75% of American youths unfit for military
A Stars & Stripes article reports that there are a number of retired generals who are a little miffed that a study by Mission: Readiness, an organization of more than 300 former military leaders which says that most Americans are ineligible for military service because they’re fat, stupid or criminals or a various combination of the three;
“Many of our young adults cannot meet the military’s standards in math, reading and problem solving,” said [Retired Maj. Gen. Daniel] O’Neill, a member of Mission: Readiness. “The reality of our modern-day military is that young people in uniform must operate cutting-edge technology and possess critical thinking skills. So, just as in the civilian workforce, the military increasingly needs better-educated young men and women to run its weapons systems.”
[Denise Cesare, president and CEO of Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania] expressed the same concerns about a rising skills gap among young people, which she said also has a negative impact on businesses.
Yet, those precious young people are always coming to TAH and trying to school us on law and the other realities of the world as they perceive it, steeped in their fat, illiterate ignorance.
Of course, these do-gooders, who are clearly outside their respective lanes, recommend more early learning programs…more union thugs earlier in our children’s lives. What we really need is to reform our education system. Toss the unions out along with bad teachers. Throw out the computers and get back to basic education and learning techniques. Teachers did a better job of teaching when they made less money than they make now. We certainly don’t need more union influence in our children’s lives. That’s how we got here. (Does it sound like I’m baiting a particular leftist here?)
I’m sure the recruiters in the audience can add some anecdotal evidence to support the report, though.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit, Schools
There’s a hilarious bit from the British comedy “Yes Minister” where they talk about instituting the draft and that one of the things they will do is: “…give them a comprehensive education to, er, make up for their comprehensive education”. It’s little wonder that so many kids (especially boys) do poorly in school-there’s not much incentive for them to do well and the schools don’t reward or value their natural impulses. One thing the Army knows how to do is motivate young men-give Joe the incentive to make more money from getting promoted if he improves his education and his performance will improve. Funny how that works.
In the past, some (not all, mind you) folks who struggled in school and lacked direction opted for military service in order to get some structure in their lives. One has to wonder about how those who fall into this category will even be ELIGIBLE for military service if he/she can’t even pass the ASVAB. (And no, I’m not talking about the 10% of sh-t bags who end up being leadership problems on the back end). Sad state of the education system in our country is this is a true assessment of what kind of education kids are getting now days. Clearly, there’s more to it. I’m not the best at writing, but I’m sure those of you who are smarter than me will chime in and share similar points of view.
My kids are both high achievers. They went to the same school, took the same classes, with all the same teachers as the kids who failed at school and are failing at life.
What’s the difference?
Us. My wife and me. And the time we spent with them, the things WE taught them, the things WE exposed them to/forced them to do.
Amazingly, if you put parents into the mix as full partners in the education process, KIDS GET AN EDUCATION.
I always marvel at how our ancestors managed to make a living without the benefits of (depending how far back we go) calculators, computers, specialized teachers (i.e., math teacher teaches only math) and support staff that outnumber the teachers. Hell, there was a time when kids of various ages and grades were taught in the same room by the same teacher. Now, we have dunderheads who receive good grades to placate mommy and daddy, not because the grades reflect actual knowledge gained and demonstrated. Then come the standardized tests failures (despite dumbed-down tests) and mommy can’t understand why 10th graders Suzie and Justin can’t figure the square root of 115 or find Germany on a map inside of a half hour. But what can Suzie and Justin do? Oh, they can tell us that global warming is a fact, that white Europeans killed the Indian and enslaved the Black, and that the USA is no better than any other country and worse than most. Very useful stuff that promises a future of fry burners. Aaarrrgghhh..
VI
Spot on. Once upon a time I taught High School Chemistry and Physics. Come time for conferences I always saw the parents I didn’t NEED to see. The ones that never came in to check on their kids progress were the ones I really needed to talk to….and it was even tougher to get them on the phone…
Of course, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been told how “blessed” we were to have high-achieving kids.
“Blessed.”
Like it had nothing to do with the hard work we put in with them. Luck of the draw. Just happened like that.
Virtual Insanity-by the same token, if a kid’s parents aren’t actively involved in that kid’s education even the best schools won’t make much of a difference (we spend more on education per pupil than any other nation except Switzerland FWIW). Anyway-there are all sorts of alternatives to the public schools (khan academy has lessons in all sorts of subjects that you can watch on youtube for free for those who want an education for themselves or for those who homeschool). Kids have to see value in an education (and I do think that an education has value in and of itself outside of how you can use it in the job market) before they will invest the time and effort to make anything of it. Too many don’t for a wide variety of reasons. Good parents certainly help with that, but the nature or the schools themselves (bureaucracy, zero tolerance and political correctness) are a huge problem.
..but isn’t war just like playing a video game?
#5 OT–My wife teaches.
