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Drew Schinbeckler hasn't gone to basic training yet, but when the time comes, he'll be ready.
Every week, the charismatic, slender 20-year-old throws on athletic pants and his Marines T-shirt and heads to the Marine recruiting station near Glenbrook Square, where he joins 25 other recruits for running and strength exercises.
Schinbeckler and his fellow Marine recruits are increasingly becoming an anomaly these days, according to a report released this month. The national study, commissioned by a group of retired generals, found that 75 percent of the nation's 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible to join the military because they're either too physically unfit, have a criminal record or have not graduated from high school.
In Indiana, the group says, that means more than 500,000 young adults are ineligible to serve.
Sgt. Tommy Dimitratos, a no-nonsense 30-year-old recruiter from Queens, N.Y., wants to be sure Schinbeckler is just as fit as he was the day he signed his papers.
So last Wednesday, timer in hand, Dimitratos made sure Schinbeckler still met minimal fitness requirements.
Running a mile and a half in less than 13 minutes and 30 seconds: Schinbeckler clocked in at 8:30.
Forty-five crunches in two minutes: He got 100.
Three pull-ups?
Oorah – more like 20.
"I like to stay in shape," said Schinbeckler, a Carroll High School graduate. "If, God forbid, I'm in a war-zone situation and someone gets hit, I want to be able to take care of the guy beside me. You have to be strong to survive."
The national report was intended to highlight the need for better early-childhood education and point to a potential national security threat down the road.
"We need to maintain a force of high-quality people who are able to perform military jobs in the future," said Maj. Gen. George Buskirk, a former Indiana National Guard leader and a member of Mission: Readiness, the group that released the report. "In the last two years, we've noticed a dramatic increase in the failure of young people to qualify for enlistment for one of these three reasons."
The report found that Indiana has more young adults on probation, in jail, in prison or on parole than the national average – one in 26 compared with one in 31. The report also found that only 14 percent of Indiana's 4-year-olds are in federally funded prekindergarten, significantly less than the national average of 38 percent.
In physical fitness for young adults, Indiana is close to the national average, with 30 percent of the state's 10- to 17-year-olds overweight or obese.
To 1st Sgt. Ricky Weber, a Fort Wayne National Guard recruiter, the numbers don't come as a surprise. In the last few years, he's seen waistlines expand and aptitude test scores drop. Even high school graduates, he said, seldom score high enough on the scholastic test.
"It's a shame when you have someone who wants to serve their country, but they can't because of the academic level," he said. "That's the one that concerns me the most. You can do things to change your body mass, those are things that they can correct. But with education, sometimes (recruits) don't have control."
Alan Conrad, Concordia's ROTC instructor, was also less than shocked by the report's findings.
"You have less and less kids getting out of the house these days and running off all the calories they're eating," he said. "Now they stay home and play video games."
Conrad attributes the staggering figures partly to the military's evolving enlistment standards, which have become stricter throughout the years. Students with asthma and attention deficit disorder, for example, can't join the military, he said.
Why not let them enlist, he wondered, and assign them to jobs where their medical conditions won't impede their performance?
"Everything is becoming zero-tolerance," Conrad said. "And I don't think that's the best idea. We may need to rethink our policies. Not everything is always so black and white."
Despite the dire warnings, both Indiana and the national military are meeting their recruitment goals.
Mission: Readiness attributes enlistment success to the recession but argues the "challenge of finding quality recruits will return when the economy recovers."
"In the bigger scheme of things, I would consider it a long-range strategic issue," Buskirk said. "Our biggest goal is to make Congress aware."
Mission: Readiness, formed in 2008, released its report at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 5. The group also urged Congress to support the Early Learning Challenge Fund, an initiative it said was "designed to help states provide more at-risk kids with access to quality early learning programs."
The U.S. House passed a bill in September that included support for the fund, and it is awaiting deliberation in the Senate.
Schinbeckler, the Marine recruit, said he finds the report's findings troubling.
"I've tried to recruit some people, and they say, 'No, I've got a record,' " he said, still sweating after his afternoon run. "And a lot of guys will come in (to the recruiting center) and are out of shape. The requirements aren't too hard. It's sad that so many people can't meet them."
