Juggling the 'eggs' and 'tennis balls' in modern military recruiting

This is your far-flung correspondent Ed Palm here again with some thoughts destined to wander throughout Kitsap County and beyond.

Last Sunday -- here in Lynchburg, Virginia -- I attended a talk by retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Dees, who has an interesting take on our recruiting shortfall. He reminded us that only 25 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 can qualify for enlistment. Some are overweight and can’t pass the physical fitness test. Others didn’t graduate from high school or can’t pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). And there are those who have criminal records and/or a history of drug use.

But beyond that, the general said today’s young Americans tend to fall into one of two categories. They are eggs or tennis balls. When an egg hits an obstacle, it breaks. When a tennis ball hits an obstacle, it bounces back. Unfortunately, even some of our troops today fall into the egg category, he said. They’re not tough and resilient enough. Hence, our problems with PTSD and veteran suicides.

It’s not that this general is unsympathetic to the “eggs.” He has established a faith-based innovative in-patient nine-month PTSD program. It is called the National Center for Healthy Veterans at Valor Farm, and it happens to be located near me in Alta Vista, Virginia. Their approach is holistic, involving treatment and therapy for PTSD while providing meaningful work with others in their community. The goal is to help traumatized veterans “reset and restart,” and to return them to America as “healthy veterans.”

I do have reservations about the program being “faith-based.” I hope it doesn’t involve proselytizing and that it’s open to those of any faith or no faith. I am concerned that Dees is also involved with military outreach at Liberty University, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Valor Farm is an overtly Christian organization. I do plan to visit in the near future to find out about this aspect and to learn more about their program in general.

I was especially heartened to learn they recognize moral injury as one of the causes of PTSD. For some insight into how combat can inflict such injury, I recommend Jonathan Shay’s book “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character” (1994). Shay is an avis rara, a rare bird. He is a psychiatrist who is well read in the classics, and he is a nationally recognized authority on the basis and treatment of PTSD. Shay maintains that the moral injury of PTSD stems from a betrayal of what’s right by someone in a position of authority, and he points to the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in the “Iliad” as proof that this type of injury is as old as war itself.

For more information about Valor Farm and its program, you can call up their website, National Center for Healthy Veterans | Returning Healthy Veterans To America. As it now stands, the program is open only to male veterans. A Valor Farm for women veterans is being planned.

Dees touched on something else that interests me. He acknowledged that only 30 percent of the care and support veterans need is being provided by the Veterans Administration. The rest has to come from the private sector, principally from volunteer organizations such as his. As I’ve argued in the past, the government that sends you to war to be physically or psychologically wounded, or both, should take complete responsibility for your care. During the question and answer period, I asked Dees if he agreed with that. He said he did, but he fell back on the old saw that “all politics are local.” He implied that, for now, we have to rely on the private sector.

Dees, I must say, is ecumenical in his military outlook. He acknowledged that the Marine Corps is “holding its own” with recruiting. Not so the Army and the Air Force. He didn’t mention the Navy.

In sum, Robert Dees is “the very model of a modern major general.” (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.)

Meanwhile back in the Northwest: I was disappointed to learn that President Biden is lending his support to those damning hydroelectric dams. As reported recently in the Sun, Biden has directed federal agencies to do all in their power to “restore healthy and abundant” salmon runs throughout the Columbia River Basin. (“Biden memo directs US agencies to restore NW salmon runs”) Granted, he did stop short of actually calling for the removal of the four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington. But his statement is sure to be taken as tacit approval by the tribes and others targeting those dams.

I’m as green as the next guy when it comes to conserving our natural resources, and I realize, as Biden does, that salmon are important to the culture and religion of Northwest tribes. But those tribes have to breathe the same air as the rest of us, and they too have to pay for electricity. We need to strike a reasonable balance. I stand by what I’ve written in the past. We need clean energy worse than we need more salmon.

And that will do it for now. Here’s hoping for a just and lasting peace for Israel and the Palestinian people.

Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Juggling the 'eggs' and 'tennis balls' in modern military recruiting