This seems like good news that should be mentioned (especially since I paid close attention to the missed quotas this summer):
The Army has exceeded recruiting goals in the first two months of this fiscal year, reversing a trend that had some Iraq critics saying the armed services branch was “broken.”
The Pentagon yesterday said the Army signed up 5,856 recruits in November, 5 percent above its goal. It previously announced the Army also exceeded its target in October, the first month of the 2006 fiscal year.
The Army has that hit its recruiting mark for six straight months, a promising development for the Bush administration. President Bush’s critics had cited the Army’s failure to achieve its recruiting goals in fiscal 2005 as proof that the war in Iraq is breaking the force.
Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat and one of the party’s chief Iraq war critics, has called the Army “broken” and urged the White House to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country.
But Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said the service is more confident of filling the ranks as the recruiting year unfolds.
“Part of the reason is it’s like steering a boat,” he said. “The changes we made in the last year take a while to take effect.”
Those changes included putting more recruiters on the street and offering specific assignment incentives. If a high school graduate was willing to commit to the 3rd Infantry Division bound for Iraq, for example, he could receive a bonus of several thousand dollars. Enlistees can receive up to a $20,000 bonus depending on the length of commitment and their job skills. The Army also changed its ad campaign to focus more on patriotism.
“I think the Army as a whole is working harder at recruiting,” Col. Hilferty said.
I don’t know how those monthly numbers compare to last year, and if this is an actual increase in recruits, or what. If someone can dig up the numbers I will look into it. I tried and came up short.
Lines
My first thought is that they lowered the goal numbers and then cheered when they exceeded their lower expectations.
My second thought is that this is just another Texas Miracle. When did they put Ron Page in charge of military recruiting?
db
There is this GAO report:
GAO Report on military recruiting for about last 5 years
Depends if you take the “long” view or “short” view. “Long” view trend has generally been good. “Short” view trend shows some problems. I would put more stake in the long view.
caleb
My first thought was, with the military already renegging on the bonuses promised to the National Guard and Army Reserve, will these Army enlistees actually see anyu of this promised “up to a $20,000 bonus”.
Oh…and the whole “readjustment” of recruiting numbers thing Lines mentioned.
I’ll know things are getting better with recruitment when they go back to announcing recruiting goals at the beginning of every month.
srv
Army Reserves/Nat’l Guard are still struggling. Army lowered entrance standards, but there’s no year-to-year comparison on test scores and quotas, so it’s hard to divine what’s going on:
Nov. GAO PDF:
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06134high.pdf
Steve S
I believe most of the recruitment problems have been in the National Guard.
Not surprising. I mean people join up with the regular Army knowing it’s a full time job. The Guard is supposed to be one weekend a month and two weeks a year. Not two years full time duty overseas.
srv
This is the full November GAO report, db’s is from March.
DOD Needs Action Plan to Address Enlisted Personnel Recruitment and Retention Challanges
Call me insane
Just for everyone’s knowledge I saw today on cnn.com that while the recruitment numbers are up so far, the reenlistment numbers are way down. I love how that Army and Bush administration doesn’t mention that. If I got my facts wrong please let me know.
Mike S
The only numbers I’ve found so far are for Feb of this year.
I don’t know what the differences would be between say February and October as far as goals would be.
Regardless, this is good news. I’m pretty sure they lowered expectations but success in recruitment is essential.
RonB
The Reserve is not meeting its goals according to the Pentagon, but they measure by a different metric than the recruiting command itself.
The goals from what I can tell are not being lowered. It is the KILLER bonuses that are still drawing people to the service-plenty of people still taking the calculated risk of deployment for hefty tax free signing bonuses.
RonB
Well, I haven’t seen the army press shy away from the story. Since I am a member, I can tell you that for a fact. As far as the Bush administration goes, I don’t know why they would mention it.
Jason Van Steenwyk
I’m a National Guard unit commander.
This last drill weekend, I had three guys attending their last drill (one was transferring to active duty), I had one more not present who is requesting a transfer to the active component. One ETS’d because he just bought a business. Otherwise he was planning to reenlist and go to OCS. We may see him again in a year or so.
In contrast, when I took the formation from the 1SG and said “If it’s your first drill here, fall out and fall in on me” I had 16 people fall out. Of those, maybe 5 were prior service. The rest were either on their way to basic training (we give them some preparation and they take a diagnostic physical fitness test) or had just arrived home from basic and AIT.
