The actual title of this blog post was “The Secretary of the Army is a Moron” but I modified it to be less contentious. Know that in my heart, I believe she’s a moron.
I am opposed to creating a “warrior caste” in the United States. Isn’t that woke of me?
Joe Biden — huge Noah’s Ark talent handicapper — nominated Christine E Wormuth, a defense policy maven, to be the first female Secretary of the Army and she was confirmed by the Senate on 28 May 2021.
Our Sec Army has never served in the Army and has been a DC insider in the Defense/National Security racket for her entire life starting as a Clinton Era intern.
Her two predecessors were both military trade school grads (West Point, Virginia Military Institute) who had served with Airborne or Ranger units. They were men who had intimate knowledge of soldiering from the ground up, had jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, and they commanded soldiers in elite units.
Does it make sense to appoint Secretaries of the Army who actually served in the bloody Army?
Huge job. Take a look at this org chart. Click on it to expand.
The Sec Army has a civilian subordinate, the Undersecretary of the Army, and two Army four star general subordinates, the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.
The Sec Army reports to the Secretary of Defense who reports to the President.
Ahhh, yes, dear reader. Why?
As the top power player of the Army, she is vitally involved in the issue of manpower that devolves into two critical components: retaining quality soldiers, and recruiting new soldiers.
Last year’s recruiting goal was 65,000 and the Army came up short by 15,000 recruits.
She is a recruiting disaster both from a performance perspective and a philosophical perspective. The results speak for themselves.
As noted, the Army came up 15,000 recruits short last year (and expects to be 10,000 short next year) and has devised a plan to close that gap — all the services except for the Marines are struggling with hitting recruiting targets.
The Sec Army’s woke idea — not a new idea — is to recruit to mythical REDCATS — racial and ethnic designation categories. A REDCAT looks like this: 20% black, 7.2% Asian, 0.6% American Indian.
Imagine being a recruiter under the gun because the Army has missed its manpower targets and having to ensure that your recruits meet those racial and ethnic goals.
What’s happened to just recruiting the best possible soldiers?
Ahhh, dear reader, the Secretary of the Army has decided it is not in the nation’s interest to create what she calls a “Warrior Caste” meaning recruiting soldiers whose families have a tradition of military service.
She also notes that military service is more widely embraced in the Southern part of the United States.
The first time I read that utterance, I had to go back and ensure I had read it correctly. It totally defies common sense and logic.
Madame Sec Army contends the Nation is not well served by mining a tradition of military service that goes back to the American Revolution. I believe that generational service is the strongest characteristic for successful recruiting. In the real world, we call this “low hanging fruit.”
When I was at Virginia Military Institute at the height of the Vietnam War, you could not swing a cat on a ten foot rope without hitting six cadets whose fathers or mothers had been in the military.
The sons and daughters of my classmates have served in the military in disproportionately greater numbers consistent with their family traditions. It is a noble undertaking and one that should be mined rather than denigrated.
We want and need a warrior caste with our all-volunteer Army. This is a feature, not a bug.
My father was a career soldier and my mother served in World War II — they met and married when my mother was running the chow line at Camp Kilmer and saw my recently returned from combat in Italy father after VE Day being served by German POWs.
In my case, it was the family business. It never ever crossed my mind I would not serve in the military.
The single best place to recruit for the Army is families with a military tradition. If there is a Southern slant to it, then bravo!
The top recruiting station in the US is in San Antonio, Texas.
We need and we want a warrior caste in this country. We should revere a tradition of intergenerational military service. It is a strength rather than a weakness.
The only job of the Army is to fight and win our wars; it is not a social petri dish.
BTW, it will be interesting to see the impact of the recent US Supreme Court decision on affirmative action as it relates to military recruiting.
Last point: the theme of recruiting should be patriotism, the opportunity to serve our Nation in a meaningful way, personal development, and post service benefits like the GI Bill (I went to grad school using the GI Bill) and VA mortgages.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
