The dumbing down continues.
The Army is tossing its mandate for potential recruits to have a high school diploma or GED certificate to enlist in the service … [1]
Nothing else to say.
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[1]Military.com website, “Army Drops Requirement for High School Diploma Amid Recruiting Crisis”, Steve Beynon, 24-Jun-2022,
Let's have a race to the bottom with China!
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fact that they won't comply.
Unreal. And the sad thing is, its hardly necessasary to do so, because many states are dropping the requirements needed to graduate. WA and OR have made.it possible to graduate high school with nothing more than elementary school skills. Or less. Without diving into politics, I feel that this move dovetails with the diversity/inclusion commissariat, the teaching of CRT at the service academies, etc... A military that cant think on its own and for itself... Is not somthing the population wants to see.
ReplyDeleteThe Army has joined the struggle against the elites and credentialism. The Army has figured the best way to defeat
ReplyDelete"The Smartest People in the Room" is to get them before high
school ruins their minds.
Anyone else reminded of Project 100,000, a.k.a. "McNamara's Morons," a plan the then-Secretary of Defense enacted to let the US Army draft sufficient men to fight the Vietnam War, by lowering its standards for draftees' intelligence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 for details)?
ReplyDeleteIts planned capitulation. Just another example of how our nation is being destroyed.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOK not good. But I can sorta see it if the deal is you are stuck in boot until you complete a GED simultaneously (in some certain period of time) and if failing that you get dropped. Isn't this thing you do when you are like you actually fighting a grueling total war? Or I suppose you could do differed enrollment and the gov subsidizes getting a GED?
ReplyDeleteWon't this cascade to undermining who is assigned to what job. Not trying to boast but son and daughter had the opportunity to pick where they going with HS honors and ASVAB at over 90+... What job are going to give to a drop out with a 50 ASVAB? And are thay going to happy with getting the bottom of the barrel jobs. I mean some people seem like they are minimum contract and out and just want the college money but if you can't finish HS is that even an incentive?
Again Ican see where there are people who had a crap life and had to drop out of HS and also did not a chance to learn how to take tests. But unless you are going to pay to filter them out from just the people who the result is in fact accurate this appears not seemingly a good plan
Sadly, even with a high school diploma many an idiot graduates anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut come to think of it, since the same Admirals and Generals that are coming up with genius things like the LCS program or Missile Marines are all graduates with at least a Master's degree, maybe the education standard doesn't matter.
I would say rather than worrying about the academics getting an HS degree or GED does imply you can succeed at a structured formal system with routines and deadlines and expectations. Maybe you got a C or A but you did not wash out no matter the reason. That does seem important to succeeding in the military.
DeleteThis webpage paints a bleak picture of what the future may hold for the U.S. military:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=united-states-of-america
If you look under the Manpower tab, you will see some really bad numbers. As I was walking out the door after 22 years of military service, I had already seen the onset of the decline of people wanting to join, the quality of personnel, and reflection of the lack of respect and discipline that are missing from the younger parts of our society.
Years ago, I use to run into folks who turned to the Navy, military in general, as their last chance for redemption, to turn their lives away. I had this kid in my barracks at NATTC-Millington, TN in 1992 that sold drugs in San Diego. His wakeup call came in the form of being shot in the leg with a .22. He told me that he didn't want to wait around to be shot by a larger caliber.
Standards serve a purpose. There are reason(s) why Veterans comprise something like 1.1% of the total U.S. population of 330 Million+. Rambo has been replaced by Pauly Shore. Bah!
23 million vets, 8% of the population
Delete"This webpage paints a bleak picture of what the future may hold for the U.S. military:"
ReplyDeleteIt counts the US as zero for paramilitary that is absurd. You really are going to ignore the massive amount SWAT units in the US or even US Police. They may not be alpha bravo delta team but they have a solid stock of infantry weapons and tactical gear. And thanks to the pentagon a fair amount of APCs
"Standards serve a purpose. There are reason(s) why Veterans comprise something like 1.1% of the total U.S. population of 330 Million+. Rambo has been replaced by Pauly Shore. Bah!"
DeleteErr don't see your meaning.
Having read a lot about this issue, the non-high school vets still must score high so are smart enough, but stats show that soldiers who don't finish high school are twice more likely not to finish their enlistment.
ReplyDeleteThe article goes on to say, "Recruits must also be at least 18 years old and otherwise qualify for a job in the active-duty Army. They also must score at least a 50 on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, an SAT-style quiz to measure a potential recruit's academic ability."
ReplyDeleteTo summarize, if you have a HS diploma you need a minimum score of 31 to enlist. If you have a GED, you need to score at least 50. If you don't have a HS diploma or a GED, you must be at least 18 and score at least a 50 on the ASVAB.
The Army is loosening their requirements, not dumbing them down.
Interestingly, when I was in the Navy recruiting office recently, I was told the asvab average in the Portland area was 30... Not real impressed LOL
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase the immortal Judge Smails:
ReplyDelete"The army needs truck drivers too."
