Over the past several years, as more and more demands were being placed on the Army, I have grown increasingly concerned about maintaining "standards".
To put my view in perspective, note that for the last four years of my military service I was engaged totally in training engineer Soldiers during their initial entry training period at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Thus, "standards" were at the heart of what I was then doing (1988-1992). Since then, I've been no stranger to training developments in the Army, and in fact have written numerous first-hand, on site articles about what's going on.
So, today when I read the following comment online, my "concern meter" was raised again. “The Army is caught in a perfect storm,” says Larry Korb, the Pentagon's top manpower official during the Reagan administration. “It's had to lower standards to keep people coming in — and it's made changes to keep people from getting out.”
I agree with this assessment. HOWEVER, let me be clear that I am not implying the Army's initial entry and other training programs are not being executed at the highest level. They are, in my view. The problem is, the Army has had to adapt the best it could, given manpower force constraints, placed on top of constant and unrelenting demands to effectively fight two very difficult wars.
I suppose I am still very much a creature of my Vietnam War service, and thus do not want to see the Army again experience what it did in the late 1970's. On the other hand, I am also reminded that during the last half of my career, we transformed from our sad post-Vietnam days, to an Army that was perhaps the best trained and equipped ever. Looking at challenges today such as those cited by Korb, does not necessarily mean there are dark days are ahead.
