Evidence That Our Military Strength is Crumbling Grows

The evidence mounts that the military is crumbling under the weight of the expansionist George Bush foreign policy. As reported in the Army Times the military will now accept a high school drop out with no GED. To give you an idea what has changed, when I served as late as the late 80's, it was rare to have a high school drop out at all. Now it appears that high school drop outs and no GED are the target group. 15 years ago the chances of the Army giving a high school drop out with no GED the time of day would have been nil.

Jack Army believes there is "more to the story" and points us to "Outside the beltway" for the commentary. Outside the beltway says this is just good policy as apparently the Army will talk to you and will help you get your GED but you must have it before going to basic training. This may have been going on since at least 2001 and maybe before as I have found a recruiting news letter discussing this GED Plus program here.

However, this nugget does not change the fact that the Army is going "Down market" on the people they will talk to, consider and enlist. This is the equivalent of when lenders "bottom feed" to keep their numbers up.  It is a symbol is all it is. It is a symbol that the Army is running out of people and ideas.

It is also a symbol that I have been accurate all along when I have shown that the current military strength will not support an expansionist foreign policy. Something has to give; either the foreign policy must change (my vote) or the military must be drastically expanded with a draft highly likely.

What we do know is having a small, all volunteer force, will not support a large, expansionist and unpopular foreign policy. Recruiting refugees at the Houston Astrodome (as reported in The News Blog) and allowing non GED high school drop outs are just more evidence of this.