U.S. Army Tells Soldiers to Shape Up or Ship Out

Serving in the military in an active combat zone puts young men in harm’s way.

So it makes sense to do everything possible to make our soldiers more fit in order to lower that death rate. The new Army test was designed to improve soldiers’ fitness … if it doesn’t injure them in the process. In particular, the dead lift is highly questionable because if not done correctly there is a good chance of injury. And the new standard may be so high that it will be hard to recruit soldiers. Even football stars fail to match the army guys. And it seems illogical to hold women to the same standards as men. MAYBE they could be for exercises relative to their size and weight, but not to ones like the dead lift or pulling a heavily-laden sled.

Veterans Day Reminds Us of Some Grassroots Programs to Help Vets

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U.S. servicemen and servicewomen often face conditions when they return from their service that are worse in many respects than during their service. Even though they may have endured life-threatening combat and great discomforts, they were fed and clothed and sheltered (to some extent) by the military establishment. But when they leave the military they often are on their own, and often suffer from mental ilness, homelessness, alcohol/drug abuse, and other woes. Fortunately, there are a number of initiatives started, or supported, by well-meaning people that can help these veterans in their new civilian lives. One example is super-star country-western singer Tim McGraw, who is an ambassador for Operation Homefront, which has a long list of very basic current needs such as housing, utilities, food, and car. If things are so bad that they are barely surviving, it’s little wonder that a survey by the Disabled American Veterans charity released on November 10 found that just 44 percent of veterans report they have received the health, disability, financial and education benefits they were promised and only 18 percent believe disabled veterans have received the benefits they were promised. So they have to scramble to find jobs. But many veterans have found that the natures of the military environment and the commercial one are so different that many of them end up being entrepreneurs by necessity; according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, veterans are 45% more likely to be self-employed than people with no military service. One new nonprofit organization that is trying to help them become entrepreneurs is Patriot Boot Camp, a series of three-day workshops intended to give veterans some basic training to get started. And there are some notable exceptions among big organizations, e.g., Bank of America, which supports the U.S. military through contributions to military-focused charitable organizations, differentiated banking services for military servicemembers (especially through the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA)), and a commitment to hiring military veterans.

Women in Combat: The Debate Continues

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In recent weeks there has been a rash of news on the subject of women in combat, with a range of actions from several units of the U.S. military and a range of opinions from women. Not surprisingly, the units of the military were those whose fighters engaged in the most dangerous missions or had to pass the most challenging physical tests. The Navy SEALs agreed to admit women if they could pass the tough tests, though noting that very few women so far had passed those tests. Though two women had recently completed the daunting Army Ranger School, a former female captain and airborne soldier–someone who had actually served–identified a long list of obstacles to having women serve in the infantry. Although there was an overall requirement for all military units to accept women by January 1, 2016, there were provisions for exceptions on a unit-by-unit basis. Not surprisingly, given their history and ethos, the Marines have been the most outspoken objectors to this, though there have been complaints about the research they did to support their views. (It is amusing that the title of this article was a play on “A Few Good Men”, a movie whose cast included actress Demi Moore, who also starred in “G.I. Jane”, a movie specifically showing a woman going through the same grueling and demeaning tests that the elite males had to complete.)

Although there has been a recent spate of developments, and news about them, regarding women’s serving in particularly dangerous or difficult military combat roles, the issue has been around for a considerable time. In March 1999 a book authored by Rosemarie Skaine, “Women at War: Gender Issue of Americans in Combat”, dealt with many of them 15 years ago.

Need Alternate Routes to Becoming a Military Officer

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As we noted in our June 15, 2015 post, the institution that has the highest confidence among Americans is the military. So it is logical that Americans would want both its fighting troops and their leaders to be as qualified as possible. As pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal article a lot higher fraction of the enlisted personnel in the military have high school diplomas than does the American populace as a whole. And a lot higher fraction of the officers in the military have college bachelor’s degree than does the American populace as a whole, though this is because it has historically been a requirement for becoming an officer. However, there is growing evidence (including surveys such as the 2013 Gallup-Lumina Foundation Report) that the capabilities needed for a military officer might actually be better gained by actual experience—particularly (though not necessarily) in a specialized capacity or four years of actual military service as an enlisted person.

United Airlines Customers Donate MilagePlus Miles to Fisher House’s Hero Miles Program

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Many wounded or ill military service members, and their relatives, don’t have the funds to travel the oft-times long distances between home and the medical facilities where they’re being treated. But some of them can get the welcome support thanks to at least one charity’s program and the generosity of some airline customers. During the last 10 years, United Airlines’ customers have donated more than 600,000,000 miles, which provided more than 11,400 tickets to our fighting men and women.