There was a dry spell earlier this year, but recruiting in my little corner of the Army is going pretty well right now.
Recruiting is seasonal, though, so the only real ligitimate comparisons are seasonally adjusted or over the same period the year prior.
Mike S
What’s the turn around from the first day of basic to deployment in a war zone?
RonB
Varies by MOS. 3 months basic, at least a month AIT, and exceeds a year of advanced training in highly technical specialties.
So, four months at the quickest-and that’s only if your unit is on orders.
RonB
I also read about a new reenlistment incentive to bring back ex-service at the rank they left at, which many priors will find attractive.
tbrosz
Everything I’ve seen to date has had re-enlistment rates doing much better than recruitment rates.
This article is typical.
Mike S
Thanks.
db
My step-sis will be heading to Iraq come February. She graduated from basic in November in South Carolina and is in Virginia doing her specialized training right now before she is shipped off – which is way sooner than they were originally telling her; I think the recruiters were telling her no sooner than June.
Poor thing. She tested into a class that included some position that I think was referred to as “petroleum transport specialist” (or something like that – I think it was the class that also included cooks – or nutrition specialists). Our family got into major arguments with her trying to explain what that actually meant; but after meetings with recruiters, she had it in her head that she’d be wearing a white coat and working in a lab.
But what did it for her was the major signing bonus to pay off some major credit card debt they incurred while her husband was in the Marines (he couldn’t re-enlist in the Army because of a major back injury for which he is now getting about $200/month). She’s got two kids as well so I just pray she makes it back okay.
The Comish (sic)
Thanks for your service, Jason Van Steenwyk. It’s much easier sleeping at night knowing I’ve got folks like you watching over me.
Robbie
The Army has lowered their goals and also lowered the standards for recruits to join the Army to reach their goals. Folks are not signing up in droves to participate in OIF or OEF…don’t trust these numbers.
Alex
They are meeting the goals for the last six months because they lowered them from 6700 to 5650, after first lowering them from around 8,000 to 6700.
http://billmon.org/archives/001956.html
Bob In Pacifica
Bring back the draft, and this time no college deferments or medical passes for ass-pimples. It will end the bogus bullshit wars that deserter cowards like Bush and the rest of his chickenhawk punk buddies perpetrate for their corporation buddies.
Excuse me, am I being too harsh?
Really, though, when we had the draft we eventually got people out in the streets to fight against that bullshit war, and even that draft let a lot of rich kids off the hook. That’s exactly why the powers that be went for an all-volunteer army. They knew the permanent underclass of undereducated farmboys and ghetto hoodlums would provide enough cannon fodder to handle most minor hegemonistic thrusts around the globe.
Make the draft mandatory and then see how many businessmen will want to see their junior partner sons and daughters go off to die for Exxon.
Meanwhile, I think that IF the military is meeting its recruiting needs at this point in a war that’s so fucked up beyond all recognition, then the economy is far worse than I ever had imagined.
Joe Navy
Numbers aren’t so good when you compare them to last year. This is from the AP:
“The recruiting results for November were mostly positive, although the Army set a substantially lower goal than in November a year ago. The active-duty Army signed up 5,856, compared to its goal of 5,600. In November 2004 it signed up 6,838 against a goal of 6,800.
For October and November combined – the first two months of this recruiting year – the Army signed up about 3,000 fewer soldiers than during the comparable period a year ago. It will have to make up that gap in the months ahead if it is to achieve its full-year goal of 80,000 recruits, which is the same as last year’s goal.”
I am surprised that the Washington Times would omit this information. ;-)
The Army fell short of its goal of 80K by 6600 last fiscal year. Recruiting is cyclical but it is not a good sign when you do worse than the same period in the last year, especially after you have lowered entrance standards and significantly increased recruiting resources.
Dan
One site I found states that the October target numbers were almost a third lower than those from last year (6,935 to 4,700). Those numbers come off the Internet, and no, I don’t know where to find official confirmation.
For more perspective, I found this, from the NY Times:
Andrew
Or maybe this upward trend is because the army has lowered its recruiting standards.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/12/uh-oh.html
DougJ
We’ve turned a corner. Freedom is on the march. The people of Iraq are about to experience freedom for the first time. Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to mankind. We will prevail in Iraq because we have a Plan For Victory. Those who criticize the president undermine the war. We do not torture. Saddam had connections to 9/11. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Would you be happier if Saddam’s torture chambers were sill open? 911 changed everything.
