General Dempsey:”our population of military-age young men, who qualify for the military, is declining”
That is the reason that the restrictions on women in combat arms is being challenged. Not even joking.
When the Pentagon said earlier this year that it would open ground combat jobs to women, it was cast in terms of giving women equal opportunities in the workplace — the military workplace.
But the move has practical considerations, too. The military needs qualified people to fill its ranks, and it’s increasingly harder to find them among men.
“It’s fairly common knowledge that our population of military-age young men, who qualify for the military, is declining,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in an interview with NPR just after the Pentagon announced that women no longer be excluded from ground combat jobs.
I am confused I thought that we are actively reducing our numbers and not the other way around.
Too many potential male recruits have criminal records, drop out of high school or have drug problems. In addition, the rising obesity rate is also a factor.
Yet this was not a issue with Iraq and Afghanistan troop surges were in place? I do not understand this at all, it should be easier not harder due to the fact that the recruiting pool is about the same size and quality it was in 2003. Oh and this is a great little gem.
“Recruiters anecdotally will have fewer issues with a female applicant than they will with a male,” says Kathleen Welker, who is with the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.
Really because it seems that both genders can bring a equal amount of drama to the table. More about this later.
Category: Who knows
Aside from how this may be convenient timing for the discussion, I would not be surprised if the number of Americans in general who qualify for military service is indeed going down due to disqualifying drugs whether illegal or prescription. Rather than let kids out to run and play, they have been heavily “medicated” to keep them quiet in class for a few decades now.
Had a SSG stay with his family in our vacation rental here on the OBX. I went into recruiting mode to counsel him on the need to stay in to 20. Easy mark because he was a lifer. Turns out he was a recruiter in New England where, he said, the only Patriots were on a football team. He had already had 2 tours in Iraq and 1 in Afghan. He was trying to get out of recruiting by volunteering to go back to Afghan.
“In addition, the rising obesity rate is also a factor.” Huh? Was that Dumper or Michelle? Whatever. There is a remedy for young lard asses. It’s called physical training. No go at BT? No problem. We called it recycling. I don’t know what it’s called today. This is all a farce. Dumper. Spit!
As far as the obesity within young people you’d be surprised by how many are practically past the point of no return when they hit 18. When I was a DI in the early then late 90s there was a huge difference in the fitness levels of recruits we got in the summer and in the winter. Summer recruits tended to be kids right out of high school. Even then we would have about 10-15% who were overweight when they shipped. In the wintertime we got the recruits who were More apt to be a few years older, (maybe 2-3 years at most) The recruits we picked up then were sometimes the guys who couldn’t get a job or didn’t get into school. The platoons in winter tended to have as many as 25% to 30% overweight. I can say with confidence that most guys that go in with a weight problem always have a weight problem. Many don’t make their first enlistment, There are a few exceptions but that’s usually the way it plays out. Fast forward to 2012 when my son graduated. When I would pick him up after school a lot of the 16, 17 and 18 year old boys looked either like twigs or a seabag with lips
@4. What happened to working the lard off of them and killin’ the tater tots at mess?
Rising obesity can be cured by increased expenditure of energy through removing larded behind from furniture.
Not sure what Dempsey’s point is, but doesn’t seem to me that an excuse is needed. For those unenlightened of you, there were over 1,000,000 women directly involved on the Vietcong side of Vietnam’s ware, not just as support. They were tunnel rats, spies, they manned artillery and other weapons, ferried supplies to the south. The irony is that their sex gave the long hair troops an advantage over western opponents biased by gender stereotypes. It was not something new. The women had been doing this for centuries.
http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/tayvie.html
What #3 said…
If you show up at the depot and found to be a little on the heavy side, you get a red stripe painted on your sweatshirt, which means the fat-ass gets a little extra attention – with hopes the “recruit” gets to the correct weight. If not, they ship the fat fuck over to the Physical Conditioning Platoon while the rest of the platoon progresses in the training cycle.
