Many of these soldiers, sailors and Marines feel betrayed by the senior officers of the services, beginning with the commander in chief. The old customs and traditions which have held the services together through war and peace have been scorned and trashed, replaced with the politically correct attitudes and regulations that gag real men. Even saying so is a sure way for an officer to ruin a career. The men in the ranks understand this, too.
The Army’s Center for Army Leadership at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., asked 16,800 commissioned and non-commissioned officers whether they think “the Army is headed in the right direction to prepare for the challenges of the next 10 years.” Their answers, as reported by CNS.com, ought to be enough to scare a commander in chief straight. His defense chief, too. But it won’t, because they’re exactly the men responsible for the survey results.
Only 26 percent – 1 man in 4 – say they think the Army is on track to continue as the scourge of evildoers who yearn to do the republic ill. Nearly 40 percent say the service is headed in the wrong direction, and 36 percent say they don’t have an opinion (and no doubt if they did, they’re smart enough to keep it to themselves).
The pessimists – or “realists,” as they might be called – cite two reasons. One is the hollowing out of the military as proposed by President Obama, and the other is the stifling effects of the politically correct run amok. They don’t understand why the men entrusted to manage the Army go along without protest with the nonsense mandated by the White House. Generals and admirals, just like shavetail lieutenants, know who punches their tickets.The Politically Correct Army depends on a poor economy for its recruits, and the public schools training those recruits will, increasingly, produce men and women who are poorly suited to the discipline of military service. One shudders to consider what will be left of the military after four more years of President Obama.
And yet, consider it we must. With the automatic budget cuts coming to the military at the end of this year, which no one has acted to prevent, new projects will have to be cancelled, old ones scaled back. Ships will be mothballed, without being replaced. Manpower will be cut, but it may still be difficult to find sufficient recruits of adequate quality. Personnel currently serving should not be counting on pay raises between promotions.
Moreover, with declining discipline, I predict a day when we see surveys rating military bases as the best "party bases", much like we now people rating colleges as the best "party schools." I can't wait to have my tax money go for that; can you?
