SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT??
Fat, unhealthy Americans threaten Trump’s defense surge
Rising obesity numbers, drug use, criminal backgrounds and other problems mean most people at prime military recruiting age are ineligible to serve.
Apart from the military recruiting implications, this is pretty, well… disgusting.
Does it matter? The US military only has 2 million active and reserve soldiers in it. If 75% of people age 17-24 are disqualified that isn’t going to result in a labor shortage. I’d assume there are close to 30 million people age 17-24, which means at least 8 million are eligible. And not everyone in the military is age 17-24. There is still a labor surplus.
Even if there was a labor shortage (due to world war for example), they’d probably institute a draft and mandatory weight loss camp.
We are failing our children. But we knew that.
What’s the percentage once you substract soft/medium* drugs?
The US military seems to recruit chiefly from members of the lower economic strata from lesser developed areas looking to get a leg up in terms of job training, education, benefits and job stability. That group isn’t doing too well in terms of obesity, educational achievement and hard drugs.
Relatedly, the modern military was designed in the 19th century with the expectation of tens of semi-skilled workmen being led by one university-level person, much like a construction crew being led by an engineer or a factory floor being led by a manager. That causes it to clash with the modern economy. The military may have a much easier time, both in terms of recruitment and effectiveness, once it restructures itself. And also when it stops requiring that people be either liars or Mormons to join.
*Like MDMA
This has me wondering: Apparently the USAF and USN both recently raised their age limits to well over age 30. So my (eyeglasses-wearing, scrawny, not good at running long distances) thoughts about joining the military might not still be too late yet…
Opposite of failing. We’re not dissuading our kids from becoming ineligible to join the war machine. Fat and stoned will keep them alive. Maybe we can draft congressmen, get some military experience into those families.
I’m down with keeping kids out of the war machine. I really am. But I’m also wishing the path wasn’t via un-educated and un-healthy children. Let’s try to raise educated, skilled, healthy and happy pacifists.
Unless things have changed since my enlistment, past drug use does not disqualify you from serving.
Actual conversation with the processing clerk when I was entering military service:
Clerk: What illegal drugs have you taken
Me: [Lists a few highlights from my high school days]
Clerk: When was the last time you did any of these
Me: What time is it?
Clerk: [Not amused face]
We used to have the opposite problem:
As for “we are failing our children,” I think that there are many different ways we’re failing them. Climate change is like way #1; obesity is pretty far behind that one.
Re: Congress’ school lunch program–irony indeed. Kids today are fatter, but I wonder if they’re healthier than the skinny WWII kids.
I applaud them for getting this report out. Once the government decides something is a national security issue, then stuff happens. Maybe we can get past some of the nonsense political ideology that prevents some of this stuff from being addressed.
The military has decided that a wide variety of medical conditions which are receiving much better diagnosis and treatment today disqualify someone from the military, as well as anyone diagnosed with a condition like Dyslexia who need any level of accomodation in a regular job or school, and anyone who’s had eating disorders, bedwetting, or sleepwalking issues as a teenager. This is a pretty comprehensive set of disqualifications, and the idea that someone who needed a half a year talking to a therapist or took antidepressants at all is completely unqualified seems a bit broad to me. Also the military rejects anyone with any history of marijuana use (though there’s a lot of ‘wink and nod’ in practice), including medical, even though it’s now legal in many states. The talk about ‘failing our children’ seems a bit silly when broad categories of children who have treatable medical conditions are rejected by the military specifically for receiving treatment for those conditions.
As I recall, a large impetus for the creation of Physical Education programs in schools was the fact that the military couldn’t find enough healthy and fit recruits early in the century.
Climate change. Resource depletion. Overpriced health care. Entrenched plutocracy. Student loan debt. A culture defined by white nationalism. Leaving them unprepared for a mass wave of unemployment due to automation. The rise of authoritarian populism. The baby boomer retirement crisis due to lack of savings.
There are lots of ways we are failing the kids today.
Imagine how popular Golden Corral will become if the draft is were to be reinstated.
Instead of sit-ins to protest war, we can have eat-ins.
“Seems to…” Ive spoken with many recruiters over the years. They are assigned areas and have to hit all the schools. They hated having to “waste time” going to schools with poorer students. They all said it was very hard to get any to listen to them. Recruiting was easier in schools with middle and lower middle class students.
No hard data there but I know people working in the system at least and have 27 years of experience seeing new soldiers come in to the military.
The military has a one-size fits all policy. There are plenty of posts in the military that do not require full fitness. It was not always like that. I had a one-eyed uncle who was drafted in WW II. He was an auto mechanic and they put him to repairing tanks. I sure they could find jobs for people with bone spurs if they tried.
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.
When we had the big surge after 9/11, standards were relaxed. They’ll do it again if they really feel the need.
It doesn’t make the news because it’s on a smaller scale but they change the enlistment requirements from month to month depending on need. For example when I joined I was told no one with a GED was allowed to join. In Basic Training there were several recruits who took the test got their GED so they joined without ever having even a GED… It all depended on what the standards were when you signed the papers.