Cost cutting measure cripples army
More than three decades ago, the Pentagon created two pills to ward off a lethal virus infecting boot-camp recruits. But defense officials abandoned the program in 1996 as too expensive. Now recruits are dying, thousands are falling ill, and the military is desperately racing to bring back a vaccine it once owned.
A top Pentagon official called it "a major screw-up," hobbling U.S. efforts to rapidly deploy troops abroad.
The respiratory virus now infects up to 2,500 service members monthly \ufffd a staggering 1 in 10 recruits \ufffd in the nation's eight basic-training centers, an analysis of military health-care records shows.
Somebody is an idiot.
Jay