5 ms·

Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world and you’ll have plenty of capable volunteers. No one wants to get their extremities blown off just because

by 0xbear 9y ago

Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world and you’ll have plenty of capable volunteers. No one wants to get their extremities blown off just because some military industrial complex CEO needs another beach house.

sk0g 9y ago
Are you implying little Johnny isn't a real hero? He lived in a military camp in Baghdad for 4 months! He even had a gun pointed at him at one stage! I really don't get America's glorification of combat "veterans." In the old times, sure, but these are just people doing their jobs at the end of the day, and jobs that frequently involve killing people. I'm sure most people who sign up don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the sake of "peacekeeping."
- secfirstmd 9y ago
  As someone who has served in a European army infantry unit, I also find it very strange.
  - kogepathic 9y ago
    Many European countries had or have mandatory military service. - Finland [0] - Germany (until 2011) [1] - Sweden (until 2010) [2] - Denmark [3] - France (until 1996) [4] - Greece [5] - Switzerland [6] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Denmark [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_France [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Greece [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland
- 0xbear 9y ago
  To get the glorification you need to consider that those men and women are willingly exposing themselves to mortal danger. This kind of thing is hard to understand for someone who has spent all their life in an all white upper middle class neighborhood with not a worry in the world. The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making.
  - yownie 9y ago
    and yet if the policy is so haphazard and misguided wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice? Doubly so because their cost is measured in lives.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      > wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice Pretty sure your OP is not opposed to that, but the "Little Johnny" language bullshit that his parent wrote.
      - libertyEQ 9y ago
        I took it as a reference to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Maybe it would, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they are serving their country to a far greater extent than most, and I’m not going to blame them because there’s some neocon shithead giving them idiotic orders. They sure as hell aren’t doing it for money.
      - EliRivers 9y ago
        It's my understanding that many are doing it for the money and other benefits. The benefits are the stuff of dreams for many who join. Medical, dental, education, housing, pension, genuine advancement prospects, coupled with a steady job that won't vanish in a weekend. These are big draws, especially to a person whose other option is a zero hours contract at a chain store. I've been a reservist (non-US) for almost 20 years; I certainly am not in it for anything involving serving my country, although of course everyone has their own motivations.
- brightball 9y ago
  And their job involves indentured servitude punishable by law if they quit early. Just the act of joining means that for at least the minimum term of service the individual turns their life over in service to their country. Any other job doesn’t involve getting shipped overseas for service and being unable to quit. So yes, just the act of turning your life over to serve your country is pretty dang brave and absolutely not just another job.
  - mbrameld 9y ago
    I feel like I was pretty fairly compensated for my time in the service. It's not like I was forced to join or had no idea what I was getting into. Also, outside of the deployments which were interesting if not fun, it wasn't much different from a normal job, so saying I turned my life over seems a little hyperbolic. I had most evenings and weekends free, 30 days of paid vacation a year, and unlimited sick days. Since getting out I have worked a job that involved both foreign travel and a contract that didn't allow me to quit without ramifications. That job wasn't associated with the military or DoD at all, it was at a bank. The military, at least for folks outside the combat arms jobs, really isn't that far off from being just another job.
  - ionised 9y ago
    And yet if they offered you a way out, you would be able to quit once you realised the war you were fighting was utterly inexcusable and entirely in the interests of rich old fucks back home. You would never sell people on wars like this so you have to prohibit a way out. Can't have troops thinking critically and deciding they aren't totally sold on the cause.
- mbrameld 9y ago
  As a US combat veteran I agree with you, very few do it purely out of patriotism and altruism. I think most of the glorification comes from gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job. The fact that the conflicts aren't necessary is slowly changing that, though. People used to be able to trust that the government would only commit us to necessary wars, so the feeling was that somebody had to go and fight and win or Something Really Bad would happen to the rest of us. In that context the glorification makes sense. Now it doesn't really feel like that anymore.
  - Spearchucker 9y ago
