Kill, Kill, Kill

I refrain from citing writings from around the Internet when I’m unable to offer much in the way of value-added analysis.  However, occasionally an article is of such immense interest and value that I can’t help but do so.  The Marine Corps Times website has such an article about a famous (and previously unknown to me) hand to hand combat instructor, Francois d’Eliscu, who revolutionized training and hand to hand combat mindsets during WWII.[1]
 
Please read the linked article and then come back for a few brief points to consider.
 
Welcome back.  That was a great article wasn’t it?
 
The article reminds us of just how brutal and barbaric war is.  It’s, literally, kill or be killed.  We’ve forgotten that in our quest to apply social niceties to the military instead of ruthlessly embracing and promoting the killer mindset.
 
The article drives home exactly why we want only the toughest, meanest, nastiest, most brutal soldiers who have the combat mindset that never gives up and will do anything to kill and survive. 
 
What does this mean for, say, women in the military?  Unfortunately, but realistically, this is not your typical woman or even your one in a thousand woman.  In addition to lacking the physical strength and quickness for combat, women simply don’t have the primitive, brutal mindset required for combat.  As an example, in ten years of coaching women’s basketball, the toughest, meanest female I ever encountered couldn’t match the bottom 5% of men for strength, speed, and mental toughness.
 
Heck, let’s be fair and acknowledge that not all men have the requisite characteristics.  We have far too many men in service who are ill-suited to combat and have no business in the military.
 
This same consideration applies to transgenders, overweight computer geeks, former drug users, and any other sub-par group of potential military service members.  The military is currently in the process of lowering their admission standards to include former drug users, high school dropouts, transgenders, women, etc.  That’s not how you develop an organization of effective killing machines. It is, however, how you wind up with a hollow military incapable of executing its primary function and lacking the combat mindset to even care.
 
I bet half of you reading this are squeamish about the post’s title let alone the reality of the subject matter.  Think about it and what that ought to mean about our recruiting efforts.
 

 
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[1]Marine Corps Times website, “Killer instinct: How one man taught US soldiers to fight dirty in WWII”, 30-Nov-2024,
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-military/2024/11/30/killer-instinct-how-one-man-taught-us-soldiers-to-fight-dirty-in-wwii/

The Best of Us

It’s no secret that the military is struggling.  Recruiting is in the tank.[1]  Readiness is near zero.  Maintenance is non-existent.  Gender, diversity, and environmental concerns dominate over warfighting.  The Secretary of Defense has listed climate as one of the top priorities.[3]  The fleet is shrinking despite the Navy stating that a war with China is imminent.  Ships are being retired decades early due to poor planning (LCS, MLP, AFSB, etc.).  Our reserve fleet is nearly non-existent.  Unbelievably, the Army is looking to recall retirees to active duty.[2]
 

The Army has launched far-reaching reforms that will transform how it attracts and recruits new soldiers, its top leaders said in a press conference today.
 
The moves come after the service failed to meet its recruiting targets for two consecutive fiscal years, which caused its end strength to fall from an original level of 485,000 in late 2021 to around 452,000 active duty soldiers today — its smallest full-time force since 1940, the year before the U.S. entered World War II.[1]

All these problems stem from the quality of the people populating the military.  These kinds of problems don’t just happen like the common cold.  They’re the result of decisions by people.  Bad decisions.  Cowardly decisions.  Stupid decisions.  Traitorous decisions.  Criminal decisions.
 
It’s the quality of our people and the quality of our decision making people is extremely poor.
 
What’s our solution?  Lower standards, of course!  We’re now looking to accept people who failed to pass high school.  We’re now looking to accept people with drug problems.  We’re looking to bring back retirees.  We’re looking to increase the proportion of women.  And so on.
 
Why are we not only accepting poor quality people into the military but actively seeking them out?  It’s because we’ve made the [bad, stupid] decision to purge the best of our personnel in the name of gender, diversity, and social representation.
 
