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C'mon Pentagon, Don't Be Shy!
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| MisterOpus1 |
Watcha hidin' boys?:
| quote: | washingtonpost.com
Pentagon delays release of May recruiting data
Reuters
Wednesday, June 1, 2005; 3:47 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday postponed by more than a week the release of military recruiting figures for May, as the Army and Marine Corps struggle to attract new troops amid the Iraq war.
The military services had routinely provided most recruiting statistics for a given month on the first business day of the next month.
Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the May numbers for the active-duty and reserve components of the all-volunteer military will be released on June 10.
"Military recruiting is instrumental to our readiness and merits the earliest release of data. But at the same time, this information must be reasonably scrutinized and explained to the public, which deserves the fullest insight into military performance in this important area," Krenke said.
Asked whether the move would simply delay the release of bad news, Krenke said, "That's not necessarily true," noting that "we expect the numbers to improve during the summer months."
Military recruiters have said potential recruits and their parents were expressing wariness about enlisting during the Iraq war. They said improving civilian job opportunities also were affecting recruiting.
The regular Army missed its recruiting goals for three straight months entering May, falling short by a whopping 42 percent in April. The Army was 16 percent behind its year-to-date target entering May, with a goal of signing up 80,000 recruits in fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30.
The Marine Corps missed its goal for signing up new recruits for four straight months entering May and was 2 percent behind its year-to-date goal. It hopes to sign up 38,195 recruits in fiscal 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...0101251_pf.html |
What I and many other libruuls wanna know is - why aren't those darn Iraqi War supporters and Bush apologists (aka 101 Fighting Keyboardists) out there get up and join the fight themselves? Or if they're too old - push their younger relatives, friends, and their supporters to grab a gun and go fight? What really pisses me off are those fundies like Falwell and Dobson who are so pro-war but refuse to tell their minions to go and enlist.
Steve Gillard stated it well:
| quote: | Unless you're disabled, you have no ing right encouraging others to die in your stead. If you weren't cowards, you'd be in the military, not whining about Kosovo or some other bull. The Army's recruiting isn't getting any better, and they need YOU. Not the kid from Wal Mart, not the ROTC grad. They need war supporters to take this seriously and walk away from their lives to serve their country directly.
But that won't happen. Because they are cowards. They hide behind the bravery of others and use it as a shield to deflect criticism. "Why if you attack my views, you don't support the soldiers."
My reply to that is " you, gutless bitch." I've never heard a soldier run behind civilians to defend the war, so why are you hiding behind them.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2...ickenhawks.html |
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| Dervish |
| quote: | | this information must be reasonably scrutinized and explained to the public |
hmmm..... next they'll be saying "it's better for the public to not be worried about it"
Steve Gillard seams to have hit the nail on the head too, I hate that
| quote: | | "Why if you attack my views, you don't support the soldiers." |
attitude Blair pulls it a bit too. Not cool. |
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| Shakka |
There you go Opus...asking loaded questions that you already know the answers to!;)
With regard to your comments about getting out there and joining up or pushing relatives to join up--I have no problem with people joining or encouraging military service (as the experience gained is no doubt invaluable). Whether you are on the front lines or supporting with your pocketbook, people of all sorts who support our military do it in various ways that they are comfortable doing. Not everyone is a macho person built for hand-to-hand combat, however it doesn't mean they can't also contribute financially or in some other capacity (programmer, intelligence, etc). While I recognize that you're really just being you with your comments, I can't help but take some offense to the way you said it. Our military continues to be a volunteer organization, which is part of what makes it so great. A person is not required to join up in order to hold a valid opinion of world affairs.
Coming from a military family and having chosen a different route, I recognize this and do what I can to show my appreciation for those who choose service, be it correspondence with them, sending letters/items overseas, or simply thanking them in person when I meet them for what they do. Believe me, they appreciate it, but not nearly as much as I appreciate their selfless willingness to protect the freedoms that I enjoy on a daily basis.
Then again, you're pretty much protected on all sides in good 'ol landlocked Oz.
/small rant. |
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| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
why aren't those darn Iraqi War supporters and Bush apologists (aka 101 Fighting Keyboardists) out there get up and join the fight themselves? |
Seriously! Why don't they?!?!
They're just a bunch of conservative pussies. |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer-X
Seriously! Why don't they?!?!
They're just a bunch of conservative pussies. |
Guess it takes one to know one, eh? |
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| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Guess it takes one to know one, eh? |
LOL
I guess, but where did I say that I actually knew them? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
With regard to your comments about getting out there and joining up or pushing relatives to join up--I have no problem with people joining or encouraging military service (as the experience gained is no doubt invaluable). Whether you are on the front lines or supporting with your pocketbook, people of all sorts who support our military do it in various ways that they are comfortable doing. Not everyone is a macho person built for hand-to-hand combat, however it doesn't mean they can't also contribute financially or in some other capacity (programmer, intelligence, etc). |
Why does it require a macho person to fight for a cause you support?