Yeah, they don’t just recycle trash from the chow-hall either.
I was EIB Cadre 3x when I was a young E-3 – E-5.(First time GO, E-2)
We had guys that failed the grenade test because they could not throw it straight enough or far enough. The “Nintendo Throw” is what we called it. I mean, look at the form…. Wow.
So we started asking….
Half of the guys never played sports but they could beat Super Mario Brothers.
No Shit.
99-01 timeframe.
“Recruiters anecdotally will have fewer issues with a female applicant than they will with a male,”
Horse. Fuckin. SHIT.
And don’t even get me started on the stupid shit kids do that remove them from the pool of enlistment-eligiblity.
“Recruiters anecdotally will have fewer issues with a female applicant than they will with a male”
Sure. Until half the women get stress fractures the 1st week of boot camp.
Green Thumb, this video is just for you.
@10 – it’s funny you say that. My daughter was a ballet dancer. Now most people think that it’s a fru-fru arty thing, but in reality, it’s brutally physical. My daughter danced through stress fractures in both feet for 5 years. Not to mention the pulled hamstrings, damaged hip flexors, and other injuries.
In high school, she always beat the sports guys in tests of leg strength.
Said daughter is heading off to Air Force BMT in May. She will kick butt and no MTI can compare to a Russian ballet teacher.
Green Thumb’s observations on the grenade range and lack of quality of recruits was a trend that I observed that continued unabated when I went through BCT (Summer, 2006). Even running, day in, day out and PTing in our private time, we still had people who could not meet the standard. The drill sargeants called us “generation x box” and I found that pretty apt, considering.
Fact is as we move (rather reluctantly) toward a more garrison mentality armed forces, this obstinance toward strict standards should become more the norm. I understand why of course, but all the gender norming in the world should not compromise that standard. I worry continually over what’s going to happen when there’s some sob story up on Capitol Hill b/c when (surprise!) mere nature proves that a) there won’t be enough females to fill the requirement for troops and b) there will be further crying over “descrimination” when said descrimination includes physical standards.
When there are 1.4 million more men age 20-24 in 2010 census data than were shown in 2000 census data how does he figure the number is declining? Or is he saying that all of the 1.4 million aren’t qualified due to being fat or criminal? What the h3ll? Where do they find these guys?
VOV–ever tried to get a waiver or a PFT for a kid with asthma? Or one who ever took Ritalin or any of a dozen other meds? And one of my faves, Psych consult because the kid went to family counseling after his/her parents divorced?
Sometimes the rules make sense, but sometimes the recruiting standards need to be looked at to see if they even make sense anymore–especially the medical ones.
@ 15 NHSparky,
I’ve given pulmonary function tests to a couple of those recruits. Screening for asthma makes sense when you see the incidences of cold weather induced ‘bronchitis’ that we see in places like Ft. Drum. I can’t imagine having to hump someone else’s stuff up a mountain in the winter because they caught a cold or something. I could certainly see a support troop doing their job with a permanent profile or something along those lines but then look ahead to ‘I can’t run because I’m on a profile’. You might have an otherwise excellent individual that can’t lose weight. Was it worth getting that person when you could have gotten another without that impediment?
A pulmonary funtion test usually takes 45 minutes to actually do. If you ask me, the ass pain for the recruiter and recruits is probably worth it if you want this kid to ever have a real shot of doing 20 years of service.
Well Sparky you are right that a lot of these little sons of b1tches are over medicated…I coach competitive youth sports, I’ve been licensed for 23 years now…and the number of moms who tell me their little johnny was a handful until they started doping them is always a surprise….most of these kids are just dying to get outside and run and play and generally be kids. Mom and dad both work, lots of times in long hour demanding positions to make ends meet and when they don’t have the energy to raise their trophy kids they use pharmacology to help them out.
I know there are some kids with genuine problems, but the kids I work with are usually energetic, bright, and competitive. We give them an outlet for that devoid of phamaceuticals where possible.
