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Military losing too much good leadership

Young Army officers, in whom taxpayers have invested huge sums in education and training, are leaving the corps in large numbers. The problem has grown so dire that the Army surveyed officers selected for study at the Command and General Staff College, generally considered to be the top half of the officer corps. The results cannot be comforting to the Army's leadership.

Just over one-third of young officers now plan to make a career of the Army, down from 52 percent in 1991. Thirty-five percent plan to leave the Army at the conclusion of their current obligation, up from 22 percent in 1991.

Why is the Army losing so many good captains and other mid-level young officers?

The Army won't quite come out and say so, but the short answer is Clinton, and what the rogue president has done to morale among the officers and gentlemen of the U.S. Army.

Among the clear results of the Army survey: Younger line officers believe more senior leaders in the Pentagon play politics with the Clinton White House by, among other things, understating readiness problems caused by a high pace of "peacekeeping" missions and a systematic starvation of training and maintenance budgets. The "perceived lack of respect of the administration for the military is debilitating," one group of officers said in the survey.

And one officer, interviewed by the Washington Post about the survey, noted this: "I think there is a perception, right or wrong, that the Army has turned into a politically correct social organization, instead of a war-fighting organization."

Congress shares some of the blame with Clinton. Eager to spend money elsewhere and happy to spend time on social policy instead of security policy, both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill let Clinton wreak havoc upon the Armed Forces.

One only can hope that a new president and the next Congress will begin to turn things around before the armed forces are crippled by losses of the best enlisted and officer personnel.