WHERE FAILURE CANNOT BE AN OPTION

It’s not very reassuring to hear that 92 out of the 500 military personnel charged with operating America’s nuclear warheads at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana were caught cheating on their proficiency and readiness exams. In fact, it’s downright alarming. The soldiers involved were supposed to be the best of the best; the cream of the crop that stood as America’s best defense against nuclear annihilation, and now we come to find out that scores of them don’t even know what they’re doing. For years, Americans have been obsessed with worry over al-Qaeda’s desire to detonate a nuclear bomb on U.S. soil, but if what has happened at Malmstrom is indicative of the state of our military as a whole, then al-Qaeda is the least of our concerns.

Ordinarily, you can expect to hear of an isolated cheating incident or two on a college campus after a frat holds a “kegger” on the night before final exams, but not in the U.S. military that regularly holds itself up as the world’s most capable fighting force. Even a peacenik like me recognizes the danger of that kind of ineptitude, and every voice in America, whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, young or old, or rich or poor must join together to demand that the lack of discipline and readiness among our nuclear warhead guardians must end at once.