Americans’ Confidence in Their Military Remains High, Per Gallup Poll

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Although Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below historical levels for most institutions, two institutions are notable for rating higher than their historical levels, the military at 72% and small business at 67% (as measured by the sum of respondents who said “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence), according to the June 2-7 Gallup Poll. The news today is full of reports about battles and wars in many parts of the world, and Americas troops are participating in many of them. The confidence levels presumably reflect Americans’ views of their soldiers, sailors, and flyers are they go off to do battle. However, Gallup is silent as to whether these levels would be high and rising regarding the quality of care we take of our wounded (both physically and mentally), but given the well-publicized snafu’s of the VA hospital network, we suspect that the ratings would be low (though perhaps better this year than the recent past).

As can be seen on the Gallup website, many other institutions’ confidence levels have slipped, some of them seriously. Government as a whole has taken a big hit, with each of the presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress off from their historical averages by huge (double-digit) percentages. Organized religion is also in bad shape. Also, the media, both newspapers and television, have slipped seriously. Curiously, Internet news (which one year ago was marginally better than television news) was not included in the ratings this year. Hmmm.

Choosing Which Veterans Charities to Donate To

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We’ve all received heart-rending appeals for contributions to help our veterans deal with their their physical injuries or mental traumas. But if you’re on a lot of mailing lists, there are so many of these charities and non-profit organizations. Which ones deserve your money? If the charity is one of those classified as 501c3 by the IRS, you should be able to find it at CharityNavigator.com.

But it is not easy to get the IRS to hand out this classification, and there are lots more organizations sending out appeals. (Charity Navigator only lists approximately 50 who deal with veterans, but there are at least 300 total organizations.) Many of them are legitimate organizations, and deserve your considerations, but there are a bunch that should be avoided. Among those are ones that are outline scams, with most or all of the money going into the pockets of the scammers. (One frequent clue is the use of a large popular legimate one, with an extra suffix like “Foundation” or “Association”.) Those that are not complete scams may not be very desirable because too much of each donated dollar doesn’t go to benefit the veterans themselves, instead ending up in the pockets of the promoters or their sub-contractors. So what about the other 250-odd ones? WhyMenDieYoung is starting to build a database of them, and will announce its availability when it is complete enough to be useful. In the meantime, we will be posting useful news as we find it, along with our comments.

Starbucks CEO A Big Supporter of Veterans

Howard Schultz 2 600x336Howard Schultz is putting his money and time where his mouth is, according to The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Unlike what appears to be a fairly large group of self-serving veterans charities, he and Starbucks are doing a lot to raise the consciousness of the rest of us (i.a., via co-sponsoring a free Concert for Valor on the Mall on Veterans Day and co-authoring a book with Rajiv Chandrasekaran (a Washington Post war correspondent) “For Love of Country: What our veterans can teach us about citizenship, heroism, and sacrifice”) and pledging to hire10,000 veterans during a five-year period.

Stanford Business School Trains Veterans in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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Getting killed in a military action is one way men die young. But most servicemen don’t get killed in action. They come back as veterans, and once they have overcome any injuries, both physical and mental, they need to get some education or training, and pursue a job or profession. Not everyone can go to an institution as highly ranked as Stanford University, but it is refreshing to see Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) lend a helping hand. Among the GSB’s specialized student clubs is one for veterans, and during 2014 the GSB worked with the U.S. Special Operations Command Care Coalition and the COMMIT Foundation to offer its Stanford Ignite (an immersive certificate program for entrepreneurship and innovation) to post-9/11 veterans at the GSB for the first time. On Veterans Day, 2014 Stanford’s FM radio station aired interviews by Labiba Boyd with two of these veterans and one of its most famous earlier graduates, Nike founder Phil Knight (who volunteered for the Army just prior to his GSB studies).

Risky Jobs Beyond the Military

Men do the great majority of the risky jobs, partly because they are on average bigger and stronger than women, and partly because of their hormones and societal expectations. And they get killed or injured in much greater numbers accordingly. Men were a dozen times as likely to be killed on the job during 2012 as women, according to this ranking from Forbes Magazine.

The exact ranking of the riskiest professions varies somewhat from Forbes to AOL, but the top two on both lists are fisherman and loggers. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers are third. Not surprisingly, structural iron and steel workers and roofers are high (no pun intended) on both lists. Surprisingly, farmers and ranchers are in the top ten, but firemen are not.

Given the riskiness, most of the jobs do not pay very well. Perhaps there is a lot of psychic income, as some of the jobs are pretty macho. But they’re still risky.