KABUL – The Taliban’s lightning-fast victory over Afghan National Security Forces following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has proven one thing, according to top Pentagon planners: the U.S. Military focus on dental readiness has been a complete waste of time and resources.
“A guy with about three teeth led an army of guys with about three teeth to defeat our well-equipped partner force whom we trained over the past 20 years— all in the course of about a week,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command. “So yeah, I think it’s safe to say dental readiness wasn’t the panacea we were promised.”
McKenzie, the officer in charge of all military forces in the Middle East and parts of South Asia, was referring to the cult-like power dental readiness has held over the military for the past five decades. Since the early 1970s, failure to report for annual dental exams resulted in servicemembers receiving adverse action such as extra duty, non-judicial punishment, and in rare cases, death by root canal.
“Those dental soldiers don’t play around,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston told reporters. “I had a yuck mouth soldier no-show his annual dental exam three times when I was a squad leader. When he finally made it to an appointment, we never saw him again.”
