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08/04/2004: "Military Discipline Restoration Underway"

Per Iraq Now, the Bush administration is repairing some of the damage from the Clinton era.

A 1997 quote:

Drill instructors are warned to avoid verbally stressing their recruits. [...] the military forces appear incapable of taking appropriate measures to restore rigor and common sense to basic training.

And from 1999:

[Many] small-unit leaders [agree with this] drill sergeant: "I hope we don't go to war and have to depend on what we are being forced to graduate. It will be ugly!"

The significance?

Again, the Times article misses the entire history of the problem.

But it's this problem which may have been a decisive factor in the lost convoy which nearly cost us Jessica Lynch--and DID cost us the lives of another of other soldiers, thanks in part to neglected weapons training and maintenance--something that ought to be unthinkable to any graduate of a quality basic training program.

For those who forgot about Jessica Lynch, this Wikipedia article does flatter the Pentagon. From "Lynch's Criticism", at the end:

She denied the claims that she fought until being wounded, reporting that her weapon jammed immediately, and that she couldn't have done anything anyway. Interviewed with Diane Sawyer, Lynch stated, [...] "I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember."

Her squad mates (?) were dying all around her, her equipment failed (probably due to her poor maintenance), so she dropped to her knees.

I do not trust Democrats with the military.