It’s either,
a) they don’t show up, or
b) they show up to complain that their child is doing so badly and it’s the teacher’s fault. While there are times that may be true, in general it’s because the kid is a hellion. These are usually the same ones who threaten to file a lawsuit when the teacher videotapes the kid destroying a classroom in a tantrum (happened).
One of the thing not in the article is the number of the dumb-fatties that have been pumped full of prescription meds from an early age. When our kid was 10 he was not paying attention and goofing around in class and the teacher ‘diagnosed’ him as having ADHD and suggested we start him on Adderol. Mrs. LostBoys, a recruiter at the time, suggested she “fuck off”. All of the ADD/ADHD drugs, at least at the time, were bars to enlistment. Hell even the zit medicine kids take has a psychotropic potential that is, you guessed it, a bar to enlistment.
Dean Wormer was right, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
You know, I’ve been lucky, too. With smart kids, I mean. What has pissed me off recently is that kid #3, a sophomore, all honors classes kid, has not fared well in her biology class.
She and I studied together after her 2nd shitty test score. She was confident she was going to kill it. She didn’t.
So I studied 3 nights with her before this photosynthesis, biogenetics test. She knew the material. However, her test scores still suck. I email the teacher. He tells me she has “no knowledge” of the subject matter, as he doesn’t allow “regurgitation”! I ask for test copies to compare the notes she has against the materials he tells them to use. I mean how many ways do you need to understand cell respiration, photosynthesis and all that? I even forced her to memorize the Krebs Cycle and it’s equations backwards and forwards because that can give her nearly every answer on a test…He tells me he is confident that if Hannah were to attend his reviews that she would do better…It was all I could do not to tell him to GFH. This kid is not a slacker and the material is not hard. Why can he not provide me with her tests? My gut says because he is a lazy ass who uses the same crap over and over rather than try something new. I am frustrated because my kid wants to excel and these “teachers” are just doing their time.
During my time in recruiting, many of the kids that truly wanted to join out of high school were medically or physically unable to. The ASVAB or a lack of high school equivalency eliminated many others. Then too there were the “walk-ins”–those who came to the mall wanting to join, only to find out that felonies, drug charges or other issues disqualified them.
In short, I’m not surprised by this info. The same thing was taught to us at Recruiter School and reinforced by my experiences in Louisiana.
This is something I repeatedly point out to all those morons who want us to institute the draft so that we can “straighten out” these unfortunate youths.
I remember back in USCG basic they had a “SPEEDES” program back in 1987, where illiterate graduates of boot camp got to go to a special school to teach them to read and write. If they were on a 2-year enlistment contract, this meant we basically paid them to go to high school for two years. Great investment, huh?
The military is an armed service, not a social service.
If a person is an illiterate, unmotivated slug in civilian life, they’ll likely be an illiterate, unmotivated slug in the military.
If liberals want to use government programs to teach elementary math and reading, why not send these remedial candidates to the EPA, or Health and Human Services, or the Congressional Budget Office, where the worst that could happen is that they misfile a bureacratic memo, rather than do something that could cost someone their life in combat?
AP, in the Army we had Basic Skills Education Program (BSEP) and as new folks would arrive from AIT, they were tested during in-processing. I had one kid who was promoted to E-4 out of AIT because he had a 4-year degree. He showed up one day and said that they’d tapped him for BSEP. Apparently, his degree was in saxophone and none of the things he’d need to be a productive soldier, but he got to go to high school with E-4 pay in his wallet. Nice work if you can get it.
I was a recruiter for THREE LOONNGG years. The folks that have posted about parental activity in the childs education( I don’t mean PTA), the comments about the ADHD drugs and the standardized testing have pretty much hit the nail on the head. I would have to agree with the Generals. In one month I tested over 50 prospective applicants and only 2 passed with scores no higher than 41, 30 is the passing ASVAB score. Two among the tested were college students and failed! Of the two that passed, they popped hot on the MEPS piss test! I graduated from the same school system, in 1981, as these kids did so I don’t think it is the quality of kid (gene pool). It bothered me so much that I re-took the test and scored an 81, my original was 87 in 1980. One of the teachers in the High School graduated with me so I asked him what the problem was. His answer was a combination of lack of parental support, lack of real disciplinary options and the biggest was the “No Child Left Behind” mandate. It seems that the schools are penalized for failing a precentage of kids and money or programs are taken away from the school. I don’t know if that is indeed the case, but, I do know that the lack of disiplinary options are a real problem. My friend stated that most teachers would give out passing grades to any student that came to class and caused no disruptions, regardless if they passed anything while there. I tested three kids that had proof of their GPAs, 3.2-3.8, the one with the 3.2 scored the best, 16 on the ASVAB. These three had a really hard lesson in life and their knowledge by my hands. I didn’t pull any punches when they complained about the test and I let them know what they would have to do in order to pass the test. I am very concerned about the youth of today, they should have the education to succeed in life, but, somewhere we have… Read more »
RE: ADHD & the rampant categorization of our children, the schools get more money if they have “special needs” kids. My GF is in education. Both of her parents are retired from the education system. All three of them tell the same tale. The teachers will “refer” someone for ADHD or some other problem at the drop of a hat. So the education system has a vested interest in stating that someone has issues, and I suspect in the case of less involved parents what they say pretty much goes.
