Fit To Serve? Most Young Adults Aren't

(CBS)  Summer, when school is over, is the military's prime recruiting time. But when the Army goes looking for young people to enlist, says Gen. William Wallace, it runs into an astounding fact.

"About 28 percent of them, based on our analysis, are fully qualified for military service," he said.

Put it another way: Only three out of 10 young people between the ages of 17 and 24 even qualify to serve in the Army, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

The rest are ineligible either because they didn't graduate from high school, have a police record or are not physically fit.

"It doesn't surprise me, because I really think we don't see as much physical activity either in schools or outside of schools as we used to," said Maria Tukeva, the principal of Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, D.C., where, until recently, gym class was impossible.

"We had no gymnasium, no sports equipment or field of any kind," Tukeva said.

Now she has a new building, complete with a weight room. But Coach Iwan Balcet says the kids who use it are the exception.

"It's getting worse and worse. I mean, I think that the video-game era, especially now, the video games are getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper," Balcet said.

Call them the softest generation, but you really can't blame them. In four years at Bell, a student is only required to take nine weeks of gym class.

That's it?

"And that's it pretty much," Balcet said.

Nationwide, an increasing number of students don't stay in school for four years.

"Every 26 seconds in our country a young person drops out of high school," Wallace said.

At Bell, Michael Connors, a former Air Force pilot who flew in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, teaches English as a second language.

How hard is it for him to keep kids on the right track?

"It's tough," Connors said. "This job, teaching, makes going to war look easy."

A nation, it's been said, is only as strong as its children. And that's never more true than in a time of war. The evidence says our children are getting weaker, both mentally and physically.

[angrysoldier]

Dear Tootall,

How many years have you served?

Soldier

[riptide213]

Legislate new national fat tax on all fast foods to help fund new very targeted Troops to PE Teachers program for every school.

Mandate one national US Physical Education and Health standardized program that must be implemented by every state.

Incorporate this robust PE and H ritual into our young citizen%u2019s daily school routine.

In with reading, writing, arithmetic, PE and H.

Out with experimental, social salad, new age, new wave, new fangled, modern multiple step versions of anything, cosmopolitan soul searching reconnection with ones inner self, self paced, independent idealistic, everyone%u2019s a special flower reaching for the sunlight in their own time, Play Station 101 courses, and various other core education rot enhancing stunts and slants.

Let%u2019s get our US students to do more at school before 9 AM than most people do all day.

Start each school day right.

Get down a give me 50 good pushups!

[barbaram99]

Dear Troop Member.
Ye be thanked by me.
With yer schooling
can''t ye be an officer in service.
I will say this
The kids today are smarter than me.
I have right of way as a blind person read the white cane law when crossing the street.

[barbaram99]

When I was in high school in the early 70s it was 2 years.

[angrysoldier]

Dear Nancy, Part II

My Army Recruiter buddies would like to know where the "better education" you referenced is taking place. Certainly not in any of the places they recruit.

The main problem in getting a high school senior to join the Army is not finding one who is interested, or finding one with supportive parents, or finding one who is not too fat; it is finding one who is smart enough.
What does it say about our educational system that GED holders tend to be smarter than high school graduates?

To say nothing of the students at the local community college. My Recruiter buddies don''t even bother going to the community college, because they KNOW no one there is smart enough.

Pathetic.

[angrysoldier]

Dear Nancy_Naive,


When I first read your comment, about the Army being "physically fit mental midgets," I was fairly ticked off. But then I thought about it, and as long as you keep paying taxes, I really don''t care what you think.
Let me tell you why.

I speak 2 foreign languages fluently and hold over 200 hours of college credit.
I earn over $70,000 per year (as an enlisted Soldier with less than 10 years in service).
I am currently employed in a growth industry, with a boss who likes to give me lots of interesting work to do, and fairly decent pay raises.
I even get to help pick my own boss every four years.
Plus, I get to pick some of the people who decide how much I get paid.
Between Federal and State, I actually MADE about $1600 in taxes last year.
My job can''t be outsourced to India or China.
I get free medical and dental care for my wife and kids.
If I want to, I can retire after 20 years.
With full benefits.
I can get discounts on pretty much anything I buy, either because people appreciate me, or because the law says I have to.
There are laws limiting how much interest I can be charged.
My wife is a stay-at-home Mom (by choice), because she doesn''t have to work.
Any college class I take is free.
I get really good auto-insurance rates.
My credit score is high.
If I walk around the mall in my work clothes, I get free hugs.


All at the expense of ''smart'' civilians like you.

Thank You!

[meganthatch]

90% of fat people are fat because they are lazy. Discuss.....www.theoandavirus.com

[tootall10142]

barney, teletubbies sesame street, thomas the train,action heros on our t.v sets this obese age started in when they were pre school .I really dont see alot of parents outside with thier children when there is a fifty dollar baby sitter plugged to the t.v.then theres the fast food for the lazy tequila for the drunks and cocaine for the dopers and cbs blog site for us people with nothing to do but *** and moan about our youth culture.i chose not to have any children.may be the answers lie in the rialin bottle or in the adderol we give our children so that we can cop out in a society that really doesnt give a damnnnn.we just pretend and blame ol bush and who ever is handy that is not up to our standard of morals if indeed some have any left or had them att all.

[mydiatribe]

Hodonism, unfortunately, is the by-product of too much prosperity. Add-in a decline in traditional family values, hide them under the blanket banner of of ''just-doing-your-own-thing'' that''s called LIBERALISM!

BTW most of the folks driving those gas guzzling HUMMERS in my neighborhood are fat cat liberals, who wouldn''t offer a poor man a postage stamp to send a letter to his son in Iraq but these same types constantly delude themselves daily into believing themselves to be true Patriotic Americans!

SACRIFICE, that''s a beginning.
Your Liberal wake-up call comes this November when Osama Obama doesn''t carry 3 states!

[kaylag04]

"...Drone. You work 25% more hours than you did 30 years ago, for 20% less pay. And your ethics is so compromised that all you can think of to do is defend it. People like you deserve to be enslaved, which is where you''''re headed. Liberals will keep that from happening, of course, as they have so many times in the past, and you''''ll thank them by inviting them to leave the country."

30 years ago, I worked in a pizza place and an animal hospital for a few bucks an hour, and went to high school. After the Army, I went to college, and identified where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do. I work alot, fish, hunt and hike the Rockies with my daughter and dog. I have avoided enslavement by never labeling myself as "conservative" or "liberal", and focusing on my personal goals. Thus my advice to the poster you so eloquently defend.