You’re changing the question you’re asking. You asked the following question originally:
> I remember reading a while back that the enlisted soldiers in the 1991 Gulf War
> represented the least educated American military in a long time—until the 2003
> Iraq invasion.
That question has already been answered. It’s not true. Now you want to know if the rise in educational level in the military has been faster or slower than the rise in educational level overall. That’s a much harder question to answer. I suspect that the rise in educational levels in the military from about 1975 to about 1990 was somewhat greater than the rise in the general population, since the military was working very hard to increase the quality of the educational levels during those years. I suspect that there hasn’t been much difference between the military and the overall population since 1990. It would be very difficult to determine this though, and it may be just plain impossible, since probably no one has done the research to answer it.
Sure, I’m changing my question. I realize that I have to, and I realize that this can of worms will make getting a straight answer from my research even harder to do. My original question about the theory of the author of whatever that article was is insufficient. But the original question, I see now, can’t be answered as “true” or “false,” because I’ve come to see that you have to do a proper comparison between education data of the past and now if you want a decent answer, and I’m not sure that much research is really worth it. A more extreme example would be to say that the average footsoldier in 2006 is far more educated than the average footsoldier in 1506. Sure, that’s true, but that’s also irrelevent. Times change, and with them change the relevence of certain questions.
However, the educational level of a footsoldier in 1506 as compared to one in 2006 might make for an interesting result, too. But I don’t know how I’d begin to research that…
That’s beautiful, dahfisheroo, but I’m going to have to crunch tomorrow. It’s nearly midnight here on the East Coast, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. Thanks; I’ll get back to it. Watch this space.
According to the stories I hear from guys that have been in for the last 25-30 yrs this is VERY true. The large amount of drug use during the 70’s and early 80’s Army can be chaulked up to a lot of things, but it generally speaks to Soldiers as a case of ‘Not enoughdiscipline to finish school = Not enough discipline to just say no.’
Yep, just ask any recruiter how many times they have wasted a trip to the induction depo (MEPS) on a recruit with an outstanding speeding ticket.
I would say ‘…are very smart kids…’ The pay tables have certainly gone up, just in the last 6 years, for what its worth. College is MUCH more common in the enlisted ranks. The Army gives more rank when entering the more college a recruit has. The Army has increased the number of promotion points NCO’s can get per college unit. They also provide enlistedmen full college tuition and a laptop and books for a range of classes from colleges across the country. Reenlistment contracts can now include an agreement to individuals for 6 mo. off for college. The guy shows up MWF for accountability and disappears for class the rest of the week. This happens on 25+% of all reenlistments I see.
If you think so check this, the Army is increasingly promoting CPTs to MAJ for breathing and being on active duty simultaneously. I have seen MANY Officer’s records in the course of my work and it is the LT Col.'s and above that have a Master’s and most of those are from what used to be known as the Command and Generals Staff College. Maybe the above quote should read ‘it almost always takes a master’s degree to make it PAST the rank of major.’ In my experience enlistedmen are ALWAYS literate, more politically savy and able to form an essayists arguement on most topics facing America today than those of 60 yrs. ago. (or so it seems from what grandfathers have described to me… sorry for all the empirical ‘evidence’)
A factor to consider when comparing statistics across different eras is the fdiffering ages of new enlistees.
During Viet Nam, very few folks under 17 enlisted or were able to enlist. So essentially 100% of the applicant pool was old enough to have graduated from HS. Whether they actually did so is another matter.
Conversely, I’ve read that in WWII a lot of 15- & 16-year olds lied about their age & enlisted. Even if they had been in HS when they enlisted, and destined to graduate but for the war, they simply werent old enough to have completed it yet when they did enlist.
In even earlier wars when birth record keeping was much spottier, the effect would be even more pronounced.
I always thought so, too. But when my son enlisted 2 1/2 years ago, his recruiter specifically told him that, to the Navy, a GED was not the equal of a diploma. Nick was 17 then and in the 11th grade. He was considering dropping out of school and taking the GED exam. The recruiter strongly discouraged this, telling Nick that they had a quota of GED-holders they could recruit, and those recruits were limited in the types of specialties they could be promised. Nick wanted to become a Hospital Corpsman and the recruiter could not promise him that school with a GED.
In my Basic Training back in 1989, anyone who didn’t have a high school diploma was offered GED classes and a chance to test out for their GED. I almost took them up on it, as it could have meant not returning for my senior year of high school!
Your definition of “very smart” might simply be slightly different from mine. In general, the enlisted people I see are ones who would have no problem getting a college degree from a decent state university. Occasionally I see some who, it appears to me, got no encouragement to further education and no decent guidance counseling in high school, because it’s obvious to me that they are smart enough to get into a very competitive college and yet they instead enlisted in the military because they didn’t know what to do with their lives.
