be all that you can be

The United States Army has a new slogan to get more recruits. Army Strong defines the strength of the soldier. Emotionally, physically, and mentally.
When I joined six years ago the slogan was "Be All That You Can Be!" and they had that catchy tune to go along with it. Then in 2001 it was changed to "An Army of ONE." The geniuses behind that program also made ONE an acronym, Officers, NCOs, and Enlisted. Instead of tunes, they had a bunch of commercials of individual soldiers/jobs. Still on the air is one of my favorite commercials. A son is talking to his father over a game of billards (or something) about the fact he's going to join the Army Reserves.

Father: But it's still the Army.
Son: It's the Reserves, I can still go to college and they train me here until they need me.
F: Is it good training?
S: It's the Army.

That's pretty much the end of the commercial. I give it props for skillfully dodging the question. "Is it good training?" The kid didn't say yes or no, but instead answered with a general statement. "It's the Army." What? That doesn't answer my question, a simple answer like 'yes' or 'no' is required. That's like answering a question with a question. "Is it good training?" Then you reply, "Is the sky blue?" Well right now it isn't so does that mean sometimes? No? Yes? What? I'm not psychic!
And now onto the Army Strong slogan. OK, over the last few years the Army has spent (probably millions) in revamping its image. First they designed a new combat uniform, the ACUs to replace the old BDUs and DCUs. That's fine. Second, they made modifications to the IBAS (individual ballistic armor system) to include shoulder and side protection. Good. Then, they decided (after a lengthy debate and studies) to phase out the current dress green uniforms and to be replaced by the dress blues. Stupid. Now a new slogan? After just a few years? Stupider.
Army Strong. I say it like a stupid person. As if you were the ask me, "What do you think of the Army?" And I say, "Army Strong." or "Hulk Smash!" Derrr, Army Strong. Yay! Keep the slogan, I'll just be all that I can be.
Instead of focusing on the major issues, the Army has decided to work on this crap. That's great. Like the problem was that a returning wounded vet didn't look good in his dress green uniform, so they thought "Oh, he'd look better in his dress blues!" When they should've thought, "Gee, he'd look better with HIS LEGS!" and worked on those issues, spending money on figuring out how to make that happen.
And like a new slogan is going to make people not see the wounded veterans and join the Army. Since March '03 more than 20,000 service members have been wounded, of that number almost half of them did not return to duty (medical discharge). The silver lining in those numbers is the KIA stat; which is considerably low. Advances in medical technology has aided in the increase of wounded. The ratio is almost 10:1, whereas in the past it has been as low as 2:1.
Stop spending money on crap projects. We don't need new uniforms to wear over our prosthetic limbs, we need them to figure out how to keep us safe so we don't need prosthetics!