It’s autumn here in Appalachia; my favorite time of the year.  Warm days and cool nights; generally, my wife and I will open our bedroom window. The cool air along with the sounds of crickets and cicadas will usually put me to sleep in minutes.

However, lately, it’s been harder for me to get to sleep.  Now, I’ve always paid close attention to just about every political and social issue that you can think of.  And, I’ve worried about some of them.  However, one issue has continued to bother me to the point where sleep sometimes becomes difficult.  That issue is the continuing deterioration of our military.

As I’ve mentioned before, here at Ricochet, I believe that every social and cultural issue we have pales in comparison to what is happening to our military.  Without our military, we have nothing.

It has become so bad (in my estimation) that I almost dread opening my morning newsfeed.  Personnel issues, equipment issues, policy issues; you name it.  In the vernacular of the infantryman, we are in deep [redacted].

I hope that everyone read @tex929rr‘s post of Aug 29 concerning the U.S. Army’s determination to repeat one of its mistakes in the Vietnam War. I especially hope that everyone read the first link, which described the training being afforded these “low qualifying” troops.  If you looked on the whiteboard, you’ll see that the instructor is trying to teach these would-be recruits fractions, a concept that fifth- and sixth-graders are expected to master.  What does that tell you about these troops?

I left Vietnam in November of 1967, about three months before the carnage of TET.  I ran into one of my squad while he was on R&R in Hawaii (where I was stationed) in April of 1968.  He spent two hours telling me about the replacements that came in after TET, many of whom were “McNamara’s Morons.”  As it turned out, most of them could not read a compass, some could not reassemble their weapons after cleaning them, and some, who were ordered to drive a truck, could not understand road signs, even when they were in English.

We are being assured that these troops will not be accepted into the Army until they pass their qualifying tests.  However, I’m not so sure we can depend on that.  At present, the Army is a full 25% behind on its recruiting quotas.  What happens when that 25% cannot be found?

When McNamara began his Project 100,000, he justified it by calling it a plan to “salvage” and “rehabilitate” those who were deemed “substandard.”  He referred to those who were being “salvaged” as “New Standards” men.

So, I felt a bit of deja vu when I heard CSA General James McConville state, “We have some young men and women that want to serve, that have some challenges on the academic and physical side here.  And what we want to do is give them that opportunity.” He added that over time, he expects the program to expand.

Now, nearly 60 years later, we seem to have come full circle. And the Pentagon chooses to ignore the voices of the past: “The dull-witted soldier does not simply get himself killed – he causes the death of others as well.”

Sadly, the idiocy is not confined to the Army.  A few weeks ago, I learned that the Air Force is planning on reducing the flight crew of the KC-46 tanker from three to two.  I’m not sure that anyone read my post back in May 2020, in which I did a brief critique of the aircraft.  Now, over two years later, my opinion of that aircraft has not changed; it is a flying piece of crap.  As you may know, the KC-46 is a version of Boeing’s 767 airframe.  From the first time the aircraft lifted off the ground, it has had one problem after another.

Now, the Air Force has determined that this problem-plagued aircraft can be flown by one pilot instead of two. (The third crewman is an enlisted man/woman with no experience in flying and whose sole purpose is “passing the gas” to a receiving aircraft.)

The biggest issue with this proposal is safety.  There is a multitude of reasons why two pilots are needed, especially for this particular aircraft, but the Air Force seems determined to ignore them.  I am not a pilot, but I was around pilots long enough to know that, when a problem occurs in the cockpit, more than one person is required to keep the plane in the air.  In the aviation world; especially the military part of it, the rule is “Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate.”  In other words, “Fly the Airplane.”  In an aircraft with a history of problems, why would the Air Force attempt such a hare-brained scheme?

