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Under the Current Commander-in-Chief, Our Military is Falling Apart
by James Glaser February 19, 2008 Representative John Murtha was on National Public Radio today giving out some facts about our military under the command of George Bush. It seems that when George took office, over 94 percent of all new recruits were high school graduates. Seven years later and that percentage is down to 71. Seven years ago only 4% of recruits needed a waiver for their criminal record to join up, today that number is 11%. It is getting harder and harder to get young Americans to sign up for military service. Not only are education requirements being lowered along with criminal background checks, but now they have raised the age limit, too. About.com reports on age requirements to join the service:
Like the education requirement and the criminal record requirement, our military had to relax the age requirement, so they could get enough cannon fodder for Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We won't even get into the tens of thousands of dollars a recruit can demand for signing up. At one time, the military could entice new people with the school and training they were providing, but not today. You want to talk about relaxing the rules, listen to this. "The Navy has granted an honorable discharge to a former Navel Base Kitsap command master chief who was convicted last year of attempted child rape." That's right. You can now get caught trying to rape a child and still get an honorable discharge. Get this, the guy gets to retire as a senior chief petty officer, and he gets his benefits. The man's name is Edward E. Scott, and Komotv.com has the story titled, "Convicted Navy chief gets honorable discharge." The military has relaxed everything else, so now you try raping a child, and they save your retirement benefits for you. Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Fly Boys have a hard time in the service, and as a form of relaxation the Pentagon now provides casinos so our troops can gamble. Last year, according to Stars & Stripes, the Army made over $120 million off the troops, while the Navy got almost $17 million, the Air Force, $28 million, and the Marines $18.6 million. Maybe they were just trying to get some of that bonus money back. Any way you look at it, George Bush's military is nothing like America's past armed forces. Members of the American military in 2008 are not as well educated, and a larger percentage have a criminal past that would have kept them from serving just a few years ago. Having said that about those serving now, what does that say about their Commander-in-Chief. |
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