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Nice headline from USA Today. "Oh noes, the military is broke and overstretched and and and...."

Them of course, you get down to the meat of the article:

The Pentagon records do not list what - or how serious - the health issues are, nor whether they were corrected before deployment, said Michael Kilpatrick, a deputy director for the Pentagon's Force Health Protection and Readiness Programs.

A Pentagon staffer examined 10,000 individual health records last year to determine causes for the non-deployable ratings, Kilpatrick said. Some reasons included a need for eyeglasses, dental work or allergy medicine and a small number of mental health cases, he said.

This is the first war in which this health screening process has been used, the Pentagon said.

Most of the non-deployable servicemembers are in the Army, which is doing most of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Between 5% and 7% of all active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldiers slated for combat were found medically unfit due to health problems each year since 2003, according to statistics provided to USA TODAY.

So, first war in which the the process has been used = no baseline for comparison. Problems range from allergies to mental (probably depression which can be corrected with medication). No mention of how many problems were corrected before actual deployment. The Navy had a fit over my brother having ADHD, for example. Techincally, he would be undeployable (heck, he wouldn't have been allowed in the Navy). Never in history has their been a case of a chief who packed on a few pounds being deployed with his ship or perhaps a sergeant who hit the McD's one too many times being sent anywhere.

Short version: USA Today's article is so much bullsh#t. The headline will get repeated until it is accepted as "truth" when the reality is a lot different. But that's the way some people want it, isn't it? Makes the rest of their lying BS more believeable in the echo chamber.

PT

Well, 'Patch, if you compare the crime rate of military personnel - especially the murder rate which is somewhere around 1/5 that of the general population - then a slightly different picture emerges, doesn't it? Perhaps, solely based on those numbers of course, we ought to run everyone through a stint of active duty. And, believe it or not, even trigger pullers learn other skills that are valuable in the job market.

But hey, "baby killers" worked so well in the 60's there is no reason not recycle it. You going to Recreate '68?

PT