As usual, the real reasons for this stratagem came from the enlisted ranks.  When word of the new policy leaked, the enlisted Facebook page for McConnell AFB (where many of the tankers are based) lit up with accusations that the real reason concerned poor retention and recruitment.  The Commanding General of Air Mobility Command quickly hustled out his spokesperson to give out the “official” line, “AMC is moving forward faster in a risk-informed manner to ensure Mobility Air Forces are ready to be the meaningful maneuver force required to meet Joint Force needs in a peer competitor fight.”

In other words, those pesky enlisted people are correct. Currently, the Air Force is somewhere around 1600 pilots short of having enough to perform its mission.  Their solution is to risk the loss of a two hundred million dollar aircraft and the lives of the pilot and a hapless boom operator because they have failed to procure the needed number of pilots.

One of the other concerns of the Air Force is that, if war with the Chinese breaks out, those lumbering tankers will quickly become missile magnets so it is better to lose one pilot instead of two.  The enlisted man or woman?  Ah h*ll, everyone knows that they grow on trees.

However, there are other factors to consider.  What if a bird comes through the cockpit window on takeoff?  What if the pilot becomes ill or incapacitated before the mission can be completed?  Then the aircraft, the pilot and enlisted person will be lost. FOREVER.  (BTW, the Air Force has forked over another $3.1 billion for more KC-46 tankers.)

In addition, the Air Force is tryng out its “one pilot” concept on the venerable C-130 cargo plane.  On the new model C-130J, the proposal is that the cockpit crew will be reduced from two to one with the co-pilot being replaced with a “black box” containing new software and technology.  Of course, the dangers are the same (in this case, the loadmaster is the enlisted person instead of the boom operator), however the powers that be are determined to press on.  H*ll, they’re not the ones who have to fly these planes, so who cares?

While the AF is thrashing around, looking for schemes to get around the pilot shortage, the Force continues to deteriorate.  A recent study showed that a “confluence of cultural issues, budget shortfalls and a lack of oversight” have contributed to an atmosphere where “pilots and maintainers are worn out and under-trained.”

Still, the diversity machine marches on.  Last month the Secretary of the Air Force announced his new “aspirational” goals for diversity in Officer Applicants.  Today’s officer ranks look like this:

77.3 percent White

6.3 percent Black

5.5 percent Asian

3.4 percent multi-racial

0.5 percent American Indian or Alaskan Native

0.5 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander

Oh, this is horrible!  Luckily, if the Secretary gets his wish, this is what officer ranks will look like:

67.5 percent White

13 percent Black

10 percent Asian

7.5 percent multi-racial

1.5 percent American Indian or Alaskan Native

1 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander

NOTE: I’m sure that they are planning on sub-groups of homosexual, transsexual, etc., but my head was spinning at a fairly high rate, so I gave up.  In addition, these quotas are also being set for the Space Force which is even more White and male.  I don’t even want to think about that.

Now, let that soak in.  Just how does the AF plan to accomplish this?  Well, I suppose we’ll be finding out this month.  The Secretary has given his staff until September 30 to come up with a master plan.

Two months ago, I wrote a post on the DOD’s Renaming Commission which was tasked to remove all vestiges of the Confederacy from our modern military.  To date, the Commission has run up a tab of $21 million and they still have not completed their “mission.”  I estimate that it would have taken ten Pentagon clerks about a week to identify all bases, streets, and monuments referencing the Confederacy. Instead, members of the Commission have traveled all over the world, at taxpayer expense, to “uncover” their needed information.  In normal times this would have called for an FWA (Fraud, Waste, and Abuse) investigation.

However, sadly, these are not normal times.  While these dolts are running up huge bills, the Army has expanded its calls for members to go on food stamps.  This week the Air Force announced that it was cutting back on the incentive pay provided to those in the most hazardous assignments such as Pararescue and Tactical Control.

And all those people with stars on their shoulders wonder why their ranks are dwindling.  I think back to all the times that I thought this nation was in trouble.  However, no time was as perilous as the time we are living in today.

It’s late at night and time for me to go to bed.  Tonight, I believe I’ll have a glass of wine before turning in; perhaps two.  Maybe that’ll help me sleep.