But more to the point, how can you really support something without standing up and truly demonstrating that support in the best way known possible - by standing on the front lines yourself? These pundits on the internet and over the radio piss the ing hell out of me for this sole reason:
While I can respect pundit for showing support for a position on going to war, this given pundit tends to go a step further. Not only do they show their unwavering support for going to war (despite the false pretenses to begin with), they have the ing audacity to belittle anyone else who doesn't agree with them, or worse, paint them as unpatriotic . Perhaps if that latter aspect wasn't done I wouldn't be so damn incensed by them, but their political machismo tends to get the best of them and so they must take this unfortunate step further.
So why shouldn't I call them out on that? Why can't I tell them to match their political machismo with true courage by physically supporting the war themselves?
And we are talking war here, Shakka. We're talking lives taken - tens of thousands of lives, mostly innocent ones to boot. I think this aspect is again horribly overlooked by the war pundits. How much would they really support a war if they themselves had to go and fight it themselves, let alone their sons and daughters? Very, very, very, very, very few war pundits are willing to take this step.
Now why is that really?
| quote: | | While I recognize that you're really just being you with your comments, I can't help but take some offense to the way you said it. |
Well you know I'm not trying to offend you personally, but I will stand by my words.
| quote: | | Our military continues to be a volunteer organization, which is part of what makes it so great. A person is not required to join up in order to hold a valid opinion of world affairs. |
I understand that and also appreciate what we have. Nevertheless if we're going to be put in a war BY OUR OWN CHOICE, then our voluntary military better damn well have both the manpower and financial means to be fully protected as possible. As it's been verified here and elsewhere, I firmly believe this is clearly not the case with our situation in Iraq. Here's but another example:
| quote: | U.S. Army officers in the badland deserts of northwest Iraq, near the Syrian border, say they don't have enough troops to hold the ground they take from insurgents in this transit point for weapons, money and foreign fighters.
From last October to the end of April, there were about 400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrolling the northwest region, which covers about 10,000 square miles.
"Resources are everything in combat ... there's no way 400 people can cover that much ground," said Maj. John Wilwerding, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is responsible for the northwest tract that includes Tal Afar.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11781484.htm |
400 ing men patrolling 10,000 square miles? Are you ing kidding me?
| quote: | | Coming from a military family and having chosen a different route, I recognize this and do what I can to show my appreciation for those who choose service, be it correspondence with them, sending letters/items overseas, or simply thanking them in person when I meet them for what they do. Believe me, they appreciate it, but not nearly as much as I appreciate their selfless willingness to protect the freedoms that I enjoy on a daily basis. |
That's very noble of you, and I also appreciate these acts you do. I'm more or less addressing the pundits, not so much the conservative voters at large.
| quote: | Then again, you're pretty much protected on all sides in good 'ol landlocked Oz.
/small rant. |
Don't remind me. |
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| Shakka |
So are you advocating more or less spending on defense?
It doesn't strike me as odd that recruiting is down. It's natural for fewer people to want to throw themselves into a firefight, regardless of how controversial the war, if for no other reason than the exponentially higher risk factor. Rah rah, the pundits!;) |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
So are you advocating more or less spending on defense? |
I would if necessary, but I don't think that's the issue here. Rather, the issue is properly spending the money for defense.
Think of it as the same argument that conservatives use for public education, which to a large degree they have a valid point - merely throwing money in a given government program does not validate that program to automatically become more efficient. It's the same for defense and our war in Iraq. I'm sure I need not remind you of the tens of millions of dollars, actually the billions of dollars unaccounted for that's been thrown to funding the war, and yet as an example we STILL do not have all our humvees fully armored. We spend how many billions of dollars on a missile defense and where exactly has that left us to better protecting ourselves from our borders? We spend billions of dollars and deliberately break the nuclear arms treaty so we can build small-scale nukes that are "merely" 2/3 the power of the Hiroshima bomb, but yet we still cannot find more than 400 ing men and women to cover 10,000 square miles of the border? Just some more examples, but I think you get my drift.
| quote: | | It doesn't strike me as odd that recruiting is down. It's natural for fewer people to want to throw themselves into a firefight, regardless of how controversial the war, if for no other reason than the exponentially higher risk factor. |
Seems the parents have a great deal to say about it as well, especially "in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end":
| quote: | Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.
Around the dinner table, many parents said, they are discouraging their children from serving.
At schools, they are insisting that recruiters be kept away, incensed at the access that they have to adolescents easily dazzled by incentive packages and flashy equipment.
A Department of Defense survey last November, the latest, shows that only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/n...serland&emc=rss |
| quote: | | Rah rah, the pundits!;) |
What, you think coffee is enough to get my blood pressure up every day?:D |
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| Shakka |
Saw the Times article this morning, but you beat me to it! Yes, a war that has generated as much controversy as Iraq is likely to hurt recruiting, regardless of what side you are on. Parents generally don't want to see their kids lining up for service when there is a war going on, particularly when it is as contentious as Iraq and has been going on for a long time. As I said, I'm not surprised. There are certainly a lot of facets to the argument as to why recruting is down.
And with that, it is now Friday and I am voluntarily placing myself in weekend mode. The office is nearly empty and I'm hitting the massive pile of reading on my desk. Oh boy, another wedding to go to this weekend. Shoot me. |
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