I was talking with a friend today whose son is in the army. We have quite a few young men from our church in the service.
She said morale is SO low in the armed forces. Many of the guys can’t wait to get out. She said in boot camp nowadays, they aren’t allowed to make the guys follow orders. They aren’t getting trained right and it’s turning into every man for himself, there is not the camaraderie of old (well there is as far as the enlisted men can create it, but not as far as the culture instilled from the higher ups.) She was talking about how over in Afghanistan (and probably everywhere) they have to try to follow orders from both their COs and other COs from NATO, sometimes conflicting orders, and trying to sort out what they are really supposed to do is frustrating and dangerous. Then with all the “rules of engagement”, traitorous acts by locals who are supposed to be working with our military and then turn on them, etc. She said it’s just really, really dangerous now, even though an enlisted man’s life is always in danger, at least before you felt that the military had your back. No more.
It made me want to cry - thinking of our guys over there and what they are all going through. She said most of the guys her son knows can’t wait to get out, even though many loved the military and wanted to serve their country, now they just can’t get out fast enough.
It’s just one more thing Obama is destroying. I would hate to think what would happen if we faced a real threat closer to home. I would hope some of the old school military leaders would step up and kick out the new school politically correct brass and bring back discipline and order.
Pray for our troops.
It is awful what is happening, I only served one hitch in the Navy but that was in the early sixties. In the seventies I serviced printing equipment on some military bases and discipline was already far more lax than in my time. With what is going on now if any young person should ask I would tell them to have nothing to do with today’s military. I am very glad that I volunteered and have often said that the Navy did for me many times over what I ever did for the Navy but it is a different story now. The idea that recruits in boot camp cannot be made to follow orders sounds like science fiction to someone from my time. I know that Navy boot camp was far easier than Marine or even Army boot camp but it was not a walk in the park in 1962. You did as you were told or you were sent home in disgrace and you might spend some time in a cell before you went home in disgrace. Of course it was a lot easier to make a young boy of my generation feel disgraced, I have a niece who literally deserted from her first duty station after Army boot camp and it was two years before the Sheriff’s department came for her and then they kept her for one week at Fort Knox and turned her loose again. In my day they would have sent Marines to fetch me and I would have done a hitch in prison.