This Is A Headscratcher
Army recruiting poster
I only ask how did this young man’s recruiter think that he could get away with this, that it wouldn’t be discovered? He’s a jerk, to be sure, but this is inexcusable.
From the article: The Army has launched an inquiry into the circumstances that led a 19-year-old on anxiety medication who was diagnosed with autism and congenital arm disorders to report for basic combat training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, this August.
The young man’s father told Army Times that he has been trying to help return his son to their hometown in Idaho by reaching out to service officials and congressional representatives. After his son reported for basic training on Aug. 20, he began having anxiety attacks and was quickly separated from his basic training unit to be out-processed for not disclosing his myriad of diagnosed disorders.
Both the father and son say that his Army recruiter encouraged him to hide potentially disqualifying factors in order to enlist as a human resources specialist.
“U.S. Army Recruiting Command has initiated an inquiry into this situation, and appropriate action will be taken when all facts are known,” Lisa Ferguson, the chief spokeswoman for the service’s recruiting command, told Army Times. – article
We tend to take for granted our reasonably good health, and we’d notice it if we couldn’t do something as simple as turn one hand palm up, but this young man couldn’t do that because of his physical affliction. It is a shame, because he obviously wanted to be part of something worthwhile.
The obvious question is simple: how in the blue-eyed blinking world did the recruiter think these things would not be noticed?
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Army
Gotta give the lad an A for effort. The recruiter and the MEPs people…not so much.
Openings in those commands coming up soon?
With the passage of time I have forgotten his name, but a guy in my platoon in osut went to sickcall the second day of basic. His feet hurt. Guess why? Flatfeet so bad his toes splayed out. We asked how he made it through MEPS like that. He said he just arched his feet up like the recruiter told him to do when they came down the line to look at everyone’s feet. I just shook my head.
USAREC should be broken up under antitrust and RICO, entrenched koolaid-drinking leadership that casts a blind eye to Army Values violations.
But that’s my two pennies.
My Recruiter told me a lie
“Join the Airborne and learn to fly!”
So I signed my name on the dotted line
And now all I do is DOUBLE TIME!!!!
I deployed with a 20 year old troop that had a permeant profile that simply stated “No P.T”, she was given it after enlisting at MEPS for a back injury that allegedly happened when she was born. So she reported to basic and AIT and never did one push-up or anything else. Guess what she convinced the V.A is was worsted on deployment is living the 100% rated life style. Gotta love the National Guard and having an elected uncle working in Washington.
Guess who really had autism and a congenital brain disorder?
Go ahead, I’ll wait……
😀 😀 😀
Trump?
(Holds up mirror)
Gaze within for clue.
As I’ve told you all before, I got a young troopie in 2010 that was completely unable to adapt to military life and 90% of the rest of life. Diagnosed with a raging case of Asperger’s. Never should have made it past the recruiter, let alone MEPS. I’d still love to have a talk with his recruiter and drill sergeants.
I was never a recruiter, so let me ask…at what point does a recruiter get “credit” for recruitment? Just getting the prospective soldier to MEPS? Or does the soldier have to actually graduate BASIC/AIT or OSUT ?
Credit is given for shipping them to the reception unit. If they fail from there on it doesn’t reflect on the Recruiter (except in cases like this).
Makes sense. Thanks for the info.
Or the dude who took the ASVAB six (6) times to finally make it (on sheer luck) into Cat IV and enlist. (Served with overseas.) Yes, folks, Forrest Gump in real life… squared away, motivated guy but stuff (often important) would just fall off his plate due to lack of capacity.
I had a PSG in 1989 that was a product of “Macnamara’s 100,000”. I never served under a senior NCO that was more incompetent, ignorant, or spineless.
Had the same thing in the Marine Corps.
Guy couldn’t count his balls twice and get the same number.
My first tour we had a couple of those dudes;
Bailey-I swear he was his own cousin and brother.
George-didn’t tie his boots and I’m not sure he knew how.
Traino-dropped a mag on someone while on a guard tower, nearly blinding the Soldier.
Best part, they were all SAW gunners.
“If you don’t like your job you don’t strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.” ~ Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
There are many civil service jobs in the DOD this man might be able to do. “Want to be a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine and you can’t because of some physical ailment however minor; go to the Gov’t website and apply”. If the recruiters would say this, we wouldn’t have these stories.
Maybe this guy is playing 5D chess and everyone just thinks he’s an idiot.
He’s autistic (retarded) so he probably ate all the chess pieces.
Even by your low standards, that is epic-grade ignorance. He was born that way. You had to work hard at being stupid.
“Autism”. Look it up.
Yea, I know what autism is. It’s the politically correct term for tardo. The term didn’t even exist until the mid 1930’s. We went from having only a few cases being diagnosed world-wide to now apparently ever other kid claims to have it. It’s like a superhero power for morons = can’t act like a normal person in society, but you can count pwn newbs on FartNight like no other.
(Holds up mirror)
Gaze within for clue.
Most modern antibiotics didn’t exist until the 1930s, either. Besides being a somewhat inarticulate form of trolling, was this comment supposed to have a point?
By the way: it’s “1930s” when referring to the decade. “1930’s” is the possessive form for the year – as in “1930’s World Series” or “1930’s mid-term Congressional election”.
