It is becoming clear that the All-Volunteer Military is in deep trouble. The answer proposed by the Pentagon and Congress is to fix these problems by throwing even more money at readiness and retention.
Standards are merely opportunistic management devices.
Being cool and having fun is more important than patriotism. A warfighting force holding these values will crack under the stress of hard combat, like that experienced in Mogadishu or Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal. Maybe contempt of the troops is a core value held by the courtiers of Versailles on the Potomac. But of course, that would have nothing to do with why people are voting with their feet.