Carter Draws Fire Over "Dangerous" Plan to Relax Standards by Andrew Tilghman, Military Times
Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s new proposal to relax the military's recruiting standards for fitness and body composition is fraught with potential problems both politically and practically, observers say.
Carter floated the idea during a speech in New York on Tuesday, suggesting current recruiting standards may be “overly restrictive” and result in the military rejecting people who have vital skills in foreign languages or in fields such as cyber security and intelligence analysis.Pentagon officials said the current accessions standards will be reviewed. No changes are imminent, and it’s likely that any final decisions will be made next year after the Obama administration’s top appointees have left the Defense Department.
In the case of fitness and body composition standards, defense officials emphasized that the standards for the active-duty force will not change but some prospective recruits, once considered unfit, might be shipped to boot camp in the hope that initial military training will help them get into shape…
‘Change For The Sake Of Change’ Seems To Be The Navy Secretary’s Motto by Carl Forsling, Task & Turpose
Secretary Mabus has offered dozens of solutions in search of problems during his tenure.
Ray Mabus is arguably the most famous secretary of the Navy since Theodore Roosevelt and the era of the Great White Fleet. It would be great if the secretary’s prominence was due to the emergence of the Navy and Marine Corps into a new era. Unfortunately, Mabus is only famous for being perhaps the most controversial Navy secretary in living memory.
It didn’t have to be this way. By themselves, most of Mabus’ pet rocks are somewhat harmless. Taken together, they aren’t so much of a “bucket list” as a “fuck it” list of things to get done before his term as secretary ends, to slightly paraphrase President Obama. While he may see the value in jamming as many initiatives through as possible before his window of opportunity is closed, those who actually have to spend their careers in the service are left wondering, “Why the hell did we do all this stuff?”…