I Want YOU! (But not you...)

A few days back we held a massive troop formation where the senior enlisted Soldier in my troop, known as the "First Sergeant," delivered what I am sure he regarded as the finest, most motivating speech he had ever given to a group of Soldiers. First Sergeant, or "Top" (because he is the top enlisted guy) to the officers, called the formation to attention and then delivered his soliloquy which consisted of the following points... I think...

1. The Army is downsizing, so you had better think about whether or not you want to re-enlist

2. Since we are downsizing, overweight Soldiers are going to be the first to be kicked out of the unit once we re-deploy -- and hand-in-hand with that, he is going to stop being so lenient with height and weight standards

3. We have already begun an air war with Libya, and since in the history of the United States, we have never had an air campaign without a ground campaign, we had all better be prepared for the all-but-guaranteed invasion of Libya (reference point #1, wars that we have found using only the Air Force, and the Google definition of irony)


With the exception of the Libya comment, which I will assume was the result of First Sergeant getting hit on the head with the "idiotic thought stick," I'll address each of these in due course...


First, yes the Army is downsizing. A downsizing Army means that enlistment standards will go way up, which means that heretofore qualified candidates will not be accepted for any number of reasons. I, for one, might not have been accepted under these new standards: I smoked my fair share of weed in college and while it had been like five years since my last joint, I received a moral waiver to enter the Army; requiring moral waivers such as mine will actually be a basis for barring enlistment in the future. But back a few years ago? If you had a pulse and were willing to join the Infantry or Cavalry, you were pretty much guaranteed a spot.


The basics of supply and demand worked out sort of against the Army's favor, though. When your demand goes up and supply does not, you will be willing to accept a substandard product just to meet demand. There are examples of this in daily life: in the late 1990s the NHL was incredibly popular and decided to expand out of its traditional territory (you know, places where it snows) and into non-traditional territory, and we were greeted by the Phoenix Coyotes. Why on earth would Phoenix need an NHL team?? I dunno. Because hockey sells in the desert... anyway, for about three or four years during the height of the Iraq War, there was less of an emphasis on teaching Soldier skills and demanding a military bearing and more of an emphasis on sending Soldiers to units who were devastated by Soldiers, tired of back-to-back deployments, getting out of the Army. Demand went up, quality supply stayed the same and so lower-quality supply had to be found.

And you! And you! ... And yes, you in the corner? Four Eyes? Yeah you too. And invite your asthmatic friend as well. And the kid allergic to bee stings. And each one of you bring two friends!!!

So we certainly lowered standards, because, you know, no one wants to join an Army and then go fight in a war. They want to join the Army to get chicks or pay for college to jump out of airplanes, not sweat their brains out in the desert. And as the war in Iraq closes, and the timeline in Afghanistan shifts toward it closing as well, the Army is face with a decision: cut the number of new recruits each year, or increase re-enlistment standards. And in classic Army form, it has decided to do both. So, was Top right when he went off about re-enlistment and how we (well, not me, I am safe, but Soldiers who are, you know, enlisted) need to think twice about getting back in? Yes. But I would take a finished product over a raw product any day of the week, and a Soldier already at the unit is the epitome of a finished product. And you have to ask yourself: is it best to motivate Soldiers on a deployment who are considering re-enlistment with the thought of another deployment to another Islamic country??


And the height-and-weight standards. Yes, America is fat. Something like 33% of America is clinically obese, and the has not escaped the Army.

Seriously? Did he HAVE to walk by the Marine??

We spend so much time stressing over physical fitness and the Army Physical Fitness Test and the correct ratio of neck size to waist size that sometimes we forget that we hold the most inane standards of height and weight and relative fitness. Consider: Body Mass Index, or BMI, considers future Hall-of-Fame, and former nearly-convicted-felon, Ray Lewis to be "obese"

Swear to God, if you Google Search "Ray Lewis" this is the first image that appears

while at the same time considers Kate Moss to be healthy.

And here it is America, your one millionth "Kate Moss is too thin" joke. Get it? Its a picture of nothing which I have cleverly arranged to resemble the rail-thin Kate Moss.

And bear in mind that of the top three people in my troop, (Commander, First Sergeant and Executive Officer) my First Sergeant, who stands 5' 8" and weighs north of 240 pounds, is currently not the picture of physical health. And there are quite a few officers who, if they were to put on a body-hugging purple suit, he would easily be mistaken for Grimmace, Ronald McDonald's french fry-stealing friend. So it is nothing short of ironic that the guy tasked with chaptering Soldiers out of the Army if they fail to meet height-and-weight standards is himself clearly not going to meet standards, and the guys who are tasked with leading from the front and commanding are probably more readily able to command an operation featuring the Hamburglar.


I digress, and I am afraid I miss the point. First, in their defense, the Army is trying to shift their focus from "sweating the fat off" of Soldiers to actually trying for the paradigm shift in food production and service that many Soldiers, who hail from lower-income families, need in order to get on the right path to healthy living. It is a start. They want to keep who they have, or "dance with the one that brought them." The bigger issue remains, though. Kicking Soldiers out for being too fat, or denying enlistment for being a former pothead, means that the talent pool of the available population will be diminished. And when young kids fresh out of high school have roadblocks in the way of joining the Army, it just means they won't. So you have a talented generation of would-be Infantrymen who will instead work at Chevron. And when the Army's incoming product is not up to quality, and they are faced with either decreasing quality or dancing with the one that brought them, you have to hope they will uphold standards which they ask their Soldiers to.