So now the kid has been labelled, something very tough to overcome in a bureaucratic system. They get treated different by teachers and admin staff. I would hazard a guess that many of them start to think of themselves as having ADHD, when really they’re just a normal kid.
might be true, but its ok, since we have ‘turned the page on a decade of war’ and everyone will love us from now on. We dont need no stinkin’ military!
no brain, no pain, man. keep stupid and carry on.
@3 Agree completely, parental involvement is required to make up for lack of teaching by so many teachers. @11 Switch your kid to another class. My daughter ran into a terrible history teacher who did nothing but stand at the front of the class and read verbatim from the book, and yelled at the boys. I went to bat for her with her so-called counselor (glorified schedule maker) to switch her to another teacher. When he resisted, saying that they don’t allow requesting specific teachers, I pointed out that she didn’t need to be in their stinking school at all and could just take the class online from the school district. She got switched. I really think many parents never grew up and just don’t want the responsibility of parenting, it’s hard work! They’re too involved in their reality TV, pilates classes, and drinking to pay attention to their kids’ education. My son told me the other day that one of the kids in his E&E class at Sheppard had never used ANY tool before getting there. No screwdriver, hammer, wrench, nothing. THAT is his parents’ fault. I’ve read articles about the same complaint coming from places like MIT and large companies. The big difference is in the farm kids, they still have all those traditional skills. My daughter was amazed and couldn’t figure out how you could get to 18, 19, or 20 and not ever used a screwdriver. She said that as she was changing the battery in her watch, using a screwdriver. As for not being fit, that’s the parents’ fault too. When you let your kids sit around playing video games all day long while stuffing their faces with junk food, that’s what you get. My family and I had a long discussion about what we would do if we were hit by an EMP (or the zombie apocalypse!). We figured our family would be just fine because we have the basic skills required for survival while all those people who don’t hunt, fish, use tools, cook and grow food, etc. would die off in the… Read more »
For what it’s worth, I have to share an experience teaching at a community college. After getting my Master’s, I taught nights (while still on active duty) at a local CC. I taught Intro to Business.
My first class had 21 students, ranging in age from 19 to 64.
I required a short, one-page autobiography (of which the 19-year-old asked, “About who?”), and a three-page thesis on any business subject, as well as three tests over the course of the semester. I told them I would coach them onth ewriting assignment throughout the semester as they needed. One of my students was a retired Army E-7 who, it turned out, had real challenges in the literacy department.
The retired E-7 had been “socially promoted” through school and all the way through a 20-year Army career. Because she was black, I suppose, I was the first person to ever sit down with her and actually work on her spelling and grammar problems. She ultimately received a “C” on her paper and passed the class…earning it.
She and her husband came to the class the last night and thanked me for having the balls to tell her she couldn’t write well and work with her on her problems. Wasn’t a dumb lady, by any stretch; just uneducated.
Well the political correctness is killing us- Dont be a parent: the state will raise your kids. Dont push standards on the children- It will scar them. Dont put the fear of God in you children: its counter productive.
Put that in your pipe you dont-spank your kid- dont push your kids to learn- dont make you kids face the consiquences of their actions- bleeding heart types.
My only beef is with the BMI- am 220 and and still put 260-270 on my APFT.
It burns my chaps when people say why isnt this new stuff working? Well- bring back the good old days. They made this far because it worked. Somethings, yes i know need to stay as old. But come on- when you have e-3’s and e-4’s looking at you with stupid look on their face because you want them to pull their weight. And the cure is a skull drag across the parade grounds. Thats why were failing-
My father-in-law says: “Its my generation that screwed up this county, now I HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO UNSCREW IT” my father-in-law was born in the 50’s and did his 30years. I can see the truth in his statement
Sadly, it seems the American education system has become more of a state run jobs program & baby sitting service than a means of actually educating kids.
And I seriously pity the small number of actual good teachers out there.
@3 (Virtual Insanity) Spot on, and thank you for putting that effort in with your kids!
I’m sure the recruiters in the audience can add some anecdotal evidence to support the report, though.
Even in the 90’s it was laughable to find enough QUALIFIED (mentally, morally, and physically) kids, then you’d have to convince them to join–not the easiest of tasks in a heavily blue area (Los Angeles) when the economy is doing well.