John Redworth
I am President George Bush and I approve of this message…
now I feel better about reading it…
Zifnab
One thing I am confused by…
Given the current military situation to date, what would be the advantage of joining the National Guard over the Army in general? If you’re just going to be called right up into service, doesn’t the mainstream Army offer better incentives, better training, and a more well-defined tour of duty than a Guardsman would ever actually have in war-time? Working once a month over a weekend in the National Guard just doesn’t happen anymore does it?
Come to think of it, would there be a military engagement the US would participate in in the forseeable future that wouldn’t involve calling up the National Guard to supplement the Army? i.e. what’s the point in joining the National Guard at all? It just seems like Army Lite.
Jason
People join the National Guard for a variety of reasons. For one, the educational benefits are better. You can go to school and serve at the same time (missions depending) and most states will give you a 100% free ride on tuition at any state college or university.
Can’t do that on the active side.
You also get to serve your own community directly. The National Guard staffs alternative schools, for example, conducts counter drug operations in support of law enforcement, and responds during hurricanes and other disasters. The concept of service to one’s own state appeals to a lot of people, and is unique to the Guard. The Reserves don’t have a state mission.
You also get to remain close to friends and family when not on deployment. This is important if your spouse is going to school or has a career of his or her own. One of the challenges of active duty life is that spouse careers are frequently interrupted for an accompanied overseas tour. This isn’t an issue in the reserve components.
And no, the Active Component doesn’t give you a “more well-defined” tour at all. The policy is 12 months boots on the ground in Iraq for any unit, active or reserve.
Reservists go to the same service schools as active duty troops, so the training is the same. Active component units can train to a higher level of proficiency at certain tasks. But the best gun crews in the Army and the best aviation crews and some of the best tank crews are reserve component, because they can stay together for years. Turnover is much lower in the reserve components if you handle it right.
Slide
So John is lauding the “good” news that the Army has recruited LESS soldiers than it did last year?
Only in the bizzarro world of John Cole can this be considered “good news”. Kinda reminds me of all the “incredible progress” we are making in Iraq. You remember Iraq? The war that Rumsfeld said might take 6 days or 6 weeks but definitly not more than 6 months? You remember don’t ya? To refresh your memory if you don’t.
So we are making “great progress” nearly three years into a war that was supposed to last less than six months and its fucking great news that we’ve recruited FAR less soldiers than we did in a comparable period last year.
Keep sending in the good news John, I am feeling so much better.
Slide
Oh, and here is the AP source for the fact that the Army has recruited LESS soldiers this year than last.
The Pentagon has ZERO credibility in my book and I can’t fathom why anyone would take what they say at face value anymore. A feel good story about recruitment when we are doing WORSE than last year, a year in which we didn’t meet our recruiting goals. Amazing. Positively Orwellian.
But it works doesn’t it? Don’t believe me? Well, just look at this
Oh, and before Cole hammers me, I do note that he said,
I think even John is having a credibility problem with the Pentagon these days.
StupidityRules
There’s an easy way to fix this. Combine the GWOT with the WOD. You get caught smoking dope, you’ll get a year in Iraq. You get caught dealing drugs, you’ll report to patrol duty in Fallujah.
This will at first add a lot of extra boots on the ground that will help us win the GWOT and when people start learn about what happens when you do drugs they’ll stop and we’ll finally win the WOD too…
RonB
I yi-yi. No, no white coat there, she’ll be filling two-tons at a fuel point.
RonB
Damn. And you had me thinking Billmon had a new post up. That’s old stats, probably irrelevant to today’s goals. I bet they fluctuate like Jason was saying, seasonally.
pmm
This is purely anecdotal, but my Reserve unit has been doing okay the past few years on recruitment and retention. We’re in a high OPTEMPO MOS, so there’s been at least a slice element of my unit deployed down-range since 2003. New soldiers coming in are told that they will deploy at some point in their contract. And we’ve been picking up more than a couple National Guard NCOs lately who are transferred and reclassifying only because they want to deploy, and their units are either already deployed or aren’t going anytime soon. Our battle rosters have always had soldiers who want to deploy but can’t because the slots are full. And we’ve got previously deployed soldiers who have signed waivers in order to be eligible for deployment again.
