The state of our armed forces coninues to decline, as reported in this
Chicago Tribue story via
Military.com
The active Army was 2,150 recruits short of meeting its March goal of 6,800 new troops, and the Army Reserve fell 739 short of its goal of 1,600. These shortfalls were worse than those in February, when the Army and its reserve components failed to meet recruiting goals for the first time since May 2000.
This represents a weak underside of the GOP, the party that claims to "Support the Troops". However, if this trend continues, America--the richest country in the world--will not have the means to fill the ranks of its military.
Some 60 Million people in this country voted in favor of George W. Bush, and his war of choices. But now, when Bush, and his war of choice needs them most, they are no where to be found.
An interesting anecdote starts the story...
::: more on flip :::
Cortnee Smith, a high school honors student, last year had her mind set on joining the National Guard. Her parents supported her. Friends in the Army told her what to expect. Smith took a military aptitude test and told school counselors and a recruiter she planned to join after graduation.
But last fall, her father quashed those plans. Michael Smith, himself a former National Guard recruiter, was called to duty last July and shipped to Iraq. What he saw there evidently persuaded him he didn't want his daughter going.
"He was like, 'No, no, don't go,'" said Smith, 17, now a senior at Shepard High School in southwest suburban Palos Heights. "'Tell [the recruiter] to stop contacting you.'"
Pretty sad when a military recruiter, himself, doesn't want his own flesh and blood getting into the debacle Bush has made, isn't it?
There are two points that I think we can hit the GOP on with this:
1) The government is neglecting the spirit of the National Guard, and is doing a generation's worth of harm to the force. You'll here conservative pundits brush aside how Bush has over-extended, over-used, and violated the spirit of the National Guard because, hey, these people signed up for the Guard, they knew what they were getting into.
That is total crap. I think everyone in the Guard realized that if the time came, they'd have to be called up to fight. If we were being invaded, or WWIII had begun, I could see using the National Guard as we do now.
However, National Guard people did not sign-up to be a part of an extended, occupational force. They did not sign up for constant deployment, family separation, and the risks they are at now. Guard people are for local problems (forest fires, riots, etc.), not for colonial occupation.
Now, for the next generation or so, we are going to have problems filling the ranks of the Guard because Bush and his regime have changed the nature of the force. Why would anyone sign up for "one-weekend a month, two weeks a year" when Bush has turned the Guard into a less-paid, less-trained, active duty force?
2) The GOP is incapable of showing leadership, and demanding the sacrifices we need to make to deal with the growing problems the US faces. Bush is the only President in the history to not raise taxes and ask people to serve their country in time of war. What kind of values are those? Is he telling us all the war is someone else's problems? What is he teaching our next generations about duty and honor and how to deal with hard times?
That is not leadership, that is cowardice. Sweeping things under the rug does not make them better. Not only is Bush being dishonest with the American people and the military, he lies in his budget, not accounting for the war.
Who knows what will happen to our military forces in the next 3 years? The Dems need to make this front and center, attacking the GOP on their strength, and how their deceptions and lack of leadership are weakening the Army, and thus, the defenses of the United States.