It was in the mid-70s when I attended Boot Camp at MCRDSD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego). I distinctly remember more than a few members of my platoon were some rather nasty vatos from East LA.
I’m not making a sweeping generalization of Latinos overall, I mean guys who were told by a judge that they had a choice between four-years in the Marine Corps or a somewhat short stretch in state prison.
More often than not, those same vatos also made some damn fine Marines.
But keep in mind, the Marine Corps overall was a damn sight rougher 50-years ago than it is present day. Giving would-be guests of the state that option nowadays just won’t work, simply because Marine Boot Camp is now a joke.
With all that off my chest, I’m of the opinion that it usually takes some time for the reality of the state of the military to percolate to the average civilian citizen.
That just happened. Not only has the confidence in our military plunged to a low that hasn’t been seen since the 1990s.
Confidence during the Trump years was up and down, but the same confidence has simply crashed and burned since Biden occupied the Oval Office.
No wonder most of the branches of the armed forces can’t meet their recruiting goals. If I was 17 again, I would want no part of today’s weak and woke Marine Corps.
As reported by News.Gallup.com (emphasis mine);
Americans are now less likely to express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the U.S. military, with a noticeable decline that has persisted for the past five years. The latest numbers are from a June 1-22 Gallup poll that also captured record lows in public confidence in several public institutions.
At 60%, confidence in the military was last this low in 1997, and it hasn’t been lower since 1988, when 58% were confident. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s — during the Cold War and amid threats to U.S. power, including the Iran hostage crisis — between 50% and 58% of Americans were confident in the military. Confidence generally improved during Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s.
Throughout nearly all of the past 48 years, Republicans have been the most likely to express confidence in the military, and they remain so today — but the rate has declined by over 20 percentage points in three years, from 91% to 68%.
