About 30 percent of troops surveyed in the latest poll said the Pentagon's move to open all combat jobs to women has hurt military readiness, versus 15 percent who see it as a positive. The new open-service policy for transgender troops is less popular, with 41 percent of those surveyed calling it harmful and only 12 percent calling it helpful. But both of those leave the majority of troops in the middle, saying the changes have had no real effect on unit effectiveness.
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Only 17 percent of troops surveyed by Military Times and IVMF saw openly gay troops as a negative for military readiness, versus 24 percent who believe it has improved the force and 58 percent who say little changed after the repeal was finalized. Obama and a host of defense officials have defended the changes as a way to "strengthen the military" without compromising military readiness. Advocates have called them life-altering for their members.
In each of those groups, the percentage of troops who held a negative view of his presidency still outweighed his supporters. That has been a recurring theme for Obama among the military. Past reader polls by Military Times which unlike the IVMF-partnered polls were not conducted in a scientific manner have consistently shown him with higher unfavorable numbers than positive marks. Right after taking office in , 40 percent of readers said they had an unfavorable view of him, with 35 percent having a favorable opinion.
His favorable marks dropped down in similar reader polls in following years, and his unfavorables grew. Still, the outgoing president does appear to be admired by some segments of the military. More than 60 percent of women have a favorable view of him, in contrast with 36 percent who disliked his presidency.
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And almost 90 percent of troops who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton about 29 percent of service members in the poll say they did have a favorable opinion of the last eight years of White House policies. Now, all of those them will answer to a new commander in chief. In his exit memo, Ash Carter said warned that the incoming administration will face many of the same challenges that Obama faced, albeit with a better plan of attack from the outgoing president. The survey received 1, responses from active-duty troops. A standard methodology was used by IVMF analysts to estimate the weights for each individual observation of the survey sample.
The Obama era is over. Here's how the military rates his legacy
Other questions have slightly higher margins of error. The survey audience was 87 percent male and 13 percent female, and had a mean age of 30 years old. The respondents identified themselves as 73 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 11 percent African American, 4 percent Asian and 9 percent other ethnicities.
I played the song over and over on Christmas day. I understood that Steve was in a war, and I realized the danger. The year before, my brother wrote from Vietnam and asked my parents to get me a dog as a present from him for Christmas. I named him Chu Lai, for the base where my brother was stationed. Chu Lai the dog was a black longhaired dachshund mix.
He grew to be about 10 pounds. Of course, I studied the map in my encyclopedia and finding Chu Lai the base, I imagined what it was like. For two years, we watched the war on the news every night. I saw boys no older than my brother running through jungles and shooting guns and I wondered if I would catch a glimpse of Steve. Then there were the flag-draped coffins. After the news was over, when I said my prayers, I always asked God to bring my brother home. I knew my mother prayed for this too.
Sometimes we prayed together and sometimes, when the worry overwhelmed her, I caught her sitting alone in the living room. Except for the glow of her cigarette, darkness surrounded her until a car turned the corner to go up our street.
I crawled into the rocking chair with her. When he finally came home, I asked Steve questions any child would ask about guns and how many people he killed, not really understanding what that meant. We were all just glad our prayers had been answered. There was nowhere to go. This time, there was no darkness to hide our grief. She was sitting in a chair and collapsed in a heap on her kitchen table. Her worst fears were realized. She lost her son. This time, it was me who held her.
No Immediate Threat: The Story of an American Veteran - Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell - Google Книги
I stroked her hair as she had stroked mine when I was a child. Her thin frame suddenly felt so small.
- A Rune With A View?
- Il cifrario segreto: Attrazione (Italian Edition).
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I carried the news I had learned that morning with me all day. I knew I had to tell her that her only son, my brother Steve, was dead. He had stayed with my nephew in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the summer and fall of , but later left for Fargo, North Dakota to find work. Three Christmases had passed since my mom and I talked to Steve on the phone in November of that year. In January , I finally found the courage I needed to start trying to learn what happened to my brother. It took me two calls to find out what we already suspected. Fivecoat was reported deceased on November 21, And so the war finally ended for him, nearly 30 years to the day after he enlisted into the Army.
We thought our prayers were answered in when Steve walked off the plane, instead of being carried in a flag draped casket. I spent the better part of the morning rummaging through one of her three cedar chests that contained a lifetime of memories. I found what I was looking for, validation that Steve, my brother, was once a happy, normal child with promise of a future. The photo would grace the church altar at his memorial service the next day. After I handed the photo to Mom, I traced the outline of baby Steve and our young father in another photo.
I cried at having lost them both. She doesn't have to pretend to have that cabin anymore. Today, she writes from a cottage in the woods of the beautiful Ozark Mountains, with her 5 recycled rescue dogs accompanying her to work. She blogs about her life at http: After a family tragedy derailed her plans for journalism school, Kerri earned a business degree and was one class shy of a minor in history. She took the long way to a writing career, but once she got started she was once introduced as one of the most prolific writers in Kansas City.
One of her essays also placed in the top of 10, submitted to Writer's Digest. Are you an author? Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography. Learn more at Author Central. Hosting Guests in a Small Space. We just hosted our Last week, we welcomed our oldest daughter, Steffi, back home for a visit. This is a traditional repost of this essay. I hope it inspires you to also follow your dreams. Today is my Free Day. I spent at least 10 minutes the other day watching a poop bug roll a wad of poo in the yard.
They are actually called dung beetles, but we call them poop bugs at The Lights of Our Interior Life.