Right about now, I am almost without words at the complete chaos the United States Army has devolved into. Believe me, I’m going to find plenty of words, but it is just such a gob-smacking, indescribable, totally avoidable, epic cluster flock that I almost can’t believe it’s our Army I’m talking about.

The first I heard about this was a NSFW video Ebola sent along done by this pretty hilarious former cop and Army DI dude. “Angry Cops” does scathing commentary on the services and the world at large. He was wondering if the cancelled Central Command Marine Corps ball and a sudden, insane rush to send soldiers to Army recruiting school were related and signaling bad things in the world were about to happen.

Well, we’d read General McPhillips letter and thought it was pretty unusual.

But hadn’t heard a thing about the chaos with these out-of-the-blue Army recruiting orders, NOR the bennies the Army was attaching to those who made it through.

It could have pointed to something ominous globally, but the more that comes out about the Army itself?

It’s not the world on fire – it’s the Army melting down in real time, and that’s what should be scaring the Schlitz out of everyone right now.

So what happened, right? Let’s start at the top.

In one of the very first posts I wrote when I joined this fine establishment – lamenting the current state of the Armed Forces – I included a video (again, with some pithy language) contrasting Marine Corps advertising to the Army’s. The joining for a sense of purpose, duty, and honor versus appealing to people with two moms and paying for college schools of recruiting.

It’s not a new concept or suggestion for the woke ones at Army HQ, but one they refuse to hear. God forbid they should honor “service to country.”

…Like most of the other services, the Army has been struggling to replenish its ranks. Military officials have cited such factors as a strong civilian job market and obesity among young people that makes them unfit to serve.

The service has missed its recruiting goals for three straight years.

The Rand study suggests taking a page from the Marine Corps’ approach, which has always revolved around captivating commercials and the notion that being a Marine means being one of the “the few, the proud.”

The Corps was the only service to hit its recruiting targets in the last fiscal year.

It’s only gotten worse. Blundering along with a Joint Chief head who worried about “white rage” more than readiness, and an Army Secretary who despises the “warrior caste” of patriotic, middle-class families who have a tradition of generational service…

This is a deliberate move to remake the military into a woke fighting force that has no loyalty to traditional values. Once accomplished, the new military can be used against the country’s traditional values based people. Welcome to fascism.

— Author Walt Browning (@waltbrowning) July 14, 2023

…the Army was primed for major problems in the ranks and filling them. Every woke or overreactive move they made to address the issues has only exacerbated the overall decline.

Besides relaxing physical standards almost to the point of non-existence, starting a separate pre-bootcamp bootcamp for fat bodies who swear they want to be soldiers, allowing persons with formerly disqualifying psychiatric issues like ADHD, clinical depression, and transgender issues to enlist, and throwing bonuses into the wind, the Army still can’t make their numbers.

Can’t blame COVID forever, dudes.

They’ve also been horrifically abusing the soldiers they’ve managed to retain by virtue of both the short-handedness in the ranks – being able to feed soldiers is no longer a priority – and the ridiculous woke crap they have to put up with, like female soldiers having to shower with males posing as women.

All this adds up to a bad rep that the Army brass and big money consultants are completely unable to wrap their tiny brains around cures for.

Insult to injury, they’ve gone and abused the troops again with another brilliant rescue Band-Aid for a self inflicted wound, and this is a recruiting by God scandal. And what they have just done to these soldiers IS a scandal.

How does the entire Army wake up one morning to realize they’d only graduated half the recruiters from recruiting school that they needed…AFTER AN ENTIRE YEAR HAS GONE BY?

…The eight-week Army Recruiter Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, can train a maximum of 2,866 students across a total of 53 classes. However, data shows that it graduated only 1,336 in fiscal 2023, which concluded at the end of September.

Can no one count?

And what was this Army’s carefully considered answer to the shortfall?

Send a buttload of emergency orders to an unsuspecting 800 soldiers all over the globe that they had TWO WEEKS OR LESS to get their butts to school.

…A sudden and chaotic string of orders for NCOs to immediately fill 800 seats at the recruiting school has roiled the Army in recent days. On Monday, 200 of them started classes after being given a week’s notice, though some soldiers’ orders to the school were canceled due to media coverage and local chains of command that were irritated by the short notice.