Can you name the one organization in the country that is not, should not, and indeed, cannot be representative of society at large?  It’s the military.
 
Representative is another way of saying ‘average’.  A representative military would be the average of our society.  Do we really want our military to be average?  Of course not!  The military should be better than our average.  It should be the best of our society.  The military needs the best traits from our society and those traits are not present in the average of our society.  We want, and need, people who are stronger, braver, more focused, more aggressive, more combative, more patriotic, and have greater fortitude, integrity, and honor than society at large.  Sadly – and realistically – those traits are not present in equal proportion among all sub-groups in society.  Females, for example, do not embody most of those traits.  That doesn’t mean they can’t serve admirably in certain, limited functions but they are not the ones we want for combat.
 
We need to remember that the military should be the best of our society not the average.  It needs to embody characteristics that are not necessarily prevalent in society or in all sub-groups.  By definition, that means that the military will not, and cannot, be representative of society at large.  We need to recognize and embrace that concept and then recruit those individuals and groups that have those characteristics. 
 
 
 
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[1]https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2023/10/03/after-missing-goal-again-army-announces-sweeping-recruiting-reforms/
 
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-army-seeking-retirees-to-come-back-to-work-amid-manpower-crisis/ar-BB1knJe9
 
[3] https://media.defense.gov/2021/Mar/04/2002593656/-1/-1/0/SECRETARY-LLOYD-J-AUSTIN-III-MESSAGE-TO-THE-FORCE.PDF#:~:text=We%20face%20a%20growing%20climate%20crisis%20that%20is,into%20the%20Department%27s%20policies%2C%20strategies%2C%20and%20partner%20engagements.

Recruiting

The various branches of the military are experiencing recruiting difficulties.  For example,

 

The Army has announced that it will have to cut its size by 12,000 troops due to the inability to fill its ranks and, after five months into the year is at only 23 percent of its goal.[1]

 

The Air Force’s top recruiter has declared “warning lights are flashing” for meeting 2022 goals. The Marine Corps, which normally has little problem meeting and exceeding its goals this fiscal year, is likewise falling short of needed personnel. A recent Department of Defense poll asked young adults ages 16-21, “How likely is it you will serve in the military?” Approximately only 11 percent responded “definitely or probably.” And that is trending down, precipitously.[1]

 

Unfortunately, most people have no idea why we’re experiencing a recruiting failure.  Here’s an opinion piece whose author, a retired Navy Rear Admiral, completely misses the mark regarding the solution to recruiting.

 

The clearest way to enhance both recruiting and retention is through pay raises.[2]

 

No, this isn’t the clearest way to fix the recruiting problem.  The fix is to stop screwing around with the military, trying to turn it into a social platform instead of a finely honed, killing machine.  Give recruits a worthwhile goal and they’ll come running, with or without pay raises.  People want challenges.  They want adventure.  They want soul-satisfying rewards.  They’ll gladly accept money but that’s not what motivates the kind of people the military should be recruiting.

 

We also need to come to grips with the fact that, by definition, the military is not, and cannot be, a reflection of society.  What we ask the military to do is the antithesis of what we want society to do (whether we have the right expectations for society is a topic I’ll leave for other blogs) and, therefore, the military cannot be a reflection of society and still be effective.  We need to accept this as a fact. 

 

If the result of that recognition is that our military is disproportionately composed of young men from rural Idaho towns then so be it.  If it means the military is disproportionately composed of fifty year old, former small business owners then so be it.  What I’m saying is that the military needs to be composed of people who meet the mental, emotional, motivational, and physical requirements for combat and the reality is that group of people will not reflect the gender or racial mix of society at large and that’s perfectly fine and should be accepted and embraced.  The military is about combat and killing, not social experimentation and equity.

 

What is the Air Force approach to recruiting challenges?

 

The [Air Force] recruiting branch acknowledged it needs to come up with new strategies and marketing to connect with Americans who are eligible for or interested in military service.

