Irregular Army

by Matt Kennard

  On top of that, $6 million of federal money was granted to the Troop Recruit Improvement (TRIM) program run by the Nutrition Research Council, the aim of which was to “improve recruit readiness and fitness by determining and combating the causes of childhood and adolescent obesity.”12 Dr. Andrew Young, Chief of the Military Nutrition Division in Natick, Massachusetts, was an adviser on the TRIM project. “We definitely have seen that soldiers are not immune to the obesigenic environmental factors of this country and the rest of the world,” he told me. “The military now recognizes that some of the soldiers in the army and probably other services are having trouble maintaining healthy body weight.” Young claimed further that obesity is rising in the army. “The goal for us is to design intervention programs for soldiers to use in coping with problems of obesity,” he added. “The environmental pressures are growing—more and more soldiers have duties that are not as active—not all soldiers have very physically demanding jobs, some have a relatively small physical component. The environment promotes fat gain unless we are aggressive to counteract those pressures.”

  During a 2009 visit to the army’s largest training installation, General Bostick said a slim-down camp could be part of the new Army Prep School at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, which was giving prospective soldiers the qualifications they needed in order to serve. “We are looking at the Army Prep School as a place where we might send some that have weight issues,” he said.13 Bostick argued that although many of the young people who want to join the army have a hard time understanding the importance of a healthy diet and daily exercise, they could nevertheless get themselves up to the required military standards with guidance. “It took them 18 years to get to where they are at, so it’s very difficult for them to lose the kind of weight that they need to on their own,” he said. “[The military] are doing this because they are desperate,” added Lawrence J. Korb, a former Pentagon chief of personnel during the Reagan administration. The desperation was starting to show in July 2008, when the Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Training Headquarters (HEALTH), an online program that designed troops a personal weight-loss program, was set up at Fort Bragg. It wasn’t just a beefy army, either. The air force—or “chair force” as it was rechristened—had its own ideas and started its own Fit to Fight program in 2004. “I want to make very clear that my focus is not on passing a fitness test once a year,” General Jumper said. “More important, we are changing the culture of the Air Force. This is about our preparedness to deploy and fight. It’s about warriors. It’s about instilling an expectation that makes fitness a daily standard—an essential part of your service.”14 The program required commanders to institute some sort of daily fitness routine. Lieutenant Colonel Friedl, however, as an expert in weight issues, believed all this wasn’t enough. “It’s a shame to lose somebody that you’ve invested a lot of money in and it’s their career as well simply because they can’t meet these standards and for lack of providing some kind of specialized assistance that might have made all the difference.” But the specialized assistance was too expensive; it was easier to let the troops’ waistlines expand.

  Obesity Within the Military

  Once in the military, there is ample opportunity for soldiers to pile on weight, as they sit around at checkpoints all day, or eat continually from boredom. The army has regulations to deal with this—or at least it should have. Every soldier is expected to stay in shape and pass biannual fitness tests, including screening for weight. If they fail that, they are put on to the “weight control” program, which has a strict regimen of exercise and dietary requirements. It’s not good for your career either: you can’t be promoted while on the program. The marines had their own version of this with the Body Composition Program—if a marine failed to get back in shape while in the program they risked discharge from the military. In 2008, however, an investigation revealed that only about one in three marines found to be overweight was actually enrolled in a BCP.15 As these programs were neglected things predictably got worse. “In the past decade among active military members in general, the percent of military members who experienced medical encounters for overweight/obesity has steadily increased; and since 2003, rates of increase have generally accelerated,” said a 2009 Pentagon report.16 But despite the increasing number of “medical encounters,” the military has discharged ever fewer service members for not meeting weight standards. In 1998, 2,224 soldiers were discharged from the army for not meeting the standards. In 2006 that figure had fallen to 589—a 74 percent drop in eight years.17 This was not, of course, because the military’s anti-fat programs had suddenly become much more effective. “These statistics should be seen against the background of the army trying very hard to maintain its overall numbers,” Dr. Russell Pate, professor of health sciences at the University of South Carolina and a military adviser on obesity, told me. In his opinion, “They’ve been granting waivers to the weight exclusion program in the interest of meeting targets.”

