Many Unable To Serve
GROUP UNSETTLED ABOUT STATE’S RECRUITING POOL
Monday, November 16, 2009
Retired military off cers sounded the alarm last week that about 75 percent of Americans age 17-24 are unfit to serve in the U.S. Military.
Mission: Readiness — Military Leaders for Kids, an independent, national security-oriented advisory group composed of dozens of retired military off cers, including retired Gen. Wesley Clark, issued the report titled “Ready, Willing, and Unable to Serve.”
According to the report, three quarters of Americans age 17-24 are ineligible for military service for at least one of four reasons. One in four lack a high school diploma, one in 10 have a felony or serious misdemeanor conviction, about one in four are too overweight and about one third have other health problems such as asthma.
Mission: Readiness additionally released dozens of memoranda dealing with specific states. The report estimates 200,000 young people in Arkansas alone may be outside military recruiting parameters, noting the rate of obesity in Arkansas is higher than the national average, as is the level of incarceration.
Staff Sgt. Jeremy Bayer, a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter stationed in Rogers, said while he has had no trouble filling his quota, he regularly turns interested individuals away who do not meet minimum requirements.
Bayer, who joined the Marines in 1997 and began recruiting in Rogers in 2007, said he usually successfully recruits about two or three individuals each month while turning away two or three people for felony convictions and between 10 and 15 individuals who do not have a high school diploma.
However, Bayer said obesity can usually be overcome as an obstacle to enlistment.
“A guy who’s out of shape and has weight issues, I’m totally for people like that,” Bayer said. “Because they have made a conscious decision to enlist in the premier branch of the military service, and with that, are fully willing and capable of losing the weight and getting where they need to be in order to be eligible to enlist in the Marine Corps.”
Bayer said he sets aside time each Thursday to work with potential recruits on physical endurance. Of the 70 people Bayer has recruited from the Benton County area, he said he could recall only two who were eventually turned away for weightrelated problems.
Julie Johnson Thompson, Arkansas Department of Education director of communications, said while the state has not addressed the issue of military eligibility directly, Arkansas has been taking steps to address career-readiness and obesity in Arkansas schools.
Johnson Thompson cited Arkansas Act 1220, enacted in 2003. The act requires annual body-mass index screenings of all public school students, restricts access to vending machines in public elementary schools and requires public schools to disclose contracts with food and beverage companies.
The effects of the act are being evaluated by both the University of Arkansas College of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“We’ve become a more lethargic and nonhealthyeating society,” Johnson Thompson said, “and that law was passed to address that.”
Bentonville School Superintendent Gary Compton said although he doesn’t see obesity as an overwhelming problem in local schools, the district is actively promoting physical fi tness through innovative physical education programs.
Compton said one way the Bentonville School District is trying to address physical fitness is the PE4Life program, currently being plot-tested at Old High Middle School. The program replaces traditional seasonal sports with the use of circuit-training resistance machines and exercises designed to develop cardiovascular endurance.
While obesity and physical fitness are important issues, Compton said he doesn’t see them as specific to young Americans.
“I don’t know why anybody would want to segregate this into a public education issue,” Compton said.
“Maybe we, as a nation, don’t eat very well. Maybe we don’t exercise very well. Maybe we just don’t take very good care of ourselves. I couldn’t comment about those things, but I certainly don’t think this is just endemic to K-12 public education.”
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