This isn’t to say that everyone is gung ho. We have soldiers who, for a variety of reasons, don’t want to deploy but will anyway. They’re still showing up for drill and doing their jobs. We’ve also got guys who’ve previously deployed and are ready to get out. But the idea that we’re a bunch of hapless conscripts being herded over the berm by pistol-waving officers and whip-cracking Sergeants is a bit simplistic.
Pb
Lowered expectations…
Mac Buckets
Why The Leftians Aren’t Trusted With National Defense — Example #1,873
neil
Everything I’ve seen to date has had re-enlistment rates doing much better than recruitment rates.
I’ve read that this is because soldiers are given a choice between re-enlisting and getting a bonus, or not re-enlisting and getting stop-lossed.
Jason Van Steenwyk
Bob in Pacifica:
Bob, do you believe that all urban blacks are car-thieving, drug-dealing crackheads, all Jews are conniving cheapskates, all Italians are swarthy mafiosos, and all blondes are ditzes?
Or do you prefer to confine your bigotry and ignorance to the subject of our servicemen and women?
Just askin.
pmm
Neil,
Stop-loss is fairly convoluted, but it’s not as automatic as you might think. For example, we were stop-lossed immediately prior to our first deployment (early 2003). After the deployment, guys had an extra 3-months tacked onto their tour. And then they left. It’s usually MOS-specific or related to a specific mission (for example, stop-loss was instituted in 1998 on a bunch of air force MOS because of Kosovo).
I’m a bit rushed so I apologize if I’m not making sense, but my point is that stop-loss isn’t long or widespread enough to explain Army-wide retention numbers.
Bob In Pacifica
Mac Buckets, when I was a young man no one had a problem with me providing National Security against the hordes of Vietcong poised to strike. The powers that were in place at the time were very insistent that I put on the uniform and get my ass over there.
Fact that you use the term National Security as if attacking and exploiting Iraq had anything to do with providing security for anyone but a few fucking CEOs shows your lack of insight into the process.
As for references to the poor, are you saying I’m not being politically correct here? Because, of course, the Rightwing blowhards are the biggest perpetrators of that fraud.
Or are you just saying that there’s no connection between someone’s economic potential in the current landscape and the rates for military recruitment? Did Lyndee England decide in favor of the army over getting that second PhD or becoming a partner in a Washington law firm?
My post inferred that falling recruitment rates in the face of widespread economic hardship is a measure of the general dissatisfaction with the war by stating the opposite. You created a scenario that somehow I was an elite liberal by using mildly derogatory terms for poor people.
I am not poor. I am working class. I recognize my connection to that class, I understand the limitations granted to that class of people and how the real elites want to further economically deprive that class, and how half-clever apologists like to smear anyone who points out the contradictions between the Right’s sales pitch and the sack of shit behind the counter.
Wilhelm Reich called it “the cleavage between economic reality and psychological reality.” Sometimes it seems like reactionaries just pull things out of their butts. Just so long as you understand what you’re holding.
Al Maviva
Hey, Bob, nice comment. Really interesting.
I served eight honorably, spent time in three live shooting exercises, and intend to raise my son, now a toddler, with the proper respect for the office of the presidency, the institution of the U.S. military, and the important of serving one’s country and generally following the laws and decisions made by the people’s elected representatives. I served under two Republican and one Democrat CINC; and both Republican and Democrat bodies of Congress. If he expresses an interest in one of the academies, or in enlisting, I’ll give him the whole unvarnished truth about the tough life, the occasional grifters and the horrors (and good things) he might see, but I will encourage him to follow his heart which, if it with this Country, is in the right place.
You don’t see a Country, I think; you see people who think and act just like you, and then you see a bunch of us, the rest of us, who are sort of subhuman scum to you, incapable of thinking for ourselves, or arriving at valid conclusions based on our own thought. That’s an interesting world view.
