Here’s the headline, “Army lifts ban on waivers for recruits with history of some mental health issues.”
WASHINGTON — People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.
What you’re thinking is this: it is good the Army is recruiting self-mutilators, for these are the people more likely to know how to mutilate the enemy. If mutilating the enemy is what we want, that is.
The real reason for the move is that the “service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018.” It’s getting harder to convince men to join the Armed Forces. Why that is might have something to do with progressive commanders making men wear high heels.
Or it might be the distaste generated by getting lectured by a “diversity is our strength” general about how whites are racist, yet where the lecture was based on a known racial hoax.
Whatever the reasons, recruits are lining up to be let in.
It’s natural to be torn about this. Having inept soldiers might make war less likely, and goodness knows we need to do something to discourage progressives and neo-cons from starting more wars. But then, having shoddy sailors make mistakes more likely, errors that increase the chance of war. How it balances out, nobody knows.
Either way, standards are decreasing. As always when this happens, arguments appear saying the standards were never really necessary. Call this Sour Grapes Diversity.
The Army is not making way only for mutilators. “To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.”
Now these aptitude tests are not the same kind of tests kids get in school. They are not dumbed down in order to produce the correct proportion of graduates in progressive victim categories. The Army wants to have a fair handle on the intelligence of each recruit, which these tests provide, at least more-or-less.
The tests are therefore reasonable tests of ability. That means it’s close to certain that the people inducted now are dumber on average than before. That might be fine for the Marines, but for the elites of the Air Force (my alma mater), it’s not so good.
You have to appreciate the comedy in this sentence from the newspaper:
While bipolar disorder can be kept under control with medication, self-mutilation — where people slashing their skin with sharp instruments — may signal deeper mental health issues, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association.
May. May signal. We’re not talking young teenage girls here, who sometimes go through phases. We’re talking systematic slashers. Who will, possibly with trannies at their sides, be given access to advanced weaponry. If you thought “bump stocks” were frightening, try letting loose a low IQ bipolar drunk self-mutilator in an M1 Abrams.
There are people who object to the new, enlightened strategy of the military. One of these is “Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist who retired from the Army as a colonel in 2010 and is an expert on waivers for military service.” Please put down any beverages before reading further.
If self-mutilation occurs in a military setting, Ritchie said, it could be disruptive for a unit. A soldier slashing his or her own skin could result in blood on the floor, the assumption of a suicide attempt and the potential need for medical evacuation from a war zone or other austere place.
Blood in a military setting? Is that even possible?
I, of course, can’t top that. You can’t top that. Mark Twain could not top this. Ambrose Bierce himself at the full height of his inestimable powers could not top this.
Therefore the only thing we can do is withdraw from the field of battle.
“What you’re thinking is this: it is good the Army is recruiting self-mutilators, for these are the people more likely to know how to mutilate the enemy.”
I was not actually thinking that, but you know your typical reader better than I do.
Anyway, weren’t some of the most beloved Catholic saints self-mutilators?
http://www.religious-vocation.com/penance_and_mortification.html
What’s next? Life imitating art as in The Dirty Dozen (times about 6,000) ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dirty_Dozen
This might actually be a good thing in a perverse sort of way. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has been running amok, attacking and overthrowing governments all over the place, but especially in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This rampage has been enabled by the excellence and power of the American military. But the PC lunacy initiated by the Obama loons, which is still ongoing, has substantially weakened our military and reduced the number of things they can achieve. At some point, some second world country, maybe Iran, will b*-slap one of our expeditionary force, and the madness will stop.
FYI – There are a ton of Bierce short stories at http://www.ambrosebierce.org/
“It was now long after nightfall, yet the interminable forest through which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing cast a shadow. A shallow pool in the guttered depression of an old wheel rut, as from a recent rain, met his eye with a crimson gleam. He stooped and plunged his hand into it. It stained his fingers; it was blood! Blood, he then observed, was about him everywhere. The weeds growing rankly by the roadside showed it in blots and splashes on their big, broad leaves. Patches of dry dust between the wheelways were pitted and spattered as with a red rain. Defiling the trunks of the trees were broad maculations of crimson, and blood dripped like dew from their foliage.”
The horror!
Know what would fix this? Finding a bunch of tribal Germans, Franks, etc and just pay THEM to be our army.
Boom! Problem solved.
When I was in Germany in the early 1980s a GI stole a tank and drove it into town. He wasn’t a very good driver because he got the tank jammed in a narrow street. He must have been really desperate to get off base and into town. You would think that somebody reasonably intelligent would steal something a little less conspicuous.