This has been happening to me a lot lately: I finish a post under the pressure of my large and enthusiastic dog making it painfully obvious that he wants a walk and won’t leave me in peace before he gets one, rush to get it up while he’s pawing at my arm, and then, on the walk, think of something I should have included in the post.
In this case, I should have mentioned the comparison with the military. We don’t want those suffering from mental and emotional illnesses holding guns and defending the country any more than we want them flying planes, but the standards are much, much lower. A “Section 8” draft deferment required far more serious symptoms than chronic depression.
Four famous movies had the issue of mentally ill soldiers at their centers: “Dr. Strangelove…,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “M*A*S*H,” and “Catch 22.” (I never could figure out what was the problem with Trini Lopez in “The Dirty Dozen” except for his obsession with songs about vegetation.) My father was somewhat bitter about the low standards WWII draftees were subject to, I assume because his foot was almost blown off because of a member of Dad’s platoon who had an IQ in the sixties.
As with the pilot shortage alluded to in the Times article, shortages of able soldiers creates stress on the system,with the result being that standards of mental capacity and emotional health may be loosened….and have been. (Dad said that the number of alcoholics among the troops was alarming.) Is a soldier who cannot be counted upon not to snap (think of Telly Savalas’s character, “Maggot,” in TDD) really less of a risk than a pilot with a history of treatable mental illness? The issue is raised by the current tussle over President Trump’s attempt to ban trans individual from the military services. Are they suffering from a mental dysfunction or just a minority?
Has anyone mentioned Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) in this context? I assume that running gag is responsible for TV’s “M*A*S*H” being cancelled, or soon will be.
Ethics Alarms 
With Klinger, I would hope that it is understood that he was not actually mentally ill nor was he transgender. He just wanted to make the top brass think he was crazy so he could get out of the army.
Hence, there was a method to his dragness.
(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)
Nice pun, and you raise a good point…nobody’s drafting commercial airline pilots (yet). I suspect the reasons standards are lower for the military, especially during a draft. You don’t want to make it too easy for people in the armed forces to shirk their duties. It’s worth noting that Klinger never succeeded in getting his Section 8, because for all his shenanigans, he was still useful.
Klinger’s situation was essentially the original “catch 22” paradox. Trying to get out of a dangerous situation was reasonable, so acting crazy to do so wasn’t crazy. If he didn’t want to get out, then there was no reason to ship him out.
Full Metal Jacket was my expectation in the movie list, but I suppose it wasn’t a central plot device of the film.
I’d say FMJ is abut the military driving some body crazy, which is a related but slightly different issue.
An engineer I follow, Xyla Foxlin, recently discussed how easy it is for a pilot to be medically grounded for any mental related issue on her YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/aj0H8oVS7qg
I can’t imagine MASH ever being removed from the lefty pantheon. Alan Alda? Loretta Switt? These are lefty icons in the Jane Fonda category. And the entire movie and series was smugly, tediously anti-war. Maybe once all Baby Boomers are dead, but that’s going to be a little while.