BUILDING THE 21st CENTURY MILITARY, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: We’ve all seen the Photoshop of the WWII soldier fresh off Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima next to footiepajamas ObamaCare ManBoy; but alas, the latter image sounds like it’s a goal, not a warning for John M. McHugh, then-Secretary of the Army:

This, by the way, is the last Secretary of the Army’s priority list for 2014:

  1. Prevent Sexual Assault
  2. Balance and Transition the Army
  3. Champion Soldiers, Civilians and Families
  4. Bolster Army activities in the Asia-Pacific region
  5. Ensure personal accountability on and off the battlefield
  6. Tell the Army Story
  7. Implement Army Total Force policy
  8. Prudently manage reset, modernization, research and development
  9. Strengthen information assurance and cyber security
  10. Develop effective energy solutions

Anything there about getting ready to win wars? Er, no.

2015’s priority list is essentially the same. As Mark Steyn wrote a decade ago at the start of “It’s the Demography Stupid,” the dry run for his book America Alone:

Americans sometimes don’t understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don’t think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health and Human Services.

Betcha the Secretary of the Army in the Obama administration would.