  Some saw the proliferation of fat soldiers in a more positive light. Indeed, in the eyes of one group, it was a seminal moment: “I think it’s great that they finally understand our value in society,” Lynn McAfee, of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, told me. “Now they finally understand that everyone can play a part in defending our country . . . It’s absurd that as desperate as we are now for soldiers,” she continued, “we’re still kicking out people of worth and people of value because of how they look. But I’d like to think this is a turning point.” But the notion that overweight people swaddled in many pounds of Kevlar might not be fit for wandering around a desert in 30-degree Celsius heat has more to do with common sense than discrimination. McAfee had supporters in the US military brass though, who (as usual) denied there was a problem or anything to worry about. Nathan M. Banks, Sr., a spokesman for the army, dismissed the charges out of hand, telling me: “Soldiers realize how important it is to stay in shape. Especially in time of war, the heat in Iraq can get up in the 100s, soldiers carry body armor that weighs over 60 pounds.” This explanation isn’t bolstered by the statistics: from 2005 to 2006, there was a drop from 801 to 589 in the number of discharges for obesity.18

  Despite the military refusing to kick out its tubby service members, there were still attempts by soldiers themselves to use it as a means to avoid fighting. Failing your fitness test is a way to avoid exercises or combat, one that doesn’t carry the heavy burden of going AWOL. “There is a problem in the Army with overweight soldiers and malingering,” said Specialist Oittis D. Allen in a letter to the Army Times. “These soldiers are claiming to be hurt so they don’t have to participate in physical exercises, and they don’t work like the rest of the soldiers. The doctor will write them a temporary excuse to malinger; the doctor will not sign off on a permanent profile knowing their only medical problem is they are overweight.” The whole process was broken. “The Army regulation for overweight soldiers is to give them a certain amount of time to lose the weight or be discharged, but the chain of command is finding ways to overlook the situation,” he continued. “In my company, I have seen several cases of soldiers being promoted even though they can’t pass the Army Physical Fitness Test, along with passing weight and tape standards. I’m getting tired of the system being unequal. I and other soldiers are putting out 100 percent for the Army to get the mission accomplished, while the obese soldiers get everything given to them.”19

  Back home from the warzone, veterans had more given to them with yet another new overweight initiative by the VA (created in 2006), called Managing Overweight Veterans Everywhere, or MOVE. The program sought to help veterans escape their obesity or prevent them from falling into it when they return home and was piloted at James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, Tampa, Florida, where it was coordinated by nurse Norma Figueroa who oversaw about 400 veterans. “The veteran population is mostly obese and so we as a team decided the best thing to do was to help with prevention,” she told me. “I don’t know anybody who has been kicked out for be
ing overweight,” she added, “because it’s not happening. They provided a program, but they let them all stay.”

  Medical Concern

  This oversight was hugely damaging. The Pentagon themselves admit that being overweight “is a significant military medical concern because it is associated with decreased military operational effectiveness.”20 This includes the obvious fact that a lack of physical fitness and a few extra rolls of flab are going to make you less of a force on the battlefield, but it also puts a strain on the military medical services as overweight recruits are more likely to develop chronic health effects. “One of the implications is that having a significant number that are overweight there is a higher incidence of negative outcomes, limitations on work performance, but also to the profusion of veteran health care,” says Dr. Pate. “There is the impact on physical performance; it’s true that, to take a simple example, if we have 150lb person who has normal percent body fat today but five years later has 20lb [excess] that is going to have negative impact on performance, he will run slower, lift his body weight fewer times, in terms of combat military specialities which are done based on physical performance it’s certainly true that you would expect negative impact on performance . . . I think the overriding issue,” he continued, “is that in the broad sweep having significant numbers in military who are overweight is a concern in terms of soldier performance and both soldier and veteran health overall.”

