End Times
19th November 2018, 07:22 PM
One in five Army generals could not deploy for medical reasons in 2016, data show
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/19/one-five-army-generals-were-not-cleared-combat-2016/2029702002/
One in five Army generals could not deploy in 2016 for medical reasons, according to data obtained by USA TODAY, a troubling finding regarding the military's readiness to fight that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has vowed to fix.
Overdue medical and dental exams were the primary reasons for what the Army refers to as medical readiness in 2016. The medical readiness rate for generals has improved to nearly 85 percent, according to Brig. Gen. Omar Jones, the Army's top spokesman. Almost all generals, 97.4 percent, can now deploy after taking care of minor issues such as having updated blood tests and dental exams.
"The Army's top priority is readiness and soldiers are expected to be world-wide deployable to ensure our Army is ready to fight today and in the future," Jones said. "The data from 2016 does not reflect recent improvements in medical readiness for the Army as a whole and for the general officer corps specifically."
The data were contained in a June 2017 report on the state of the Army's general officer corps that was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The study was commissioned after a series of high-profile scandals involving generals and admirals came to light. In 2014, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel created an office to investigate ethical problems among senior leaders. An investigation by USA TODAY last year found that military investigators had documented at least 500 cases of serious misconduct among its generals, admirals and senior civilians, almost half of those instances involving personal or ethical lapses.
One of the most recent cases involved Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, who was fired for making sexually suggestive comments to women and failing to report suicide attempts among airmen in his command.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/19/one-five-army-generals-were-not-cleared-combat-2016/2029702002/
One in five Army generals could not deploy in 2016 for medical reasons, according to data obtained by USA TODAY, a troubling finding regarding the military's readiness to fight that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has vowed to fix.
Overdue medical and dental exams were the primary reasons for what the Army refers to as medical readiness in 2016. The medical readiness rate for generals has improved to nearly 85 percent, according to Brig. Gen. Omar Jones, the Army's top spokesman. Almost all generals, 97.4 percent, can now deploy after taking care of minor issues such as having updated blood tests and dental exams.
"The Army's top priority is readiness and soldiers are expected to be world-wide deployable to ensure our Army is ready to fight today and in the future," Jones said. "The data from 2016 does not reflect recent improvements in medical readiness for the Army as a whole and for the general officer corps specifically."
The data were contained in a June 2017 report on the state of the Army's general officer corps that was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The study was commissioned after a series of high-profile scandals involving generals and admirals came to light. In 2014, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel created an office to investigate ethical problems among senior leaders. An investigation by USA TODAY last year found that military investigators had documented at least 500 cases of serious misconduct among its generals, admirals and senior civilians, almost half of those instances involving personal or ethical lapses.
One of the most recent cases involved Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, who was fired for making sexually suggestive comments to women and failing to report suicide attempts among airmen in his command.