> If you think so check this, the Army is increasingly promoting CPTs to MAJ for
> breathing and being on active duty simultaneously. I have seen MANY Officer’s
> records in the course of my work and it is the LT Col.'s and above that have a
> Master’s and most of those are from what used to be known as the Command
> and Generals Staff College. Maybe the above quote should read ‘it almost
> always takes a master’s degree to make it PAST the rank of major.’
You may be right. I thought I was told that it was promotion to the rank of major that usually required a master’s degree, but it may be promotion past the rank of major. In any case, officers know that these days a standard item on the list of the things that they have to do to get promoted to higher levels is to get a master’s degree. Some have it planned out in advance and get a master’s degree before they get commissioned.
of MAJs and above I know on active duty who have a master’s that is not from a service school (not that that is a bad thing, but it does skew the numbers up, ina good way, when the Army FORCES MAJs to get a masters, that is where you are assigned, that is your purpose in life for ~18-20 mo.) is 1 out of ~45. As for more junior officers getting a master’s beforehand? I have met one, ever. So out of 300+ Lt’s and CPT’s I have met there was one guy that had a master’s before commissioning, or before making MAJ (and it was from Princeton…)
On a similar note I am seeing that 97.5 % of officers have a BA/BS degree. This is true, but it is telling to show that the other 2.5% will be REQUIRED to get a BA/BS within 2-4 yrs or they will lose their commissions. I once, in the CA ARNG, had my XO become an E5 team leader because he didn’t finish his degree on time… oops.
In this age of combat, active combat, for the services the importance of a degree is dropping compared to a Soldier being COMBAT TESTED. If you know that this guy has been battle tested and that guy only has 2 more yrs of education for a MBA etc. WHO CARES?!?! I’ll take the less educated, proven trooper to fight and win in combat.
I will say in my experience the the US Coast Guard in the 1980s the standards went up. When I first enlisted they allowed recruits to have GEDs. By the mid 1980s it was High School graduates only, no GEDS and even if you drop out of high school, go back and get your degree, tough we don’t want you. The USCG did have a small RIF (reduction in force) then which helped that and historically had higher education standards than the other services. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone but my Jewish friends told me during the Vietnam War the USCG was known as “The Jewish Navy” because many Jews figured it was safer to join than the other services. The was some USCG patrol votes in Vietnam along with a couple of LORAN stations that people who were there said was pretty good duty.
There is a lot of techenical work nowadays. Many of the old jobs like Mess Cook, cutting grass, buffing decks (floors) is now contracted out.
[QUOTE=Chouinard Fan As for more junior officers getting a master’s beforehand? I have met one, ever. So out of 300+ Lt’s and CPT’s I have met there was one guy that had a master’s before commissioning, or before making MAJ (and it was from Princeton…)…[/QUOTE]
This is interesting. I was enlisted for six years and I knew at least a half dozen fellow enlisted soldiers who had Master’s degrees before they joined the Army. I am not exaggerating.
> # of MAJs and above I know on active duty who have a master’s that is not
> from a service school (not that that is a bad thing, but it does skew the
> numbers up, ina good way, when the Army FORCES MAJs to get a masters, that
> is where you are assigned, that is your purpose in life for ~18-20 mo.) is 1 out
> of ~45. As for more junior officers getting a master’s beforehand? I have met
> one, ever. So out of 300+ Lt’s and CPT’s I have met there was one guy that
> had a master’s before commissioning, or before making MAJ (and it was from
> Princeton…)
> On a similar note I am seeing that 97.5 % of officers have a BA/BS degree. This
> is true, but it is telling to show that the other 2.5% will be REQUIRED to get a
> BA/BS within 2-4 yrs or they will lose their commissions. I once, in the CA ARNG,
> had my XO become an E5 team leader because he didn’t finish his degree on
> time… oops.
> In this age of combat, active combat, for the services the importance of a
> degree is dropping compared to a Soldier being COMBAT TESTED. If you know
> that this guy has been battle tested and that guy only has 2 more yrs of
> education for a MBA etc. WHO CARES?!?! I’ll take the less educated, proven
> trooper to fight and win in combat.
Chouinard Fan, I don’t mean the following as an insult. It’s a suggestion to improve your posts. I find them interesting, and I’d like to be able to understand them better. Please improve your writing skills. Please write in complete sentences that aren’t run together and that don’t use abbreviations that most people won’t understand. It was quite difficult for me to figure out what you were saying in this post.
All I can say is that my experiences are different from yours. I know a number of officers with master’s degrees from regular universities. I know several who got a master’s before getting commissioned.
As an explanation, and yes, a bit of a defense, I can tell you that Chouinard Fan’s writing skills are just fine. I suspect what happens here is that he feels a time pressure when reading the Dope, as he can only do it on the Army’s computer in his office, and he has two boys under four and a pregnant wife at home. He’s typing a stream-of-thought post and not editing it.
CF, people around here often expect the editing.
Oh, and I know you “rather well”, let’s say, and I had to think to figure out that CA ARNG stands for “California ARmy National Guard”, and I still got it slightly wrong because I thought the R would mean “Reserve”.