 

In particular, the Air Force wants to emphasize “shared values, versatile career options and personal development opportunities within today’s military,” spokesman Randy Martin said.[3]

 

‘Shared values’ ?

‘Versatile career options’ ?

‘Personal development’ ?

 

Are you kidding me?  Those aren’t challenges that attract tough, fighting recruits.  Those are namby-pamby, wishy-washy, feel-good inducements that, at best, will attract pacifists interested in goals other than combat.  More likely, the people who would be attracted to those inducements will go elsewhere where they can work from home, join social causes, and complain about life.

 

China doesn’t need to worry about destroying the US military, we’re doing the job for them.  Sociology and social experimentation is destroying the military and the tip of that spear of destruction is our recruiting.  We’re recruiting the wrong segment of society.  We need to recognize what the military is – a killing machine – and recruit people who fit that mold and stop worrying whether the military perfectly reflects the gender and racial makeup of society at large.

 

 

 

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[1]Redstate website, “THE BUZZ CUT: Biden’s Military in Crisis”, Buzz Patterson, 8-Jul-2022,

https://redstate.com/buzzpatterson/2022/07/08/the-buzz-cut-bidens-military-in-crisis-n590813

 

[2]The Hill website, “The military has a serious recruiting problem — Congress must fix it”, Tom Jurkowsky, 21-Jun-2022,

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3527921-the-military-has-a-serious-recruiting-problem-congress-must-fix-it/

 

[3]https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2022/01/21/air-forces-enlisted-recruitment-pipeline-is-drying-up-general-warns/#:~:text=Yet%20enlisted%20recruiting%20targets%20remained%20essentially%20flat%20between,stressed%20that%20the%20targets%20will%20not%20be%20quotas.

Recruiting and Standards

ComNavOps abhors this kind of post but today’s circumstances demand it.  I hope that I will not be forced to make this a regular occurrence.  The following post is largely Army based but the concepts apply equally to all the services.

 

We’re talking about recruiting and standards.  Redstate website offers an article on the subject[1] that is spot on.

 

Note:  In the interest of fairness, Redstate is a politically conservative news site and the article’s author is a former Army officer who commanded an infantry company and was an Inspector General investigator in US Army Recruiting Command so he has extensive, first hand knowledge.

 

The article is well worth the time for a complete read.  The author addresses recruiting standards, the rationale behind standards, the use of standardized recruiting assessment tests and how they’re interpreted.  The author also drops a couple of hysterically funny comments which are all the funnier for being true.  Read the article!

 

The author throws out gem after gem of wisdom.

 

Addressing the reason why dropping the diploma/GED requirement is a problem, the author states:

 

Quitting is a lifestyle choice. A kid that quits high school is exponentially less likely to complete a 3-year active-duty enlistment than an HSDG [High School Diploma Graduates], no matter the AFQT score.[1]

 

Any semi-intelligent person – meaning not a general officer – understands that a high school diploma, while hugely watered down in today’s world, still represents a demonstrated degree of determination and self-motivation.

 

The author goes on,

 

… if you are recruiting tens of thousands of soldiers each year, you have to focus on the profile of what makes a successful soldier and not on the high school dropout and convicted felon … [1]

 

We know what recruit profile makes for a successful soldier.  That we’ve chosen to jettison that wisdom and aggressively recruit from outside that profile is unbridled stupidity.

 

The author notes,

 

The Army’s willingness to fill a substantial portion of the 60% of the FY2022 recruiting goal with kids who they know will not complete their first term of enlistment shows the level of desperation.[1]

 

Indeed!

 

The author laments the current situation.

 

Now the Army seems hellbent on destroying 40 years of hard-earned reputation for the sake of being woke and dying its hair magenta.[1]

 

The author addresses the crux of the problem:

 

The reason for the Army failing to meet its recruiting goals is simple, it has essentially declared that it has no use for heterosexual males or integrity.

