Is Our Military Prepared?

Letter to the Editor published in the Ozaukee County News Graphic:

By Lt Col Phil Bail, USAF ret
STARRS Wisconsin State Leader

To the editor,

Trouble is brewing all over the world.

Putin has said he will use nuclear weapons if Ukraine is allowed by the United States to use long-range missiles in its war against Ukraine.

A “Houthi” missile was shot into central Jerusalem last week.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Germany, our strongest ally in Europe, will require 100 years to rebuild its military to 1991 strength.

The Navy has mothballed seven cruisers because it doesn’t have the resources to maintain them or the sailors to operate them.

Is our military prepared? The short answer is “no.”

A recent bipartisan congressional report “Commission on the National Defense Strategy” said: “The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose.”

The Heritage Foundation published a comprehensive, nongovernmental assessment of our military readiness – for the first time it provided an overall rating for 2024 of “weak,” down from “marginal” in 2023.

Many problems exist:

– The largest recruiting crisis in over half a century occurred last year when our military recruitment was short by 41,000 personnel;

– 44% of women failed the Army Combat Fitness Test, the Army has reduced the standards for the test to accommodate more women and older soldiers;

– Department of Defense data show that 70% of active-duty service members are overweight and that obesity rates have doubled in the last 10 years;

– In 2018, 70% of Americans said they would recommend joining the military to family or friends. By 2023, that number had plummeted to 51%.

The National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness concluded that “the human elements of training, discipline, cohesion, confidence, and morale critical to fighting and winning wars are under severe duress due to a prioritization of a political agenda that distracts from the warfighting mission and diminishes trust in military leadership.”

Citizens of Ozaukee County can take action to help rectify these shortcomings by going to STARRS.US, a bipartisan organization formed in 2007 by retired military and concerned citizens.

Its focus is to maximize military readiness and teambuilding by focusing on warfighting while enforcing high standards.

Phil Bail, LtCol, USAF, retired
Cedarburg

First published in the Ozaukee County News Graphic