By the way, I went in as a middle-middle class young man with a couple years of college, served with mostly lower and mid-middle class troops who either had some college or worked diligently on it while in, and when I left finished up school and landed a pretty fair job as an attorney. The handful of people in the first small squad I served with now include a very senior civil servant who runs a directorate in a Federal agency; a guy who runs a successful web business and rides to work in a limo; a couple career Army officers (prior enlisted); a successful small businessman, and an attorney. Yep, we were the lowbrow enlisted know-nothings you so casually dismiss. The people I served with then and in several other assignments (subject to the usual disclaimers about 20 year olds 5,000 miles away from home with $1,000 a month in disposable income) were among the finest people I’ve known in my life, better human beings and possessed of better character than most of the pious liberal Ivy leaguers I now associate with professionally. And yes, though my social world looks like that overall due to my particular business and social niche, my closest friends, the ones who spend holidays at my house and with whom I go fishing and beer drinking, include several active duty and retired Marine and Army field grade officers, a Navy chief, Marine gunny, and a pair of old Army buddies who are now DOD civilians and pretty much permanently deployed to Iraq as civilians. Funny enough, I’ve never heard them write off people in quite the callous and unknowing fashion you managed to pull off in your comment above. Perhaps it’s because we are so invincibly ignorant about how you live, Bob in Pacifica, yet you know so much about us.
On the other hand, I suppose if you are an example of one of my betters, I believe I would rather remain scum, along with my no-good (to you) friends.
slide
Recruitment is down from last year:
And retention is not meeting goals:
“Good News” all around heh?
Source: AP
Faux News
Does this fabulous news about meeting recruitment quotas translates into we are also winning the “War on Christmas”?
DougJ help me out on this. Thanks!
john(lesser)
And there you have it. The denial of free will, the pessimism, self-hatred of the left nicely encapsulated in 25 words.
Bob in Pacifica, take relief in the fact that you don’t have a choice. God and the Republicans made you a prick and there is nothing you can do about it. Go fuck yourself dry.
Cole; Goldstein is right. you comment section is a cesspool. My contribution should dovetail nicely.
Mac Buckets, Al Maviva and Jason Van Steenwyk; it’s a good fight, but put on some hip-waders first.
Pb
Faux News,
We’re fighting against the War on Christmas here so we don’t have to fight it over there. Naysayers argue that our consumers are overextended, and sales rates are down, but I have faith in the natural capitalistic urge of the American people–so *shop harder*!
Pb
john(lesser),
Thank you for doing your part in the war on Balloon Juice’s comment section! I would humbly like to add that Michael Moore is fat.
TallDave
Well, the Marines and Navy never had a problem. This has always been an Army-only problem, for various reasons.
But the real story is re-enlistment rates. Soldiers are signing up to finish the job they started. They believe in the mission and want to see it through.
Also, re Bob’s point, it turns out our soldiers generally are middle-class, not poor farmboys or ghetto-dwellers. In fact, the poor have made up an increasingly smaller portion of our armed forces since 2000.
Faux News
And there you have it. The denial of free will, the pessimism, self-hatred of the left nicely encapsulated in 25 words.
Pity you could not dispute the facts that recruitment quotas have only been met by continually lowering the quota numbers themselves.
You might feel more comfortable at Red State. They are always proclaiming victory for everything the Left hates and are constantly “thanking Big Brother for their new happy life”.
john(lesser)
Faux News; look out! There is someone behind you.
DougJ
Faux, the War on Christmas will not be won overnight. The anti-Christmas insurgency is in its last throes, make no mistake, but those throes could last as many as 12 years. But we will not cut and run, we will not set time tables (which only embolden the ACLU), and we will not accept anything less than total victory in this epic struggle that many neoconservatives are calling “World War V”.
John Redworth
You did a great Bush and now a great O’Reilly, ooh please do Robert Novack next…
pmm
Unlike the many commenters here who manage to be experts on everything from hydrology and civic engineering to miliitary strategy and the armed forces, I can claim no special knowledge on exactly what the Army needs regarding manpower. I’m glad that you know exactly how many troops we really need, and are able to point out that any revision of that number downward is proof that the armed forces are simply playing politics with the numbers. Or am I misreading you? Not that your presumed thesis couldn’t be correct, but it’d be nice to know why you think the quotas don’t accurately reflect the actual need of the armed forces.
Bob In Pacifica
Al Maviva,
All the talk about your military service doesn’t have anything to do with my post. Glad you enjoyed your time. I hope your idea of respecting the office of the Presidency includes an ability to think things through instead of just following orders. And I hope at some point along the way you actually spared a thought for why you were fighting a war wherever you were. That you would support your young son if he chooses to go to a service academy is a little far afield from recruitment numbers.
But you’ve established your patriotism.
Then you continue to establish that you’re just one of the guys and you kinda say, well, if you call me scum.
Let’s get this straight. If you care about the underclass of this country then you’d support decent wages, decent health care, decent education. My guess from what little monitoring of your comments I’ve done is that you give a rat’s ass for the welfare of anyone out of arm’s reach.