 

Over the past decade, Army leadership has decided that woke indoctrination is more important than the credo of Duty, Honor, Country.[1]

 

The young men who are attracted to concepts like duty, honor, and country have nothing in common with today’s military. Is it any wonder that recruiting has become a crisis?

 

Without explicitly stating it, the author notes the reality that the pool of people who make up the actual, fighting soldier is no longer valued or sought after by the military.

 

Ever since Obama Defense Secretary Ashton Carter issued his fiat that all combat arms are open to women, the Army has been engaged in a war on its history and on the culture and demographic that has historically provided it with recruits and young officers.[1]

 

Consider this unattributed and uncaptioned photo accompanying the article.

 

Seriously, do any of these people look remotely like soldiers?  For all I know, they could be actors in a recruiting ad.  Regardless of who/what they really are, they are the absolute worst representation of soldiers I have ever seen.  For starters, look at the stomach bulges.  None of them can possibly meet even the dumbed down fitness tests of today.  I can only pray that the photo is some type of spoof or satirical commentary.  God help us if the photo is real.

 

It should be noted that you recruit not only inductees but also – and primarily - parents.  Let’s face it, the biggest influence on children is their parents.  If you don’t – or can’t – successfully recruit the parents, you’ll have little success with the children when they come of age.  By abandoning the values that once made our military great, we’ve lost the parents and, therefore, their children.  There is no one with more [former] respect for the military and its traditional values than me and there is no way in hell I’d allow my children to consider entering the military.  That should scare military leadership to its core but it doesn’t.  They have become so focused on weeding out the recruits (and active duty personnel) who embody the traditional values that they can’t even see the broken reality they’ve created.

 

 

 

 

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[1]Redstate website, “Army Backs off Enlisting High School Drop Outs but the Woke Cancer Killing Enlistments Remains Stronger Than Ever”, by streiff, 3-Jul-2022,

https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/07/03/army-backs-off-enlisting-high-school-drop-outs-but-the-woke-cancer-killing-enlistments-remains-stronger-than-ever-n588076

Recruiting Women For The Military

USNI News website has an interesting article about the military’s efforts to recruit women and why they aren’t doing more. (1)

“Lawmakers Friday morning challenged the military personnel chiefs to redouble their efforts recruiting and retaining female service-members …”

Here’s what the response to that challenge should have been:  “Why?  Why would we want more women in the military?  What do they bring to the table?”

What’s the official response?  Well, it’s along these lines,

“…not doing so means potentially missing out on selecting the best from half the nation’s talent pool.”

Yeah, we’d be missing out on the best of the least capable half of the talent pool!  That’s the point that everyone glosses over.  With a few job exceptions, women are not capable of contributing to combat. 

It’s not even debatable that women are a detriment in combat.  They simply don’t have the physical capabilities that are needed and, as a group, lack the mental/emotional aggressiveness to be effective in combat.

The problem with women in the military and, particularly, in combat, is that the discussion leapt right over the merits and into implementation.  All the studies that I’m aware of have uniformly shown that women are a detriment in combat.  I’m unaware of any study showing any benefit to having women in combat.  Despite that, we’re totally focused on implementation.

That said, there are jobs in the military that women can fill quite ably.  Here’s a few examples,

• Computers – computer operators, programmers, network techs, etc.
• Medical – Non-combat medical jobs such as doctors, nurses, med techs, lab techs, etc.
• Rear area maintenance – aircraft, armor, and equipment maintenance as long as it doesn’t involve strength (such as tank track maintenance)
• Pilots – non-combat transport pilots;  I’m undecided about female combat pilots.   I’d have to talk to male pilots to see if women can handle combat flying.  I have doubts but I don’t know.

One of the approaches the military is proposing to recruit more women is to have more contact with women’s sports teams – the theory being that these are the type of women who are already superior in physical capabilities and mental attributes such as determination, motivation, and toughness.  You know what?  They’re right!  Unfortunately, the best of women are pathetically behind even the worst male athletes or even average non-athlete males.  I’ve witnessed female college basketball players get demolished by extremely average high school males.  The physical disparities are simply too great to overcome.

