Yesterday's blog was on the U.S. military and the need to increase its strength as well as pay for its members. As far as increase in pay is concerned, all it takes is for Congress to vote-in a substantial increase, which they seem to do all the time for their own pay! Increase in military pay does not require any special effort, just fund it and approve it! As it stands, much of the military funding is spent on equipment, why not divert some of it for pay? Of course, the way the U.S. government works, you can't just take money from one pot and put it in another. The inflexible system that exists in our government on fiscal issues sometimes create ridiculous situations that are incredibly inefficient and stupid. For instance, one section may be out of funding, desperately needing more funds to function properly, while another section is ordered to spend all the money before the end of the fiscal year, so as not to lose funding the following year, even when spending is not needed! Those of us who have worked for the U.S. government, military or civilian, are well aware of such situations!
Today's blog, could be considered Part Two of yesterday's blog, it is about personnel, i.e., recruitment of personnel for the military. It is fine and dandy to say we will increase the size of the military, but without willing bodies in this all volunteer military that we have, we won't be able to increase the size of our military force. Currently, it appears that there is a shortage of young men and women willing to serve in the military. Part of the problem is, of course, low pay. But the other problem is the lack of qualified individuals, those without criminal records, etc. It seems that with the dramatic increase in drug usage in our society since the Vietnam War, more and more young people end up with drug offenses on their record. So, not only does the military have a hard time recruiting because the pay is not adequate, but also because many willing young men and women do not qualify owing to drug offenses and other criminal records.
I have previously blogged several times on the subject of the old Lodge-Philbin Act which was passed in 1951 and commonly referred to as just Lodge Act. The initial idea for creating the Lodge Act was to allow the U.S. military to recruit Eastern European volunteers from Communist Bloc countries to serve in the U.S. Army. This was done when it was found that there was an acute shortage of people in the army who had the language skills of those Communist Bloc countries. Initially the recruitment was for army intelligence work. Later it was expanded to just any service in the army. However, most volunteers ended up with the then fledging Army Special Forces. The Lodge Act allowed for recruitment of a sizable number of volunteers, but the army only managed a few hundred who mostly ended up in the Special Forces. The problem was that there was opposition to the Lodge Act, fear that we would be creating a "Foreign Legion" like the French or Spanish, or those infamous Waffen SS units of Nazi Germany during WWII that were composed of foreign soldiers. World War II was still fresh in the minds of many Americans!
The whole idea that we would be creating a U.S. version of the Foreign Legion was a mistaken and misplaced perception. The Foreign Legions of those other countries were/are (in case of France) separate units with the foreign volunteers kept separate, not integrated within the regular units. Our Lodge Act volunteers were completely integrated within the U.S. Army and served along side of non-foreign soldiers. In other words, a Lodge Act volunteer underwent the same training as a typical G.I. and served in the same units. It just so happened that most of them volunteered to serve with the Special Forces! I was fortunate enough to have served with a few of those Lodge Act volunteers and most of them, at least the ones I knew, were superb soldiers, who were in for the duration of their careers although they could have left the service after initial enlistment of five years! Some became legendary figures during Vietnam War and rose in rank to higher levels.
At least back in the day, and in the Special Forces, most of the Lodge Act volunteers had prior military service in their native country or with the French Foreign Legion! The ones who had been with the FFL were all former NCOs while those who had service in their native land were former commissioned officers. Some of these men went on to receive commissions in the U.S. Army and finished off their careers as field grade officers. So, despite the small numbers, the Lodge Act volunteers proved to be a success story. The Lodge Act expired long time ago and in my previous blogs I said that we should create another mechanism such as the Lodge Act to draw volunteers from other countries. Well, it appears that there is such a mechanism called the Military Accessions Vital to National Interests (MANVI) which was introduced in 2009. MANVI was introduced primarily to bring-in Arabic speakers into the military. Just as in the time of Lodge Act it was found that the army lacked Eastern European language speakers, it took Pentagon almost eight years after the invasion of Iraq to decide that there was a shortage of Arabic speakers in our military! The MANVI, unlike the Lodge Act which was only for the army, is for all branches of service. However, apparently it is not very well advertised or well known and so far has had a minimal effect on recruiting Arabic speakers into our military.
I think it would be worthwhile for Pentagon to push MANVI for recruitment of foreign nationals into our military, not just Arabic speakers. We would not only get volunteers who will be speakers of languages that we need in our military, but we would be able to recruit those with prior service in their native military, giving us volunteers who will be well versed in military life. Enlistment in our military is open only to U.S. citizens or Legal Permanent Residents (Green Card holders). I have no doubt in my mind that if we open recruitment to foreign nationals, set some very rigid standards, we could end up with a lot of outstanding candidates for our military service, whatever the branch! We shouldn't only look for volunteers with Arabic or other language speakers that we need. I believe as long as we find volunteers who are willing to serve in our military and are well qualified, we should accept them. We can count on having a lot of young men and women from Canada, UK, Australia, as a start, especially if we increase the pay! But we will get them from all over the world. It would definitely beef-up our military and at the same time provide a variety of linguists as well!
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