On Opinions and Articles

It is a curious phenomenon indeed that Conservatives and Liberals alike, in trying to communicate their personal opinions on our country’s decline, always insist on somehow bashing our military. Be it labeling us potential extremist/insider threat breeding ground or lamenting the decline and warning we are “in trouble,” everyone has an opinion they simply must share - all while considering themselves objective third party in their observations. And all these people find themselves qualified on some similar basis as, “I almost served, but this one thing wasn’t perfect about it [or, my personal favorite, I had gnostic knowledge about the military’s trajectory that my recruiter simply can’t see because he drank the koolaid] so I took the high road and did other things.”

Exactly when it became fashionable to bash the military as filled with either extremists (liberal’s claim) or morally misguided simpletons (the conservative claim), I do not know. I know that it was at least ten years ago, since at that time my younger brother (now proudly serving as a full-blown jarhead Marine, by the way!) wrote a very long article/email explaining why he in good conscience could never join the armed forces of America. And 10 years ago sounds about right enough to mark the start of this phenomenon: it was back in 2015 if I remember correctly that Obama opened all jobs of military service to both males and females alike.

This decision was, without a doubt, a controversial one at the time - and remains so even to this day. What I mean by that is precisely this: people have and had mixed feelings and opinions on the decision. Many females within the ranks of the Armed Forces still receive comments about their service. 

But simple controversy on a philosophical level is not the end of it. Almost predictably, the branches of service have struggled to seamlessly incorporate the homogeneity of the genders into military service. There have been data-driven criticisms since then accusing the military of falling standards and discipline. Take, for example, the recent attempts by the US Army to administer the service’s physical fitness test.

Very soon after lifting all barriers to women serving in combat roles, Congress directed the Army to develop a physical training test that was gender-neutral but scaled to reflect military jobs. A Soldier who was primarily in a combat role would, according to the new test, have more stringent standards to be compliant than a Soldier with an administrative role. Millions of dollars and years of development later, the Army introduced the six-event Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) to replace the Cold War era, three-event Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT).

The test really is more than adequate at what it sets out to do. Mimicking many real-life activities both on and off the battlefield, the ACFT is a full-body workout, and it is designed to be. At the time of the initial rollout, the test was as originally conceived: gender neutral. However, the disparity between the scores of men and women in each category was quickly noted and deemed unfair towards women without any further development. One event in particular—the leg tuck—returned exponentially different results for men and women. The immense disparity in this event resulted in a 60% failure rate for women, while for men, it was a mere 8%.

The response to the disparity of gender scores in the ACFT was guttural, political, and quick. Congress began fielding complaints against the test (before it was even approved for use) based on allegations of gender discrimination from these testing results. It did not matter that shortly after the initial results—when the branch had sufficient time to train—the initial 60/8 failure ratio dropped to a 22/2 failure rate. Complaints against the leg tuck as an event ranged from using the initial data as evidence of a test inordinately weighted against women to positing that the event itself was inherently unfair to female Soldiers regardless of the data and success rates. The relative ease males could train and complete the one required repetition over the amount of work females would have to put in to accomplish the same was consistently pointed to as evidence supporting these critiques.

The mere accusation of inherent sexism and gender discrimination supposedly enshrined by the leg tuck was enough. Congress gave a knee-jerk reaction to these negative responses, with no further discussion or study. Though they first added an alternative event, Congress ultimately discarded the event altogether. The gender-neutral scoring system, which was such a key part of the test’s development, was abandoned, as were the job-specific scores. Passing scores reverted back to the easiest on the chart and were once more different for males and females. One Army Reserve Officer wrote in an Op-Ed piece, “One way to fix [the disparity of gender scoring] would have been to give soldiers time and resources to rise to the challenge. Instead, under significant political pressure, the Army chose to remove the leg tuck, and to rewrite score charts to guarantee most soldiers passed.”

So much for the controversy of a genderless military. And, whether this domino in 2015 was the start of all this or not, let this example serve as proof of the continued struggles within the military - and the opinions on the matter from those both within and without the ranks. The exploration of a genderless military is well beyond the scope of this paper; you will have to return and read my upcoming book on the gender roles for that discussion. But it shows that 2015 (and it’s rippling affects) is as good a place as any to put the blame on generating the newest fashion of military elitism and criticism from civilians.

Fast forward to a mere 3 months ago, the American Conservative published a piece by one Mr. Michael Vlahos called “America’s Military is in Big Trouble.” Now, I have no idea whether Mr. Michael Vlahos ever considered military service. I assume he never served, since his bio omits mention of past service. But he possibly could have. This being said, while he may or may not have done the, “I didn’t serve, but if I had I would definitely have done Marines or maybe SF” dance, one thing is on par with my expectations: some civilian doesn’t like his country and to prove his point has opinions about the military. His recent article from the end of July claims that America’s fighting strength is one in a long string of nations whose, “peak war force [has lost or is losing] its edge, and fast.” This article walks his readers through four, “non-tech roads to rapid onset military decline, with historical examples that should feel familiar” in order to prove his point.

Opinions are not automatically wrong simply because the opiner has an ax to grind. Nor is it impossible for a non-initiated to have correct opinions about something they are, in fact, on the outside of. If these were true, there would simply be no overcoming that initial solitude into which Man was created in the Garden: Adam is not Eve, after all. No, the nature of discussion and encounter with the human person actually necessitates two perspectives, and often the perspective of an outside view. With this in mind, I am disinclined to dismiss Mr. Vlahos’ article out of hand merely on the basis that he has opinions and his very brief bio has no mention of military service. But does his argument hold up on its own right? Let us take a look and see.

To read the rest of this article, check out my Substack!