I did read that the incidence of asthma along with autism is rising steadily in the nation however….poisoning the earth just might actually turn out to have some ramifications after all.
I also find the number of people who have no idea what higher level competitive sports is like, they just figure I can transform their darling into the next Lionel Messi in three or four hours a week of practice.
Sh1t, maybe the general is right…we are raising a nation of unqualified pansies…
On behalf of most women I know, I hereby make a formal apology to the MEN (and future MEN) who stand guard on us. I truly appreciate your courage and valor. I personally do not know any woman who can do what you all do. I am pretty sure I do not want to know them! Can women ably defend their home and family, of course we can and will. Dempsey will regret these words…
@15–while I certainly understand the serious nature of asthma, sometimes I get the feeling it’s like Ritalin/ADD–over diagnosed. But I’m not a doctor, so I could be wrong.
But then again, there are recruiters who are lazy sumbitches, no doubt about it. What? Telephonic waiver that might take an hour? Oh, noes!!!
@17 VOV–I did read that the incidence of asthma along with autism is rising steadily in the nation however….poisoning the earth just might actually turn out to have some ramifications after all.
I think you’re buying into the hype that somehow pollution is bad and getting worse in this country.
Take it from a kid who was raised in Los Angeles–uh, no. Look back on the number of Level II smog alerts there. In fact, what was considered a Level I alert back in the 1950’s would be considered a Level III today. In fact, there hasn’t been a Level I alert in LA since 1997, and no Level II alerts since 1988.
Look at the 50 worst polluted cities in the world. Guess how many of them are in the US? That’s right–NONE.
To me, it sounds like a manufactured crisis. I talked to my unit’s Recruiter just a few weeks ago, and he told me that having had over 12 traffic tickets in one’s lifetime will now disqualify someone from Military Service, and in the year I came back in, 2003, that would most likely have disqualified me. You see, I had my fair share of speeding tickets in my youth, (NO DUI’s, or Reckless Driving) and in my adult years as an OTR (Over The Road) Trucker. Nowadays, that would ahve disqualified me. Our Unit’s Recruiter has also told me of the regs that keep changing that DQ other youths as well. I just wonder how much of this “crisis” is a machination of B. Hussein 0bama & Co.!
They’re turning recruits away for having tattoos and being accused but not convicted of juvenile offenses. I think that’s all that needs to be said about the shortage of qualified male recruits.
“@10 – it’s funny you say that. My daughter was a ballet dancer. Now most people think that it’s a fru-fru arty thing, but in reality, it’s brutally physical. My daughter danced through stress fractures in both feet for 5 years.”
We may have diff definitions of stress fractures. The female Marine I ran through the land nav course got three. Now, she endured the pain and finished the course, but she couldn’t walk the next day, much less tough it out. Medical discharge.
I hope your daughter does well in Air Force boot camp, but the fact remains: women have 10% less bone density than men. And despite what Kathleen Welker says, the biggest problem DIs have with female recruits is that their bodies break so easily.
BULLSHIT. You gotta wait months if not years for 03xx spots in the Marine Corps.
When I was in Basic Combat Training (about a million years ago), when we were going through the gas chamber, one of the guys (I didn’t know him) was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.
He had asthma, and didn’t tell anybody, so the gas chamber got him.
Did he live?
I don’t know.
Another guy was booted out because he wet the bed every night, and when the drill sergeant was chewing him out in formation, he urinated all over himself.
As our bus loaded with new inductees was traveling from Portland, Oregon to Fort Lewis, Washington, I overheard guys joking about the guys who deliberately failed the induction process, for back then, it was unpopular to be a soldier and MAYBE be sent to Viet Nam, so a LOT of guys were doing whatever they could to avoid military service.
What? No idea how your remark is relevant… I started boot camp in May and was fleet (3rd LAR BN) by November. So yah, 6 months. That included 4 weeks of MCT and 2 of SOI. Spent most of that time humping. No stress fractures though.