You know full well the class divisions in this country, and to pretend that economics doesn’t play a role in recruitment or that the military doesn’t key in poor urban neighborhoods is the kind of intentional ignorance that reactionaries so frequently use to blanket a debate.
+++
John(lesser), There’s free will. I’m using mine right now. There’s no self-hatred here. In fact, besides trying to drag out the same old load of crap that reactionaries rely on, you’ve pretty much steered away from what I wrote.
Does the military exploit economic hardship in order to gain recruits? The alternative would be that they only accept those with a pureness of heart, like Lancelot or Al Maviva, who only wish to serve their leader.
Is there a connection between economic gain of corporate elites and our country’s policy of waging war? To help you, you might want to Google Duke Cunningham, Halliburton or David Brooks and the $10 million birthday party at the Rainbow Room. You might also want to wander down to the nearest gas station and check the price at the pump.
Telling me to fuck myself dry pretty much sums up your discourse, so thanks for showing the limits of your critical thinking.
+++
Jason van, the short answer to your question is no.
The longer answer is that you knew that. You were playing dumb. You were playing dumb, weren’t you?
You know that stereotypes, commodification of groups of people, devaluation of people without wealth or power, those things are tools of the privileged. For example, racial discrimination has a long history in these here United States for providing cheap labor. Hard to believe, but you can look it up.
So when one uses the language of the oppressor to show their devaluation of the oppressed, it is not for the purpose of further devaluing the oppressed.
You weren’t being politically correct, were you, Jason?
db
Bob in Pacifica:
Don’t feign that you possess critical thinking abilities when you say something like that.
If you are saying that “they” were the ones using the terms “undereducated farmboys and ghetto hoodlums”, then please make that clear. Otherwise, my undereducated hoodlum mind might misread this as YOU actually referring to my family members (retired and active) as such.
Jason Van Steenwyk
Sorry, Bob, but calling our soldiers “undereducated farmboys” and “ghetto hoodlums” is not the “language of the oppressor.” It’s YOUR language.
It’s your bigoted and ignorant language and I’m calling you on it.
Bob In Pacifica
db, I thought it was clear from the context. Maybe you should go back and read the original post. Here’s the paragraph:
“That’s exactly why the powers that be went for an all-volunteer army. They knew the permanent underclass of undereducated farmboys and ghetto hoodlums would provide enough cannon fodder to handle most minor hegemonistic thrusts around the globe.”
But, of course, you read the whole post, did you? At least the whole paragraph, didn’t you? You must have understood that when I said “they” I was referring to those decision-makers who decided to forego the draft in favor of an all-volunteer army. You read the whole post, didn’t you?
I’ve got plenty of poor farmers and hoodlums in my family tree. I’m living on a pension, so you don’t have to announce any bona fides with me. But please, don’t patronize us with your false indignation. Politically correct rightwing proselytizers who let people fight and die in a war to make the oil companies richer, who support a system that denies people the basics of food, shelter, education, healthcare, well, I think someone so blind to others’ needs doesn’t give a rat’s ass for suggesting that there are hoodlums in ghettos or undereducated farmboys. What someone like that cares about is suggesting that there are people who rely on poverty and lack of education to fill their armies and that the manpower would be sufficient to carry out its military aims. And you know that. You just don’t want to admit it, so you play a game.
So that makes you dishonest, too, db.
db
Bob in Pacifica:
Yes, I can read and did read the entire post – including your reposting. It still does not make clear whether YOU are using the phrases “undereducated” and “ghetto” as your own opinion (which it, in fact, appears to me that you are doing for a dramatic effect) or whether you say these are phrases used by THEY, the oppressors.
Did I? Well I apologize, then.
I don’t presume to know the first thing about you and I would ask that you afford me the same respect. I really don’t know how you presume to know the sincerity of my comments. You could ask.
By your own logic (and your own bio), you would appear more guilty than I am in supporting a hegemonic superpower that oppresses people of color and the lower class. I have not spent my life working for the government of said evil, hegemonic superpower. Where does your pension come from? But I don’t presume to know all that you are about, so I refuse to pass judgment on you.
What I am surprised about here is that someone who claims to have
in their family tree, and who incessantly paraphrases Howard Zinn would be as careless and callous with their comments about the oppressed in our society.