If you’re going to troll, do try and be literate. Otherwise, you’re simply perceived as being simultaneously both ignorant and boring.
I had a kid from down the road in Paducah Kentucky in my OSUT class in Ft Knox in 86 that couldn’t read.
The DI’s weren’t at all shocked either, when they learned where he hailed from.
Apparently it was a thing back then with the local recruiter(s)?
Oh, and he didn’t last the first 4 weeks, which was sad, because that’s all he had in life to aspire to.
Back in ’75, we had a kid who couldn’t do a push-up. Okay, that wasn’t fair to say. He couldn’t do one because he didn’t know how. We had another who would cry for his “Mama” every night at 2115, by 2116 he’d stop; one could set his watch by his crying. Another one had a fraudulent enlistment, he forgot he’d been in the Army before he enlisted in the Air Force.
Many years later, I recommended the Squadron Commander award a troop an entry level discharge, not because he couldn’t read – he couldn’t. This guy made it through basic and technical training but failed his correspondence course for his AFSC. I sent him to a reading school, he went for one class and when he still couldn’t read, he stopped going.
Is there anything new under the sun?
I’m so glad I wasn’t a recruiter….. Chances are his entire chain was aware and this kid was highly functional.
You roll the dice and move your mice as a recruiter. When the kid spazzes out in boot camp your COC won’t recall a thing.
If you were really lucky they’d realize they left you hanging and just slap your dick. This looks like a high profile case ,, so guy will probably get posted.
Plenty of guys ( Including me and my brother ) told recruiters shit that would have DQed them, but were told to keep it under wraps if they wanted to join. Recruiters take chances every day. Most the time it pays off.
…Believe me, you didn’t miss anything by not being a recruiter. In my case, I was honest/stupid enough NOT to tell people to keep their mouths shut about stuff, and I paid for it. The homicidal used car salesmen who run the recruiting services have no compunction about threatening your career several times a day even if you’re making your goals, and even good people may eventually start to do dumb sh!t under that kind of abuse.
And in this case, oh HELL yes, people knew exactly what was happening and kept their fingers crossed. The kid managed to get past the checkpoints, (and I’d LOVE to see what his ASVAB scores were) and by that point as far as the recruiting company was concerned he was just another successful warm body and they could forget about him. I suspect that everybody in the recruiting company chain of command will be out the door on this one, and the recruiter could well be looking at jail time.
This outcome seems kind of unfair to the recruiters. Given that about half the otherwise eligible 18 year olds are on some kind of legal and illegal mind altering drugs, how can they be expected to meet their quotas.
How to explain Bradley Manning being inducted? HIS recruiter should be in Guantanamo.
See also Bowe Bergdahl. I have no love for that guy whatsoever, but he should have never been put in that situation. I mean the guy was kicked out of the Coast Guard for failing to adapt, but the Army was all like “Well shit, we’ll take him and send him to Afghanistan!”
Bergdahl kept the Army in the dark about his prior enlistment into the Coast Guard, which the Army didn’t find out about until after he deserted his post.
Um, that would be a no. The Army confirmed years ago that it knew about Bergdahl’s prior Coast Guard enlistment and admin discharge at the time he enlisted in the Army.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2017/11/bergdahl-was-discharged-from-coast-guard-basic-training-for-psychological-reasons-before-enlisting-in-army/
Here you were also either (1) woefully lazy and inaccurate, or (2) being deliberately untruthful. Either way, for a troll that’s no surprise.
Did you even read your own article?:
“A senior Army official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Army was aware of a prior ‘administrative discharge’ when Bergdahl enlisted,” The Washington Post reported at the time. “A separate Army official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Bergdahl would have required a waiver to enlist under such circumstances. The official could not immediately confirm that Bergdahl received one.”
So the Army didn’t even admit it formally, they had to rely on an unnamed source who may not have even been correct? And they confirm that he needed a waiver but they couldn’t produce it? Wouldn’t you guys categorize that as “fake news?”
Bring back the fucking draft already. We shouldn’t be working our recruiting force to death and making them enlist retards (sorry, I forgot they call themselves “autists” now) like this kid.
You really need to take your act somewhere else.
All you anti-war pansies should be supporting a draft. You know why? Because once ALL AMERICANS have a stake in the outcome of a war (my little boy may actually have to serve in Iraq?!?! OH NOEESSS!) it will be immediately over. Want to know why we didn’t stay in Vietnam? Because of the fucking draft. If we were fighting Vietnam with an all volunteer military we’d still be there.
So morons like you bemoan how long these wars have been going on AND also oppose the draft, which means they will never end. We’re going to be in all these countries for the next 50 years as long as people continue to go without question.
Helpful Medal:
Could you please provide facts to back up your statement reference the Draft and the Vietnam War?
Also, are you saying that we would still be in Vietnam after 50/60 years (please do the math reference when the US became involved).
IMHO, your Chain of Thought Process is not flowing and does not make logical sense, because when I read what you commented, I went “Huh”?
🤔
“Want to know why we didn’t stay in Vietnam? Because of the fucking draft. If we were fighting Vietnam with an all volunteer military we’d still be there.”