Officers and Gentlemen: Getting the Hell Out Now

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:56 AM Permalink

bush continues his delusional path to completely destroy our military by driving away West Point graduates, officers who have received one of the finest educations available at a cost of several million dollars each for their training and ongoing education. These young officers, like the NCOs (Non-commissioned officers; sergeants) serving under them, are the troops out doing the grunt work under the most horrid of conditions, as highly visible targets, and now maintaining an operational tempo so insane that it vastly increases the possibility of being killed, wounded, or suffering the ravages of PTSD and other illnesses.

See this article in the Boston Globe:

Recent graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point are choosing to leave active duty at the highest rate in more than three decades, a sign to many military specialists that repeated tours in Iraq are prematurely driving out some of the Army's top young officers.…According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year -- 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.…

This article further explains why the officers are leaving in droves, but the upshot is that the Army is figuratively killing the officer corp by forcing repeated and extended tours of duty in Iraq. It doesn't take a genius to know that such repeated tours increases the possibility of death, dismemberment, blindness, and widows and widowers with children that will never know the parent killed in this insane war.

But the bush maladministration is making sure that the spokesman for West Point keeps his mouth shut. How else explain this statement:

West Point spokesman Francis J. DeMaro said he could not explain why more young officers were opting to leave the Army, and declined to comment further.

DeMaro is either a bush man supporting propaganda, or a fool, for a blind idiot can see plainly why the officer corps is leaving: bush incompetence in waging war is causing many, many unnecessary deaths and permanent wounds.

Duh.

Labels: Bush, GOP, Iraq