“Be All That You Can Be.” Uplifting? Propelling a mad rush to the Army’s recruiting offices? No. Today’s young Americans guess (rightly it turns out) that it’s their ticket to become cannon fodder in the perpetual wars the U.S. empire has conducted since 1945. Wars, all Americans know, it has failed to win. On the other hand, these wars have produced a stunning number of U.S. casualties: Korea 38,000, Vietnam 58,000, and 7,000 in post 9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week, three soldiers were murdered as they slept at a “secret” army base in Jordan. What are U.S. soldiers doing in Jordan? Are we at war in Jordan? Chances are no one in the Pentagon knows or has forgotten. With more than 800 bases around the world, Pentagon generals are hard put to keep track of them all. Their track record of safeguarding Pentagon assets is equally shameful as evidenced by their sixth consecutive failure to pass an audit.
Which leads to the inevitable question: what magic elixir will the Pentagon use to come up with enough warm bodies for America’s global perpetual war machine? In 21st century America slogans no longer cut the mustard. Obama tried in 2009 to convince high school graduates that “[Military service would] carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
Here’s a navy veteran who bought into that rosy promise — “Would you want to get into a profession or take a job where coming out of it you’ve got a chance of joining a million totally disabled? My kids and anybody who has any common sense or intelligence is not going to sign up for the military.”
The Pentagon’s response? “[We] value the dedicated service and sacrifice of every veteran and understand the concerns some may have. [Our] greatest strategic asset is our people, and we will always pursue options to enhance how we take care of our service members and their families.”
Really? With today’s advanced medical treatments, soldiers are more likely to suffer horrible injuries than to die. Those that survive often need care and medical treatment for life. Does the Pentagon live up to its promise to enhance how we take care of our service members and their families” when returning soldiers need their help? Welcome to a country that sends over $100 billion to the most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine, for among other reasons humanitarian relief. US soldiers needing disability benefits would probably do better in Ukraine. In the U.S. the process of filing for veteran disability benefits is long and complicated usually taking months or even years to get approved. Over one-third of veterans are outright rejected every year. Compounding the problem, millions of veterans who get home in one piece are uninsured and lack even the most basic medical care.
One dismal statistic that you will never see in Pentagon ads or on the mainstream media is the alarming number of soldiers who take their own lives. Not just veterans from twentieth century wars like Vietnam. Over 30,177 service members and veterans of U.S. post-9/11 wars have committed suicide — over four times as many as have died in combat.
For the past four decades, the Pentagon has been trying to figure out new fairy tales to encourage the death wish in young Americans, particularly as the recruitment number continue to dwindle. In 2020 less than 150,000 people enlisted, 59% less than in 1980. While contemplating new wars every week, that downward trend in unbearable. The geniuses at the Pentagon put on their thinking caps and revisited a bad-terrible-horrible idea abandoned decades ago—to partner with Hollywood making films that painted a bogus picture of life as a U.S. soldier. Could lightning strike twice? In 2023, the military revisited that idea and bet big on movies like Top Gun: Maverick to spur interest in the military.
They were sorely disappointed. The military missed its recruitment goal by 41,000 in 2023. What next? Dick Durbin, senator from Illinois, had a nifty idea. Why not draft undocumented immigrants? If they survive, they become citizens. Congress didn’t buy it and the White House ignored it. Other flaky ideas —allowing in recruits with serious medical conditions like asthma and ADHD. Or using platforms like TikTok to attract recruits (a platform the Pentagon itself abandoned in 2020).
At the end of its rope, the Army is currently offering up to a $50,00 bonus to recruits who agree to stick around from three to six years. Throwing money around to attract recruits works about as well as “shoot ‘em up” films. As one military official put it: “We can throw money at the problem all we want, but until we change how young people see us in uniform, we are going to struggle to get them to raise their right hands.”
Two other less-than-brilliant ideas have caught the attention of Pentagon brass. If a branch of the service does not meet its monthly goal for recruitment, they are allowed to recruit low IQ individuals who could not pass the military aptitude test. A sad reminder of 1966 in the midst of the Vietnam catastrophe when the empire was running out of warm bodies to do its fighting and dying. Drafting college students to bolster the rolls was a step too far for President Johnson who feared the ire of his major donors. Instead Defense Secretary McNamara came up with Project 100,000 which aimed to recruit low IQ men who had been rejected for military service. Another truly abominable idea that was mothballed in 1977 but not withdrawn. It is still in effect when the wars the empire starts exceed the number of volunteers willing to fight them.
Idea two of the Pentagon’s perpetual quest to find more young Americans to fight the empire’s war lust is buried in the small print in the contract each recruit signs. It’s a tiny clause which no recruit notices and which the recruiter “forgets” to mention that allows every branch of the military to recall troops to active duty or to extend the term, beyond what was agreed to on the flimsy basis of maintaining troop strength.
You heard that right: the contract these naïve young Americans sign is a form of involuntary servitude preventing troops from leaving the service despite having completed their tour of duty. It’s officially called “Stop Loss” but the troops call it “back door draft.”
Another major obstacle in growing the military to match the empire’s outsized ambitions is the woeful state of young Americans’ physical and mental development. In 2022, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testified before Congress that only 23% of Americans ages 17-24 could pass muster. Of those, according to an internal Defense Department survey in 2022, only 9% have any interest in volunteering.
How can an empire galloping into a new war almost every month cope with not having with enough bodies to fight them? What about re-instituting the draft? As long as there are rich campaign donors with children neither Congress nor the White House will consider it. America’s last draft ended in 1973.
Here’s another idea that probably won’t gain traction among the megalomania-cal warmongers in Congress and the White House. End the reasons for a draft by instituting peace. That’s right no more 800 bases in virtually every country in the world. No more corporate welfare for the likes of Raytheon, Boeing and the rest of the criminogenic defense industry. A defense budget that is truly defensive: to protect America not police the world’s nations or expand the empire. The world already has a way to create a peaceful world. It’s called the United Nations.
But the past holds a better promise. On August 27, 1928, fifteen nations came together to sign the Kellogg-Briand pact outlawing war entirely. The elusive dream of peace made real. How about a new Kellogg-Briand pact now when the need is so great. With so much on the line, we have nothing to lose.
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