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"Our education and health issues come together in this alarming statistic: Seventy percent of today’s youth (ages 17-24) are not eligible for military service, essentially due to a lack of proper education (basic reading and writing skills) or health issues (commonly obesity or diabetes),” Dimon wrote.
These are alarming figures. But in peacetime there appears to be a sufficient pool of eligible recruits to meet quotas. War comes and standards are lowered. Vietnam was a prime example.
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Originally Posted by msgsing
These are alarming figures. But in peacetime there appears to be a sufficient pool of eligible recruits to meet quotas. War comes and standards are lowered. Vietnam was a prime example.
True. My Dad tried to enlist in the early 60s, but he had had Rheumatic fever as a child and was deemed ineligible. The recruiter told him to try back in a year, because Vietnam was starting to heat up.
These are alarming figures. But in peacetime there appears to be a sufficient pool of eligible recruits to meet quotas. War comes and standards are lowered. Vietnam was a prime example.
Don't even have to go back as far as Vietnam. When Iraq and Afghanistan were surging, the requirements to get in were lowered.
And then, there was---
"Project 100,000 (also McNamara's 100,000), also known as McNamara's Folly, McNamara's Morons and McNamara's Misfits,[1][2] was a controversial 1960s program by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to recruit soldiers who would previously have been below military mental or medical standards. Project 100,000 was initiated by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in October 1966 to meet the escalating manpower requirements of the American government's involvement in the Vietnam War. Inductees of the project died at higher rates[1] than other Americans serving in Vietnam and following their service had lower incomes and higher rates of divorce than their non-veteran counterparts. The project was ended in December 1971[3] and has been the subject of controversy, especially during the manpower shortages of the Iraq War." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100%2C000
I think they only need about 180K to join each year? So even though many aren’t eligible, there is still more than enough who can hack it.
People 18-24 number about 30 million total in the US. 30% of that is 9 million.
So we only need 180,000 out of 9 million able bodied youngsters to join up.
I see the young troops of today. I think in a lot of ways they are better than my generation of 30 years ago. They lack in some areas, but for the most part I think they are more intelligent and more physically fit than we were.
I wonder where those stats come from as well. As a parent of an 18-year old, I'm around tons of that age group. I for one find them much more active and definitely more intelligent than my generation.
The classes they take are mind-blowing. Subjects my husband and I didn't take till college. Out of 500 kids in her graduation class there are 120 Summa *** Laude, 87 Magna *** Laude, and 112 *** Laudes. That's well over half the class graduating with honors. In my class it was like 15% graduated with honors.
This certainly isn't true. I don't have time to fact check Jamie Dimon. But to say young people can't read or write at the low bar set by the military? Preposterous.
What the crap is going on in this country? Forget the draft, we'd turn most of the snowflakes away anyway.
It's a person's OPINION, not a fact. Now, there is a basis behind the opinion but it distorts the actual reality.
As our military's technological advances accelerate, many youth fresh out of high school can't qualify high enough to obtain the types of jobs they seek in the military. It's not that they can't join, they can't join for the specific jobs they seek based on their ASVAB. Does that mean we are producing a society of dumb dolts? No, as most score high enough to enter. What we are lacking is high school graduates that can score in the range that opens all the doors versus just some.
As for health, sometimes it's not the youth but the parents that for whatever reason, created a "health" excuse to explain away their kid's foolishness.
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