, right? A lot of other really good, really smart and really dedicated people got fed up with the politics and the BS and left.
Rumsfeld was right when he said, “You go to war with the military you’ve got.” But the corollary to that is, “You have the obligation to fight the war your military is trained, equipped and ready to fight.” THAT’S where I fault Bush 43. The military is designed to kill people and break things, as Rush so aptly puts it, not win hearts and minds, establish democracies, and, oh, by the way, not do any collateral damage while they’re at it.
This administration either forgot that or never knew it. Either way, they’re reaping the harvest now.
Your 88-—well put, LNV.
My nephew is a West Point graduate of the class of 2003 and has already served two tours in Iraq. His courage, patriotism and loyalty are beyond reproach, but at some point he owes a loyalty to his family - to be there for his wife and young son. I don't know whether he will stay in the Army or not, but this is what he'll have to weigh in deciding.
I hate to tell you, but in my short 8 years active I actually met some West Pointers just as described. Not everyone going to Academies is ‘pure of heart.’
Some? A lot? The majority? The overwhelming majority? All of them? Which is it?
Our military can nation-build just fine, and has done so on numerous occasions.
The really successful ones have been *after* the total war you rightfully demand, and that we should have executed here.
Google West Point Graduates Against the War, then you tell us.
I sure do. I was a sergeant taking college classes to try to be selected for bootstrap(degree completion) and had many classes with officers trying to get some college before the RIF got them. One time an english class was decimated and many of the company grades knew West Pointers who were on the same RIF notification.
ping
These days, people are going there for the college education and prestige.
I doubt they ever went in to serve to begin with in any real war.
Peace time for a while would probably be OK for them, but we have some very spoiled younger people who have little sense of duty, honor or country.
The founders of that site all graduated in 1962.
I never thought that I would say it but I believe that i agree with you.
In 200 I voted for Bush in the hope that he would prosecute the Clinton crime cartel, including Hillary and Al Gore ,for their crimes. Didn’t happen
In 2002 I voted Republican “so Conservative Judges could be appointed”. Then came John Mc Cain and the other Democrats masquering as Republicans to stop it.
In 2004 I voted Republican mostly to do what I could to prevent John Kerry out of the WhiteHouse.
In 2006 I voted for what I consider to be another Democrat posing as a Republican, Charlie Crist, Mostly in order to keep the Democrat from being elected Governor.
As for how the war in Iraq and Afganistan is concerned, the kindest term to describe how it is now being conducted is , well I don’t know. Terms such as “incompetence”,and “inept” infer that those in charge of conducting it don’t know what they are doing. I believe that they know exactly what they are doing.
The troops doing the fighting have to contend with three enemies.
1. The enemy “fighters” whom I prefer to call International outlaws.
2. The American mainstream media and the Socialists in America.
3. The JAG lawyers who are foaming at the mouth in expections of getting to prosecute them for defending themselves.
Should they prevent one of the enemy from killing them by killing the enemy, the JAG, incited by the mainstream media is ready to pouce upon them with both feet.
To many, members of the main stream media, the Socialists in America to name a few, it is cause to celebrate when an American Serviceman/woman loses their life.
But to me,and this is only my personal opinion I do not claim to speak for anyone else, each one is someone’s son, daughter, father, mother, husband,wife and other relative an loved one. It is criminal that their lives are being sacrificed in a war that they are not and will not be allowed to win.
Your reply is interesting. However, I distinctly and without ambiguity disagree and disassociate myself from them as being far removed from my earlier posts.
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