I’ll bet the majority of these soldiers have families, wives might have jobs, they might have mortgages to pay, childcare to consider. So out of the blue orders come for school, and then the upheaval to wherever the orders are after graduation. Could be Miami, could be Bismark, ND. With basically no notice to get anything in order and a move over the holidays or in dead of winter.

Oh, yeah – causing some heartburn made all the worse knowing it was the Army’s screw-up your family gets to pay for. Soldiers and commands blew their stacks.

Without warning, hundreds of noncommissioned officers were ordered via email to report to the recruiting school at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in less than a week, with hundreds more set to start at the school in December — a sudden unexpected move by the Army as the service scrambles to boost its recruiting force by 800 by the end of the year.

The orders came after a breakdown in how the Army tracks how many recruiters it has coming through the pipeline along with retention of existing ones, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, the Army’s top personnel officer. The sudden depletion of recruiters caught Army planners flat-footed, with officials unable to provide a clear explanation as to what went wrong.

Now, NCOs will likely have to move during the holiday season and in the middle of the school year, sowing chaos for families.

The other unconscionable thing about this? We all know that general will still have his job. Everyone associated will still have their jobs while some poor E-5s family is thrown to the wolves.

Retention, much?

The Army pulled an “Our bad,” but only after word leaked out. I’m sure that assuages the hard feelings – probably really helps. (And please note the young lady on the right the recruiters are speaking to is illustrative of their recruiting challenges)

Army apologizes for sending soldiers ‘last-minute’ recruiting orders
https://t.co/jLI77MVO8l

— ArmyTimes (@ArmyTimes) November 1, 2023

And again, this idiot general officer will still have his job.

…”I want to apologize to the soldiers and families for receiving this last-minute notification; that mistake is mine,” Stitt told reporters Wednesday. “It’s not lost on me, particularly at this point in time on the cusp of the holidays, the [impact] this has on our soldiers and NCOs.”

“It’s not lost on me” but tough nuggets for you. There’s your problem, right there.

This isn’t a war the general’s saying “suck it up for” – IT’S HIS SCREW-UP soldiers and their families are getting to eat.

The Army’s also also throwing the goodie farm at recruiting candidates, which is not going to help the Army in the long run. You could conceivably have a 4 year E-7 or 8 who knows nothing about his military specialty returning to the field to lord it over guys who’ve been sloggin it out in the trenches. But he’s in charge.

…To incentivize recruiting roles, the Army is offering promotions and sometimes money. The service will promote sergeants going to recruiting school to staff sergeant — assuming they are not flagged for reasons such as failing the fitness test — “no questions asked,” Sgt. Maj. Chris Stevens, the top enlisted leader for personnel policy, told reporters.

The opportunity will extend to soldiers recently promoted to sergeant, with time in service and grade requirements being waived, possibly serving as a fast track on the enlisted promotion ladder. The soldier is still expected to complete the Advanced Leader Course, but it’s unclear if that needs to be done within a year as is required with temporary promotions.

Those who attend recruiting school and attend by February will earn a $5,000 bonus. Current recruiters who extend their recruiting contracts can earn $1,500 per month for one year. Staff sergeants who volunteer for recruiting school, and recruit 24 applicants in their first year on the job, will be promoted to sergeant first class. That incentive is not for the group of soldiers who were forced to go to the school.

This is going to cause all sorts of issues down the road on top of the resentment Gen Stitt and his incompetent staff of boobs have already created.

What a cluster – what a frickin’ cluster.

The army just expanded eligibility for those who can receive casualty affairs training (CAOs are the people who knock on your door to inform you if your loved one has died in combat) in “the event of a Large Scale Combat Operation or Mass Casualty event.”

Interesting timing on… pic.twitter.com/00JvQLQkzd

— Shoe (@samosaur) November 6, 2023

Sheesh. What’s next?

Why does no one want their kid to join? Toss this one in the basket with all the others.

There comes a point where even “the beatings will continue until morale improves” humor can’t save you., and then what do they do?