  The Pentagon officially blamed the proliferation of video games and fast food for military chubbiness, but they must take at least part of the blame insofar as they allowed fast food joints to take over from mess halls as places for soldiers to eat in Kabul and Baghdad. In Baghdad’s Green Zone there were outlets for Pizza Hut, Subway, Cinnabon, Burger King, and Taco Bell. There was also the Post Exchange, a military supermarket selling T-bone steaks and other goodies. Standing outside Burger King a journalist caught a group of soldiers contemplating a second Whopper burger. “Not me, man,” said Specialist Joe Lorenzo. “I put on so much goddam weight, who knows if my wife will recognize me when I get home?”21 It was made worse as operations were handed over to local Iraqi troops, leaving US service members with less and less to do—apart from eat. “You make the best of the situation,” said Private Jonathan Roane. “We used to eat to fight. It’s not like that anymore.”22 Their British allies were not much better. In a 2009 memo, Major Brian Dupree said: “The numbers of personnel unable to deploy and concerns about obesity throughout the army are clearly linked to current attitudes towards physical training,” adding that “operational effectiveness” was being undermined.23 It was even putting lives at risk. A British inquiry in 2007 revealed that Private Jason Smith had died of heat stroke in Iraq after concerns about his weight. It found he was “at the higher level of obese” at 17 stones and his BMI was dangerously high at 34, the implication being that it precipitated his death.24

  INTELLIGENCE OPS

  If you come from a poor family, you are more likely to drop out of high school. And if you drop out and stay out of high school, you are more likely to be poor.

  Neve Grant, NPR, 200625

  On a sunny morning in August 2009 the ribbon was cut at the inaugural Patriot Academy on a National Guard installation in Butlerville, Indiana. It was the first institution of its kind in the US and pulled in a crowd of high-powered political figures from around the state. Indiana Democratic Representative Barron Hill and Indiana Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman stood watching the theatrics, including a flyover by Blackhawk helicopters and other celebrations to mark the opening. There were reasons to be cheerful: the Patriot Academy would be the first military entity charged with giving a high school diploma to “at-risk youth” who wanted to serve in the National Guard but couldn’t because they had dropped out of education, which was a bar to enlistment.26 There was a heady feeling in the air as those giving speeches attested to the importance of this generous new educational experience. “The Patriot Academy can be described in two words: second chance,” said Colonel Perry Sarver Jr., the Academy’s commandant. “These soldiers are here because they have unfinished business, and they are getting a second chance to right a wrong. These young men have started down a path that will change their lives forever.”

  The project was the brainchild of Lieutenant General Clyde A. Vaughn, the former director of the Army National Guard, who had been troubled by the number of young Americans still not fit for service in the military. Why not provide high-school-age youth the opportunity to earn a diploma as an active-duty soldier, thereby bypassing the bar on enlistment for high school dropouts? It was “an investment in our most precious resource,” he said, an opportunity to help the youth of America at the same time as defending American’s freedoms. At the Patriot Academy, the students would receive full-time military pay and benefits while they were training. The first class beginning their journey on that afternoon was just forty-six students with a staff of thirty, but there were big ambitions for the program. Two years later it had expanded to 250 students and by 2011 reached 500. For its soldier students, the Academy was the real deal: it had secured Indiana educational accreditation which meant that their qualification would be a bona fide high school diploma, so graduating soldiers would be classed in the military hierarchy as so-called tier 1, opening up the full range of opportunities throughout their career in the armed forces.

