Posted on by Californiacontrarian

The Present Military Oxymoron

From NBC News:

Every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goals, say multiple U.S. military and defense officials, and numbers obtained by NBC News show both a record low percentage of young Americans eligible to serve and an even tinier fraction willing to consider it.

The pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink, with more young men and women than ever disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records. Last month, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testified before Congress that only 23% of Americans ages 17-24 are qualified to serve without a waiver to join, down from 29% in recent years.

An internal Defense Department survey obtained by NBC News found that only 9% of those young Americans eligible to serve in the military had any inclination to do so, the lowest number since 2007. 

‘This recruiting crisis is like a slow-moving wave coming at us,” said one senior defense official involved in recruiting and personnel issues. “As the military has gotten smaller and the public have gotten less and less familiar with those in uniform, it has grown. And Covid accelerated it.’”

Hmmm! … “and Covid accelerated it.” 

Why would that be the case? When Covid was raging there were less job opportunities as businesses either closed permanently or temporarily shut down. One would think that with fewer job opportunities, the military would seem like a reasonable option. Likewise with inflation now out of control, the military would seem to be a good option … steady pay, benefits, and the potential for the G-I Bill. This seems like a conundrum. Could it be that there is a simple reasonable explanation for this? In the business world if a company treats its employees like crap, what happens? Obviously word gets out, and consequently that company then has trouble not only retaining its present employees, but also recruiting new employees.

Segue to another story that I noticed today in The Epoch Times:

“62,000 Unvaccinated Guards, Reserve Soldiers Facing Loss of Pay as Army Prepares to Enforce Vaccine Mandate”

About 40,000 National Guard and 22,000 reserve soldiers will be blocked from service for rejecting the COVID vaccines, U.S. Army officials said.

The deadline for the Defense Department’s vaccination mandate passed at midnight on June 30. The order cuts off pay and some of the military benefits to the 62,000 service members.

Retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Tom McInerney criticized the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates.

“Why would the army do that when the survival rate of their age group is [extremely high]?” McInerney told The Epoch Times”

To my way of thinking there are basically very few reasons for someone refusing to be vaccinated. The common reason for refusal appears to be prior Covid infection. Granted it is appearing that having Covid does not protect one completely against the present omicron variants. However, having a prior Covid infection along with its consequent natural immunity is proving to be just as good as the vaccine.

The other reason for an individual to refuse to be vaccinated is a medical or a religious issue.

Across all states and territories, only 23 permanent medical exemptions and 19 permanent religious exemptions have been issued by the U.S. Army, according to their vaccination data from July 8.

 So the situation seems quite clear … clear as mud!

The military is having an extremely difficult time recruiting and yet at the same time all branches of the military are planning to get rid of trained experienced personnel because they are refusing to get a vaccine that they basically do not really need! I used to say that the classic example of an oxymoron was the phrase, “military intelligence” … now I am convinced! Obviously, in the military, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and to be sure our enemies are also aware of the present military oxymoron.

7/15/22

californiacontrarian

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