NEW YORK, July 2 (RIA Novosti) – A spike in the number of US servicemen falling foul of military rules is the result of an overstretched army that struggles to recruit, an expert and former serviceman told RIA Novosti.
Examples include Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by Afghan militants after wandering from his base, according to reports, and Chelsea Manning, who was jailed for 35 years for passing secret documents to the WikiLeaks website.
“Iraq and Afghanistan were the first major US wars we have had without conscription, so those who serve are basically overused,” said Lawrence Korb, from the Center for American Progress, a think tank.
“These wars are unpopular, it is hard getting people to sign up and the military has had to lower its standards,” Korb added.
“Sgt Bergdahl was thrown out of the US Coast Guard because of his mental condition, so the Army took him in. Chelsea Manning flunked his basic training but they took him anyway,” said Korb. “The Army has taken people that it would previously have rejected.”
Sgt Bergdahl, 28, was released on May 31 after being swapped for five prisoners in a US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Fellow soldiers say he knowingly wandered away from his unit while deployed in Afghanistan in June 2009.
Chelsea Manning, an American soldier formerly known as Bradley, said she wanted to be treated as a woman and receive hormone therapy at the time of her court martial for data-leaking, which embarrassed the US and other governments.