Bob In Pacifica
Jason, being ignorant is one thing. Being willfully ignorant is another. But since you have the entire post there, you see the context. So I guess you are just dishonest. Shocked! Shocked! Hey, Jason, when you drink your cup of tea do you bend your little finger just so? You must be a very delicate soul to be offended.
So let’s examine the beef: is “undereducated farmboys” ignorant to say? Am I to believe that everyone in America is now fully educated so as to take his or her place in academia or on some board of directors? Or are you saying that everyone is so fully educated that they have vast employment opportunities but choose to go into the army instead?
Perhaps saying “ghetto hoodlums” was bigoted? Maybe we should all go back down memory lane, say, two days ago and find out what everyone was saying about Tookie Williams. My guess is that there was a consensus that Williams was a hoodlum, and that he came from a poor neighborhood where society shunted devalued minority populations, and that these neighborhoods are known as “ghettos.” So we now know that given the circumstances of poverty, some people turn to criminal behavior and violence. So we may say that desperate situations don’t necessarily bring out the best in people. Eh? And that people in these circumstances seek a way out. And maybe, just maybe, the military goes where people want out. You think?
Here’s a personal confession. I was technically a “volunteer” as opposed to a draftee, and I was in the first all-volunteer basic training company, at Fort Dix. If you have access to microfilm, there was a front-page story about that unit in the New York Times. Look in early January, 1971. In my all-volunteer army unit was a farmboy who was very, very undereducated. There was a guy from Brooklyn who joined up because he thought it could help him kick his heroin habit. There were people who were given the choice by judges to either go into the army or go to jail. The longest friendship of my life has been with a guy who got that choice from a judge. A few years before he went into the army he was standing outside his house in Watts watching a U.S. soldier aim a 50-caliber machine gun at his chest because he was black and he lived in a ghetto.
There were all sorts of people in the army who were getting out of lousy circumstances of where they were born and lived. While I was in the army I ended up becoming a race relations instructor because army bases were breaking into white versus black versus Latino cliques and fighting among each other. Circumstances change, and when the economy is good the military recruiters have to lower their standards, but human nature, at the top and at the bottom of the food chain, doesn’t change.
So, Jason, here’s the skinny: If you are so politically correct that “undereducated farmboy” (maybe it’s because I didn’t say “disadvantaged rural peoples”) then perhaps you should be leading a more sheltered life. As far as “ghetto hoodlum” offending you, I think I saw you on TV a couple of nights back, standing outside of San Quentin singing, “It’s a Hard Knock Life.”
May the cushion you sit on be plump, gentle one.
Bob In Pacifica
By the way, to all offended politically correct reactionaries here, the all-volunteer army was accomplished under President Nixon. Should we go through his many affectionate terms for minorities?
I wouldn’t mind you guys being such hypocrites if you weren’t so hypocritical about it.
db
Bob:
Are you saying that you’re aspiring to be Nixon?
Bob In Pacifica
db, I can afford you respect. I cannot afford you suspension of disbelief. Your outrage is a feigned crock of shit, and you know it. Boo hoo.
db
Dear Bob,
I never once said I was “outraged”.
I did say I was “surprised”. That’s all.
That’s twice I count that you seem to know what I know. I’m flattered that you actually think I’m that capable of such high-powered intelligence. Thanks.
Bob In Pacifica
db, try this: Go back to the paragraph and where I say “powers that be” and “they,” substitute “Nixon.”
By the way, db, you’ve set a very high standard. If you use a pronoun in the future instead of saying someone’s actual name you may be reported to the reactionary politically correct police.
On the positive side, I hear that your are in line for a humanitarian award from the Overeducated Rural Peoples Association.
Bob In Pacifica
db, I’ll see you over at the Iranian Holocaust denier blog. I’ve got other fish to fry.
And thanks for visiting my blog.
Jason
Oh, I get it. “I served with an undereducated farm boy, a heroin addict, and a ghetto hoodlum in 1971, so I guess it’s still the same now, right?”
Bob, if you’re so far removed from reality that you’re trying to draw conclusions about today’s professional Army from your experiences in 1971, no wonder your conclusions are so flawed.
Your pretensions at irony aren’t clever. You just wind up tying yourself in knots. Clever people don’t fall for the flat-earth “we invaded Iraq to enrich oil companies” conspiracy theories which fall to pieces upon the first stroke of Occam’s Razor.
Dude. You need to put down the Howard Zinn reader and the Chomsky book and get out more.