Tag: US military

What you won’t see in the MSM:

Accessions

Goal

Percent

Here is something else that relates back to my prior posting about blacks and US military recruiting. Here are some samples of more of the myths of the “conventional wisdom” out there about the US military:

This stat just confirms my prior hypothesis that the military is not getting dumber as some people have claimed. Here is another popular myth:

Notice in the graph above that there is now more wealthy recruits than poor recruits and growing while poor recruits and decreasing. There is something you will not see in the MSM or a documentary by Michael Moore on anytime soon. Make sure you read the rest because the report dispels more myths with some great hard data.

The reason these facts will not make it into the MSM or ever be uttered by Michael Moore or any of the other race and class demagogues out there, is because it goes against the current effort to paint soldiers as uneducated low lives that are committing war crimes all over Iraq. I’m sure if you ask them though, they will tell you they support the troops; their actions say other wise.

HT: Greyhawk

Senator John Kerry was just had a press conference and he blames the controversy over his comments on (drum roll please) a Republican conspiracy against him!  Karl Rove must of drug and hypnotized him before he gave his speech.  He said his comments about stupid people going to Iraq was a “botched joke” against how stupid the president is.  Let me take this time to remind everyone, courtesy of B5 that Kerry wasn’t any genius at Yale either.

Kerry does say he supports the troops, and once again let me show everyone how he supports the troops:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Here is his more recent comments about US troops “terrorizing” Iraqis:

In accusations about American troops reminiscent of what the young John Kerry said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, the senator and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee told CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer there was no reason for U.S. soldiers to continue “terrorizing” Iraqi children.

“And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs,” Kerry said Sunday

Oh yeah, he doesn’t like obese people either as he called Rush Limbaugh doughy.

Kerry refused to apologize for his remarks and I’ll take him at his word as this being a “botched joke” however, I think it is more offensive that he won’t apologize for his “botched joke” and just shows that his liberal politics are more important to him than apologizing for his bad joke and letting this thing blow over.  He is actually feeding the controversy now in order to bash President Bush as leading some kind of conspiracy against him.

Things are getting interesting with the Pat Tillman case, as the Army has announced that it will begin an investigation into his death:

A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the new investigation has not been formally begun, said it would focus on possible charges of negligent homicide.

A second Pentagon official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said no specific soldier is under investigation at this point. He said the CID will conduct an overall death investigation and “let the facts take them where they may.”

The official said that the CID’s probe — the fifth formal investigation into the incident — will focus on the cause of Tillman’s death, not necessarily on whether the previous investigations were done correctly. It is the first criminal probe.

Tillman’s mother, Mary, told the Washington Post Saturday that the criminal investigation should have been launched at the onset. “The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing and they haven’t,” she said. “They knew all along that something was seriously wrong and they just wanted to cover it up.”

With the Army announcing a criminal probe I think it is clear that something really embarrassing to the Army and the Rangers happened in Afghanistan in regards to Pat Tillman’s death. He was reportedly killed by friendly fire during an ambush, but if that was strictly the case then there wouldn’t be a criminal probe. I beginning to think that maybe he was killed by an accidental discharge or people fooling around with their weapons and being negligent. How else could you explain a probe for negligent homicide? This could become very embarrassing for the Rangers once this investigation is complete.

Democrat Congressional Representatives are trying to force AFN radio to air liberal talk radio:

Democrats are demanding an investigation into defense officials?E decision to delay a liberal talk show debut on American Forces Radio last week.

On Thursday, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and other House Democrats requested the Defense Department inspector general look into the Pentagon delay in providing balanced programming on AFN Radio.?E/p>

(…)

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the decision on Schultz’s show is still under consideration, a process that includes a review of all department guidelines for new programs.

Democrats said they are suspicious of the timing of the delay, but that the Schultz issue is just the latest in a multiyear battle to include liberal talk shows on the overseas radio network.

Currently, the American Forces Radio lineup includes radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlessinger and Paul Harvey, as well as news headlines from CNN and National Public Radio.

Has it ever crossed these Congressmen’s minds that maybe the Pentagon doesn’t want the soldiers to listen to people advocating losing the war and cutting and running? I say they take Rush Limbaugh and Doctor Laura off the programming line up before letting the liberal kooks on there advocating losing the war. You would think CNN, NPR, and Paul Harvey would be enough balanced enough programming for them.

A Navy study has found that sailors who smoke are more likely to be seperated from the service than non-smokers.

Recruits who enter service as heavy cigarette smokers are nearly twice as likely as nonsmokers to be separated early, mostly due to “substandard behavior,” according to new research aimed at easing the U.S. military’s disturbingly high attrition rate.

For all its achievements over three decades, the volunteer military has had one chronic problem: an alarming washout rate. A third of all new entrants fail to complete initial service obligations, driving up recruiting and training costs.

This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone because when I was in high school back in the day, the people who smoked were usually people who had authority problems and smoked just to piss people off.

Now this is interesting:

Now it appears pre-service smoking habits could well be the equal of a diploma for predicting if a recruit will succeed in service, said Dr. Eli S. Flyer, a former senior manpower analyst with the Defense Department.

I can’t imagine the military not letting people enlist because they smoke. Especially with the recruiting problems of today.

Now this I find hard to believe:

Just more than half — 51 percent — of all servicemembers smoked in 1980. Smoking declined to a 29.9 percent level in 1998, but smoking increased to 33.8 percent according to the 2002 survey of Health Related Behaviors Among Military Personnel.

Only 33.8% of people in the military smoke? I would think it would be around 50% or more. The military has so many smokers IMHO because it is the easiest way to sham out of work. The laziest soldiers I know are all smokers who hide in the smoke shack and they hide there because the people in charge of them smoke to and are in the same smoke shack. Just about every soldier that I know of who gets into trouble is a smoker.

As many of you know 2ID has started a campaign to ban smoking on the 2ID camps. All this does is cause the smokers to go to the far off smoking designated point to smoke removing them from work that much longer. What the army needs to do is limit the number of smoke breaks to one in the morning for 10 minutes and one in the afternoon for 10 minutes and implement a sign in and sign out roster to track it. If the soldier has to go through a lot of hurdles to take a smoke break that will cut the number of smokers because many of them smoke just to get out of work.

This is just one person’s opinion, so feel free to comment if your unit has nothing but hard working smokers because mine doesn’t and I’m willing to bet many other units are the same way.