It’s even worse when you’re trying to get kids who need to be on top of their game for specialized programs like NF/AEF, when their options are Officer Ascession programs like the service academies or ROTC, or just plain college.
Supposedly the ASVAB was supposed to give an average score of 50, but the average score of those we tested was low 40’s at best. The standard questioning would include not HAVE you smoked pot, but HOW MANY TIMES. And don’t even get me into the kids who had asthma, took Ritalin, and even seeing a family counselor over mommy and daddy’s divorce would be a Psych consult which could take months to get at MEPS. Then you get into a system where DA’s pump the charges as high as they can so the kid’ll plead out to a lesser charge, but it a lot of cases it’s the original charge we have to get a waiver for.
And so it went.
@15 & 19
When I first came in the Army and throughout my time as a SGT/E-5 we also had the annual SQT test for NCO promotions.
They ditched those about ’92 or so. Guess why?
Somewhere along the line it became more important to have shiny boots, starched BDUs and a 300 APFT for promotions rather than actually knowing your job.
A couple of factors.
1. The ASVAB doesn’t allow you to use a calculator. How many youth today know how to do simple math either in their heads or on scratch paper without requiring the use of a calculator? When I was in recruiting, my 1SG bemoaned the fact that his (then 8 year-old) daughter was being taught how to use a calculator instead of scratch paper.
2. Our youth today are more proficient in speaking and writing in tweets than they are in speaking and writing in english.
3. Our youth spend more time playing online games than they do playing outside. That’s a factor in the physical ineptitude. The most common injury at basic is a stress fracture of the foot.
Gee, I feel so OLD!!
Until 5th grade, I went to school at a 3-room school that had 2 grades in each room and one teacher for those 2 grades. Somehow, those teachers managed to teach to teach reading, longhand writing (penmanship), and arithmetic, history, english (including spelling and vocabulary), art and music and maintain discipline, all at the same time. If kids were hyper in class, they ran it off at recess trying to push each other off the big boulder in the school yard or playing jump rope, using a slide and swings that would give parents cardiac arrest nowadays, and no one died, no one was a bad kid, and the dumbest clown in class could read and write better than today’s kids.
Defend, it isn’t your daughter that has the problem, it’s the teacher. He doesn’t test on the textbook subject matter, he is using standardized tests that you can’t study for out of the textbooks or using class notes. I took a “cram” class to pass an insurance broker’s licensing testm, but that was to get my license for work. Go face him down over it in person,if you haven’t already. I’m beginning to understand why more parents are doing home-schooling now. If necessary, I could as my sister, who teaches pre-med students, to send me an old test that she gives her students, just to see what your kid could do with it.
I’ve wondered how come kids in other countries are doing better than kids in this country on test scores. Now, I’m beginning to understand. Teachers can’t deal with hyper kids, they’re in teaching for the cash, and too many of them truly do not give a crap about what they’re doing. I had an algebra teacher like that in high school. More interested in coaching basketball than teaching algebra. I learned to hate math because of him.
PH2…my Algebra II teacher was like that…football coach and God help you if you weren’t a jock or corrected him. I took no small amount of pleasure years later hearing he got fired when he sent a kid who had been ejected back into a football game wearing another jersey.
#27 — We have a saying where I work: “Time wounds all heels.”
Heh.
Some of what has happened is that “children” have become the center of universe in the American family. I am older myself, when I was a kid my parents were the center of the family and we did what we were told or were disciplined as a consequence. There was no bullsh1t allowed at school, if you got of line you had your 4ss handed to you by teachers and your parents. Now that we worship our children as the special little darlings they are by catering to every need, making sure they are never outside unattended or ever allowed to do anything even remotely damaging to their tender self esteem we have a generation of protected, little pussies who think the whole world gives a sh1t about them. As a mentor I get kids from the Vocational School in to shadow me, they quickly understand that if they work for me they work. I don’t give a rat’s 4ss about their car problems, their inability to discipline their partying, sleep habits, whatever. You get a short leash here and when you f%ck up you get fired we have no time to babysit these little 4ssholes. Unionized teachers are part of the problem sure, but we had teachers unions in the ’60s and ’70s and somehow we received an education that most of us put to good use and have remained gainfully employed. It is the complete lack of discipline in the system from teachers and support staff to the spoiled little brats attending the school system that has caused this failure. Someone pointed out that parents don’t like doing the heavy lifting and I agree, your kids don’t need you as a friend they have plenty of 4ssholes to tell them they are wonderful, they need a mom and a dad who will tell them the truth even when it is painful and who will kick their 4ss and keep them on the straight and narrow. Those of you here whose children are doing well know it is because you motivate your kids, you are involved, and you lead… Read more »
Well in Russia there is no asvab ,in China there is no asvab either unless you try being a fighter pilot,what happen to the days where we would just put the dummys in combat job.. Dam I miss the 60s.