Lutefisk
As the Army saw during Vietnam, when you lower the standards, you bring in drug, morale, and discipline problems. It took the Army decades to recover from the personnel problems resulting from the draft. This is worse. If you can't earn a HS diploma or GED, you likely haven't got the self-motivation, self-discipline, career/life goals, and sense of purpose that makes a good soldier. Even a truck driver needs those qualities to be effective in the Army. I don't want to be running out of ammo because a truck driver wasn't self-motivated enough to make an extra effort to transport my supplies under difficult circumstances.
DeleteI rather agree strongly on the HS/GED side. Completing either speaks to being able to commit to holding to what can be a difficult long term project (either for a teen in HS or an adult trying to do while one presumes also working as well). A test score is one thing but it is potentially to easily influenced just by a bad day or lots of practice. Valuable but I would let the test score go before the HS/GED
Delete@CNO, of course you're right.
ReplyDeleteI should restrain my sarcasm.
But to speak to your point; in the army I saw a marked difference in quality between line units and support units.
I believe that some of that difference was due to leadership, but much of it seemed to be a lower quality of soldier.
Those support units have important jobs to do and if they perform at a low level it degrades all operations.
Lutefisk
"I believe that some of that difference was due to leadership"
DeleteYou raise an excellent point ! Ultimately, it's completely due to leadership. If the Army (or AF or Navy or Marines) does not value support (logistics) then they'll assign the losers and dregs to those units. The resulting poor unit level leadership will exacerbate the problem and you'll have poor performing support units ... all because the top most leadership doesn't value support/logistics.
Do we have evidence of this? Yes ! We just saw that the Marine Commandant's new hidden, missile shooting Marine Corps hasn't yet addressed the logistics of the concept despite being a few years into implementing the concept. That's graphic proof that the top most level of leadership assigned no value to support/logistics.
"Those support units have important jobs to do and if they perform at a low level it degrades all operations."
A truth that is lost on current leadership.
Consider the Navy's utter lack of interest in logistics, resupply convoys, etc. Leadership failing.
"I believe that some of that difference was due to leadership..."
DeleteIt's MOSTLY leadership. I experienced that myself when I enlisted in 2001, endured eight months of Advanced Individual Training (AIT)- on top of two months' basic training- to qualify for Military Occupational Specialty 68S, OH-58D armament and electrical systems repairer, only for the Army to NEVER assign me to armament or electrical systems repair units for the OH-58D helicopter! Instead, the Army first assigned me to a UH-60 Black Hawk unit, where no one trusted me with any serious tasks- with good reason, as I never received training on how to repair the Black Hawk's systems- then to another Black Hawk unit, where I was ordered to repair weapons systems I was never trained to repair- "on the job" training was insufficient to teach me how to repair weapons I was unfamiliar with, yet the sergeants refused to send me back to AIT, claiming they had no time to- then to an OH-58D unit to fix its TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS.
I was NOT the only soldier the leaders demanded we perform tasks for which they refused to invest the necessary time and other resources to train us on how to do them. They obviously haven't learned their lesson.
Seems like poor management or really bad management of the supply of getting enough of the right people to the right job. Seems like somebody failed to crunch the numbers and say well we good on Kiowa and also that its end of service was in view but hey we need guys to do Back Hawks because thay ain't going anywhere.
Delete"Seems like somebody failed to crunch the numbers"
ReplyDeleteThat seems really unlikely as the army never screws anything up.
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Right now, it is not difficulty to get a civilian job, then, why join military?
ReplyDeleteThe military pays twice as much, you get free training and travel, a four-year college scholarship, and lifetime medical benefits from the VA.
DeleteInterestingly the Brits don’t require any educational qualifications at all to enlist in their armed forces, even for officers, except for some specialist roles.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, it’s apparently pretty unusual to find any infantryman who’s finished school, and their recruiters focus on skills, suitability, and ‘character’ rather than on paper qualifications.
Seems to work okay for them.
The uk school system is quite different to the US system I think so a direct comparison is difficult.
DeleteMany children start collage in the uk at 16 and leave after there 1st year or even mid term when they get there Army offer.
MA
In our rush to tangle with Russia we are sending some of the 101st into Europe. As well as growing the amount of Burkes deployed at Rota Naval Base, continuing the establishment of a permanent HQ in Poland for the 5th Corp, a rotational BCT in Romania and 2 more F-35 squadrons in the UK. Our wonderful leaders are trying to get us into WW3. None of these deployments can be described as defensive in nature if you listen to the rhetoric. We are governed by idiots.
ReplyDeleteServicemembers without HS diplomas or GEDs are far less likely to use their GI bills and veterans benefits to pursue expensive bachelor and masters degrees. Gotta save some money somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the problem with recruiting might have something to do with the woke-ification of the military. Note that woke Progressives typically aren't the demographic who volunteers to risk their lives for their country. The people who do volunteer tend to be less woke. I wonder if trying to force them all to be woke might be causing some to say "screw it, I'll do something else".
ReplyDelete