  There were a few requirements for enrollment: recruits had to be between seventeen and twenty years old and within ten credit hours of high school graduation. But those successfully picked would spend a period in basic training, then nine months at the academy before moving to a school which focused specifically on the military occupation (meaning job not country) in which they were interested. Giving those who had not had a good start in life a second chance while at the same time swelling the army’s ranks did sound like a good idea, and there were the usual euphoric reports from the media: “Only months ago, four dozen high-school dropouts from around the country faced a bleak future and limited opportunities in the work force. Now they are soldiers at the Patriot Academy, on their way to earning their high-school diplomas and credits towards a college degree,” wrote one military reporter. The new soldier students seemed chipper, too: “I’m going to be a Fire Support Specialist,” Private Michael Meadows, nineteen, of Daleville, Indiana, told US Fed News. “But I have to get my diploma here first before I can go to Advanced Individual Training. I’ve been looking forward to this.”27 But of course it was not an altruistic Pentagon program (they tend not to exist). The Pentagon wanted and needed recruits and was prepared to hold young people’s hopes for an education hostage to service in the War on Terror. This new program marked a full-scale militarization of the recruits’ education, with no real pretence otherwise. When the nine-month program was finished the soldier students would be obliged to commit to eight years of service with the National Guard, which had been increasingly involved in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. “The Army National Guard has had a significant evolution in the last eight years,” said Raymond Carpenter, acting director of the National Guard, in Congressional testimony. “Units mobilized and deployed from different states and territories provided support to overseas contingency operations and to the Homeland Defense mission.”28 In other words, they were sure to have to fight. The parents of the new students seemed aware of the inevitability that their loved ones would see combat. “War abroad, or war on the streets,” said one mom, giving an apt description of the choice facing young, poor Americans. “At least he’ll be fighting for something,” the dad added.29 The National Guard was to be the Trojan horse used to penetrate the wider community, which had still not completely sacrificed its young for the war effort. The Guard had a sterling record in this regard, one lauded by military bigwigs. Army Brigadier General Maria Britt, commanding general of the Georgia Army National Guard, speaking at the DOD’s Worldwide Education Symposium about the Guard’s youth and voluntary education programs, noted, “The Guard has a
proud tradition of initiating and funding education programs that reach out to non-military adults, youth and . . . schools,” adding, “We do this because we want to be good stewards in the communities that we serve.”30 In truth, it had nothing to do with being good stewards. The Patriot Academy was another way to blackmail the poor who have been failed by the mainstream education system only to be failed again once in service.

  Despite all this, the Academy was no doubt a serious enticement. One of the new soldier students put it like this: “Just the fact that I could get a high school diploma rather than a GED sounded better to me. It just makes me feel and sound like I’ve completed my school. Like our sergeant major once told us, we’re not going to get this chance again. If you get the opportunity to come to the Patriot Academy to have your second chance, you actually get paid to go to school and learn new things.”31 Amid all the rhetoric about “second chances,” Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t mentioned in the prospectus. And reports on the initial student body left no doubt about the ethnic demographic the military were targeting. “The current class at the Academy is a mix of Americans from a wide group of ethnic and racial backgrounds,” reported the army’s official news service, before quoting Private Rigoberto Rodriguez, who grew up in El Paso, Texas: “Being a minority with other minorities helps me to feel at home,” he said.32

  Student Soldiers

  It wasn’t surprising the military should focus on this pool of potential recruits; perhaps the only shock was that it took until 2009 to inaugurate the Academy. High school dropouts posed one of the major obstacles to the recruitment of America’s youth. A report by a non-profit group composed of retired military figures entitled Ready, Willing, and Unable To Serve spelled out the problem, contending that 75 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year olds do not qualify for service, adding “many young Americans who want to join cannot.”33 The three most common barriers for potential recruits were, it said, failure to graduate high school, a criminal record, and physical fitness issues, including obesity. The criminal record had been dealt with by “moral waivers” and the obesity problem dealt with by “medical waivers,” but restrictions on non-graduates would be more difficult to sidestep. Approximately one out of four young Americans lacks a high school diploma and like any military, the US needed “high-competent individuals who can operate high-tech machinery and computer machinery,” soldiers who can “work in teams” with “excellent judgment.” “That cannot be acquired just in basic training,” the report concluded, so dropping the standards on educational attainment would not be so easy to do without seriously affecting operational readiness. The other option, of course, was that education would have to improve. But would it take the need for more fodder for the War on Terror to convince the political elite to raise educational standards? The report believed it had to: “The most proven investment to help kids graduate from high school starts early: high‐quality early education for at-­risk kids.” It never happened.