Tuesday tidbits

Let’s open with Jack Texeira, the enlisted Air Force kid who posted thousands of pages of classified material for his game=playing buddies to read. He got 15 years for that little trick last fall – but he’s back.

Teixeira pleaded guilty last year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. He faces additional military charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice in the court-martial.

His lawyer, Lt. Col. Bradley Poronsky, argued that the obstructing justice charge should either be dismissed or go unpunished, saying it amounts to double jeopardy because it already factored into Teixeira’s November sentencing. Prosecutors argued against dismissal, saying the charge involves different conduct at a different time than the acts that obstructed justice in the federal case.

Teixeira’s lawyers had argued that further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.  AP

Nope, if he wasn’t charged before with disobeying an order he’s fair game. Obviously, prosecutors are throwing the proverbial book at him, although I suspect any sentence he will collect will probably be specified to run concurrently with his existing sentence. Regardless, hopefully he should be a shining example to any other rebellious young service members of what NOT to do. He should probably consider himself lucky, at points in our recent history he could have been facing the death penalty.

We have noted previously that the Army seems to have really turned around its recruiting woes by implementing  remedial training/exercise pre-enlistment programs for kids normally excluded from enlistment. Bet some attaboys went around the recruiting command for that, right? Just one small fly in the ointment:

Nearly one-quarter of soldiers recruited since 2022 have failed to complete their initial contracts, according to internal Army data reviewed by Military.com. While the Army’s recruiting totals look solid on paper, a high dropout rate raises serious doubts about whether those numbers are an accurate portrayal of how well the service is manned.

It remains unclear why the Army is losing so many soldiers, but one explanation could be the declining quality of its recruiting pool. One-quarter of all enlistees last year had to go through at least one of the Future Soldier Preparatory Courses, which were set up as a sort of silver bullet for recruiting woes — getting applicants up to snuff with academic or body fat enlistment standards before they ship out to basic training.  Military.com

Suspiciously similar numbers there, right? A quarter of recruits need the remedial pre-BCT camps, and a quarter aren’t making it though their first contracts. My first question is no doubt the same as yours – are these two one-quarter populations the same 25%? Hopefully not. Sure would be interesting to know how much overlap there is.

And lest you think we are the only people afflicted with DEI, here’s a shining example from across the pond. The UK doesn’t have enough pilots in their pipeline:

Under Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston’s stewardship, the air force committed to having 40 per cent women and 20 per cent of personnel from ethnic minorities by 2030.

During the drive, leaked emails showed air chiefs were told to stop choosing “useless white male pilots” in an attempt to improve diversity.

The RAF now needs a “higher number of pilots in training”, according to a document seen by the Daily Mail.

Air chiefs want the gaps filled by those who may have previously been rejected.

In an RAF internal briefing note titled “Opportunities for professional transfer to the pilot specialisation”, staff are encouraged to transfer because of a need for more pilots “required for flying training”.

Candidates must be younger than 24 when they apply, although older applicants with experience in similar roles would be considered.

The same scheme is open to weapons systems operators.  (Ed – think ‘Goose’)

Mark Francois, the shadow Armed Forces minister, told the paper: “The RAF’s availability of combat pilots has been hit by a perfect storm: including woke manipulation of recruiting practices, the revival of civilian airlines post-Covid and technical issues with training aircraft, particularly engine reliability on the Hawk T2.  The Telegraph

They have increased their defense buying, now they need to find folks who can operate the equipment. Worth noting… in WWII they never ran out of Spitfires or Hurricanes, but they near as damnit ran out of pilots and in latter years put some really green kids in cockpits.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Army, Crime, UK