Be All You Can Be

Billmon juxtaposes some interesting quotes from Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and quotes from TomDispatch's Dirty Dozen: The Pentagon's 12-Step Program to Create a Military of Misfits which indicate that the end may well be nigh. Here's an example of the sad state of military affairs now:

While noting that approximately 40,000 non-citizens are already serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, [Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David] Chu offered his own solution to the immigration crisis. With the services denied the possibility of a draft, he made a pitch for creating a true foreign legion from a group "potentially interested in military service," the "estimated 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented alien young adults who entered the U.S. at an early age."

TomDispatch
Dirty Dozen: The Pentagon's 12-Step Program to Create a Military of Misfits
September 2006

The introduction of barbarians into the Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal . . . As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire, they gradually learned to despise their manners and to imitate their arts.

Edward Gibbon
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1776

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At a remarkable cost in dollars, effort, and lowered standards, [2006] recruiting and retention numbers are being maintained for now. The result: U.S. ground forces are increasingly made up of a motley mix of underage teens, old-timers, foreign fighters, gang-bangers, neo-Nazis, ex-cons, inferior officers and a host of near-mercenary troops, lured in or kept in uniform through big payouts and promises.

TomDispatch
Dirty Dozen: The Pentagon's 12-Step Program to Create a Military of Misfits
September 2006

Their arms and titles and ensigns were calculated to inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that severe simplicity which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch.

Edward Gibbon
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1776