Army opens prep school for dropouts to fill ranks

[selil]

PS: selil. Not to start an argument since education is your department and not mine. The 30% figure has nothing to do with US ranking in world education (a separate discussion), but those that can meet Army standards. Perhaps, that figure has not changed since Mich State started as a land grant college. If so, you probably have the stats on that. Another point in the 30% figure is lack of physical and legal health. The article doesn't break out that stat. So, it is also possible that the same % that failed there would have failed in 1940, 1960. Don't have any stats there, but I suspect you do.

Now wait a second. If you don't tell me about what I do for a living I can't tell you about what you do and dang it.. That just wouldn't be fun.

I had considered the idea of physical fitness and health. With physical fitness there is a huge issue because (I'm told by the PE people) physical education is not about physical fitness anymore, and about life long love of sports. The first not a requirement for watching NASCAR. The second issue I have been told by a recruiter (consider suspect unless somebody can corroborate) is that asthma and other ailments are being diagnosed more now (better testing tools not more asthma) and that decreases the potential pool.

As to education and capability there are huge issues (no student left behind is horrible). It is hard for some people to remember that the school system in the United States is the equivalent of tiny fiefdoms with no real standards across the system. High stakes testing does not equate to standards and in some cases holds back innovation and education. The fiefdom concept is good for creativity, but bad for standardization. The other side of that is a school that produces a creative business entrepreneur who failed never gets credit while a school that produces A+ geniuses gets credit even if they eat out of the garbage can.

[davidbfpo]

THis experiment seems IMHO to be a return to pre-1914 schooling in the UK, not for other ranks, but officers. We then had a plethora of private schools, mainly boarding schools, with Officer Training Corps and a good percentage joined up - for the military or colonial service. I am sure others have written on this theme, from non-military viewpoints.

After the Boer War the British Army had to think hard on the lessons learnt from recruiting a large field army from the industrial masses - who they found were physically weak etc.

Methinks someone has been reading up on the history of recruiting armies.

davidbfpo

[CR6]

The second issue I have been told by a recruiter (consider suspect unless somebody can corroborate) is that asthma and other ailments are being diagnosed more now (better testing tools not more asthma) and that decreases the potential pool.

I don't know whether it is better testing methods that is leading to increased diagnoses of asthma, but it was a frequent entry on applicants' medical histories when I was in recruiting (2000-2002).

[Steve Blair]

I don't know whether it is better testing methods that is leading to increased diagnoses of asthma, but it was a frequent entry on applicants' medical histories when I was in recruiting (2000-2002).

We see it quite often at the ROTC level, too. And all it takes to get someone disqualified is one occurrence of the 'a' word in a medical record...even if it was one incident when the applicant was four years old and has never appeared since.

I suspect that, like many other things, the definition of asthma has been broadened in a diagnostic sense.

[120mm]

I don't know whether it is better testing methods that is leading to increased diagnoses of asthma, but it was a frequent entry on applicants' medical histories when I was in recruiting (2000-2002).

Which is ironic, because "asthma" in younger people is one of the most misdiagnosed maladies today (according to my children's doctor [an allergist, obtw.]).

Most often, it is a sensitivity or allergy to something, which children often grow out of. It's really frustrating to lose otherwise exceptional applicants to stuff like this. Apparently, the military medical profession has this freakish worst case scenario (which will never, ever happen, obtw) where "but what happens if the soldier gets an asthma attack when they're trying to carry their buddy 20 miles out of harms way, and the US Army has uninvented Medevac, or even ambulances?"

I know several soldiers, including myself, who have served 20+ years with disqualifying conditions, to include in combat, that just don't matter, in a "real" combat situation, versus some MSC doc's fantasy scenario.

Frankly, the medical quals are more or less irrelevant. (Short of terminal cancer).

[reed11b]

I know several soldiers, including myself, who have served 20+ years with disqualifying conditions, to include in combat, that just don't matter, in a "real" combat situation, versus some MSC doc's fantasy scenario.

Frankly, the medical quals are more or less irrelevant. (Short of terminal cancer).

Thank you 120. Another is minor MH diagnosis. I served w/ ADD while on medications and know that ADD medications are part of the deployment formulary, since as a behavioral Health Section Sergeant I had to help order them. Yet when I went to re-enlist last year, I was told I could not since I was on those same ADD meds, regardless of the fact that my ASVAB score was before I was diagnosed with ADD and that I had already deployed since the diagnosis. I have had to quit my meds for a year so that I can re-enlist next month. Another factor that would really really help the military get quality personnel would be if they quit treating prior service like unwanted lepers. Why is it better to give a wavier to a H.S. drop-out with a criminal record, then it is to re-train a prior service soldier that tried the “real-world” and decided he preferred military service? Grrrrr, better step of my soap box and take a tranquilizer before I break something.
Reed

[Stan]

Frankly, the medical quals are more or less irrelevant. (Short of terminal cancer).

They could also stand to dump that damned PUHLES coding and get real with the current definitions such as

P - general physical capacity
U - range of motion and general efficiency
H - defects of the ear
L - range of motion and general efficiency
E - defects of the eye (assuming you only have one )
S - This factor concerns personality, emotional stability, and psychiatric diseases