According to the military,

“We’re making progress. It’s slow, but we’re making progress.”

Hey, don’t apologize for not wrecking the military faster!

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(1)USNI News website, “Military Branches Are Doing More to Recruit Women into Active Duty”, Ben Werner, 13-Apr-2018,

https://news.usni.org/2018/04/13/service-branches-want-more-women

Drug Users Welcome

Secretary of Defense Carter is a joke and here’s his latest folly.  He wants to lower the standards for recruitment into the military (1).  What a great idea because that’s what we need – less qualified soldiers.  Specifically, Carter wants to relax standards on physical fitness and pot use.  Here it is,

“Among the benchmarks that will get new scrutiny: fitness standards, marijuana use, tattoo regulations and the military’s longtime reluctance to allow single parents to start military careers.”

“As thousands of prospective recruits are now living in states where medical and recreational marijuana is now legal, Carter is instructing top personnel officials to consider pilot programs to “assess the feasibility and impact of updated standards” on the issue of “past marijuana use,”

“Defense Secretary Ash Carter has launched a sweeping review of the military's recruiting standards, saying current rules for screening new entrants may be “overly restrictive” and preventing America's most talented young people from joining the ranks.”

So, according to Carter, our most talented young people are overweight, pot users?  Wow!  An Army of overweight, pot users should scare the Russians and Chinese into submission.

What’s Carter’s fear?  What’s prompting his idiotic decision?

“Carter’s announcement Tuesday marked the latest round of his “Force of the Future” personnel reforms, which are driven by his concerns that the military today is ill-equipped to recruit and retain the top talent needed for future missions.”

So, Carter’s solution to being unable to attract top talent into the military is to lower the standards?  Now there’s some top notch logic.  Carter’s an idiot.  No wonder our military is in the shape it’s in.  I can’t wait until those overweight, pot users move up the ranks and become the generals of tomorrow.  That should be interesting.

Alright let me try to turn from mocking to a slightly serious tone.

Does anyone seriously believe that drug users are going to join the military and stop using drugs?  Of course not.  Drug users will continue to use drugs and drug use will become rampant.  How do military leaders say no to it after allowing acknowledged drug users to join in the first place?  This is going to be the 1960’s and ‘70’s all over again.

Just a reminder, pot is still a federal crime despite the unconstitutional laws passed at some state and local levels.  Marijuana is a Schedule 1 controlled substance under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.  Thus, accepting a recruit who acknowledges using pot is accepting a criminal who has violated a Federal statute.

Is lowering standards the way to attract top talent?  No, that’s idiotic.  The Marine Corps had this figured out long ago.  Their means of recruiting top talent was to market themselves as too good for you to join.  Their ads basically said that they didn’t think you had what it takes and they didn’t want you.  That approach ensured that only the best sought to join.  Of course, the Marines are no longer elite and now will accept anyone but once upon a time they knew better.

Every time I think the military has hit bottom, they literally lower the bar.  I weep for my country.

Now, having said all that, I’ll offer a partial solution.  I’m utterly against women and unqualified men in combat.  However, not all jobs in the military are combat.  In modern times there are many jobs that do not require any great degree of physical fitness at all.  I’m talking mainly about administrative and computing jobs.  I would have no problem with creating a separate branch or sub-section of the military that had no physical fitness standards.  Computer geeks and women can work these jobs to their heart’s content.  Of course, they would not be considered “soldiers” – that would be an insult to real soldiers.  They would be part of a support corps.  They would be valuable, often extremely so, but would not be entitled to be called soldiers.

America was built with the sweat and blood of tough men.  Lowering our standards is not the way to ensure that America remains great.

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(1)Military Times website, “The military may relax recruiting standards for fitness and pot use“, Andrew Tilghman, 1-Nov-2016,

http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/recruiting-standards-may-change-secdef-says