If you’re referring to my anecdote above @23, that was a Sgt’s Course that included non 03s (yes, in the Marines, females are expected to master some 03 skills to get promoted). Can’t speak for Air Force. Not even sure if they hump in boot camp.
After completing Basic Combat Training, I was sent to the Field Radio Relay and Carrier Equipment Operator (MOS 31 L 20) course at the Southeastern Signal School at Fort Gordon, Georgia.
Everyone in the course had to have a “SECRET” security clearance.
One guy was kicked out of the course (and out of the Army?) because he failed to pass the Security clearance.
I think it was because he’d associated with some wrong group(s), or something like that, prior to entering the Army.
Another guy was sent home on a Hardship Discharge because he was an only son and was needed on the family farm.
I’m very VERY lucky that I got to serve in the United States Army (after being turned away by the United States Marine Corps – – – just like AUDIE MURPHY ! ! ! Ha! Ha! Ha!), and if it hadn’t of been for an extremely unpopular and controversial war that most guys were trying to avoid, I never would have gotten in.
You guys know my story, because I’ve written about it before, at least a couple of times, right here on this web site, so I won’t bother going into it again.
Just remember this – – – ,
“Hello! I’m Forrest – – – , Forrest Gump.”
I’ll keep this short…
My less-than-stellar recruiting career saw me put in only a handful of females. One got pregnant before shipping. The other three didn’t make it through IET. I put in about five times more males (told you my career was less-than-stellar). SFAIK, only two didn’t make it (one didn’t ship, while his buddy got booted for fighting).
#21 is right to an extent. As the disqualifiers increase, the number of “qualified” Prospects/Applicants decrease.
The “tightening” of recruiting standards is predictable. Iraq is essentially done, and we’re (supposedly) pulling out of Afghanistan. We’re in all likelihood going to see some type of force reduction in the immediate future. One of the things that typically accompanies a force reduction is a tightening of recruiting standards.
We had force reductions after Vietnam and after the Gulf War. As I recall, recruiting standards “tightened up” during both of those periods, too.
…I spent the four most miserable years of my life as a USAF recruiter in Akron OH from 89-93,and all I can say to GEN Dempsey is that he should get out of that nice office of his more often. Boys and girls alike did remarkably stupid things that would keep them out of military service, but even more got kept out because of the arbitrary decisions made by those who were nominally ‘in charge’.
Mike
A part of the problem is that the Administration (incl political appointees Dempsey, Panetta, and Hagel) want choir boys that march nicely in parades like “good Soldiers,” instead of Warriors ready to fight and kill the enemy.
Yes, today’s generation is heavier and less athletic than were the 80’s generation, but Dempsey is telling us that with a larger population to recruit from, he can’t find half as many qualified to be trained!?!?
Some may recall that a few years ago, the political appointees assembled a “Diversity Commission” to study the ways to put females in combat, and “fix” the problem of Infantry having fewer minorities than support MOS’s. I posted the article then, about the time that it found that DADT should be repealed. It seems to me, that the diversity drive is already biting the military in the butt, but perhaps that is why the military is pushing for the pre-9/11 generation to get cut, while pushing pre-9/11 tactics and claiming there will never be another force on force war that we need those numbers of troops for, or next generation fighter-planes for, or battleships, or destroyers, etc.
Political Correctness WILL kill Our Troops.
I was a recruiter for 3 years and had just as many issues with female prospects as males. However, I do agree with the comments about a dwinddling pool, if I interviewed 100 young candidates, 2 may be smart enough, no troubles with the law and no drug abuse, to actually qualify for military service. I would rather straddle a 1000lb bomb than ever go back into recruiting!!!!
IF Gen Demp was to say that the sun was sure to rise tomorrow, I’d run out and buy at least a week’s worth of batteries for my flashlight.
GenDemp is pushing an ideology for his masters. Nothing more. Nothing less. And neither honor nor integrity have any place in the push.