    As a veteran of the border war I have zero understanding for the sentiment of "gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job". I similarly struggle with the whole "lest we forget" thing in the UK. The reason is that in my opinion it legitimizes war, violence and killing. It promotes patriotism, which is nationalism by another name, and a bus stop short of fascism. Fundamentally it suggests that one nation's people are worth more than anothers'. It's a neat trick, and I have a real problem with that.
    - Banthum 9y ago
      It's doesn't have to mean one nation's people are worth more than another's. But it does mean that a person may care about their nation's people more than another's. This is the same principle as caring about your child more than a stranger's child. A nation is a kin group just like a family is. Ingroup preference is perfectly healthy when channeled appropriately.
      - ionised 9y ago
        > A nation is a kin group just like a family is. Given how divided some of the most jingoistic 'democractic' countries on the planet right now are (US and UK) I don't think that supposed kinship is what these people get from nationalism. To me, it looks like an excuse to tribally hate another group or nation without admitting to it.
- brandnewlow 9y ago
  How much would you need to be paid to have people shoot guns at you with intent to kill? I can't think of a number, personally. I see arguments for diminishing the significance of military service, but at end of day those who do it are signing up to (potentially) die to protect their country and that's worth special consideration.
parent5446 9y ago
The article says that the primary problem is the number of eligible volunteers. Changing what wars are fought isn't going to affect individuals ability to pass military fitness and character tests. If the problem was that there are so many eligible people, but nobody wants to volunteer, then you might be on to something.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  29% is tens of millions of people. I just pointed out why people might be reluctant to volunteer.
  - parent5446 9y ago
    Have you read the article? It says the effective recruiting pool is 1.7 million, and the goal is 180,000 recruits. That means you'd need to convince every 1 in 10 eligible person to enlist. Even if the military was a glory-filled job, I doubt you'd get those numbers.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Numbers don’t line up. There are 30 million people in that age group in the US. 30% of that is nearly 10M. There may be fewer volunteers than that, of course, but that problem is fairly straightforward to fix: pay more, and get the hell out of the Middle East.
- Animats 9y ago
  Biggest single problem is obesity. There are just too many fat teen-agers. Second is a criminal record or drug abuse. Third is inadequate education; the US military requires high school graduation now. As of 2009 [1]: - 27% - too fat - 31% - other health problem The Army used to run fat recruits through a "fat farm" phase of 6 weeks of exercise. But they no longer do that. There's talk of bringing it back. The Marines want you in shape before you enlist. Marine recruiters help promising recruits get in shape before they enlist. [1] http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR-Ready-Willing-Unable.pdf http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR-Ready-Willing-Unable.pdf
benevol 9y ago
> Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world In the US, war is big business. So it's not going away as long as a couple of ultra-rich people are making themselves even richer by inflicting suffering onto others.
bambax 9y ago
The so-called "Founding Fathers" were strongly opposed to professional armed forces for exactly that reason: it's less likely that ordinary citizens recruited via conscription would be sent to fight "bullshit wars". Vietnam changed all that, or, more to the point, verified it. The anger against the war was fueled by the fact that anyone could be sent to fight it. Politicians realized that wars would not create such uproars if they were only fought by professional soldiers. And indeed this is true to this day. Most Americans don't care about US foreign wars, because for them personally the stakes are low.

by 0xbear 9y ago

sk0g 9y ago

Are you implying little Johnny isn't a real hero? He lived in a military camp in Baghdad for 4 months! He even had a gun pointed at him at one stage! I really don't get America's glorification of combat "veterans." In the old times, sure, but these are just people doing their jobs at the end of the day, and jobs that frequently involve killing people. I'm sure most people who sign up don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the sake of "peacekeeping."

secfirstmd 9y ago
As someone who has served in a European army infantry unit, I also find it very strange.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  Many European countries had or have mandatory military service. - Finland [0] - Germany (until 2011) [1] - Sweden (until 2010) [2] - Denmark [3] - France (until 1996) [4] - Greece [5] - Switzerland [6] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Denmark [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_France [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Greece [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland
0xbear 9y ago
To get the glorification you need to consider that those men and women are willingly exposing themselves to mortal danger. This kind of thing is hard to understand for someone who has spent all their life in an all white upper middle class neighborhood with not a worry in the world. The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making.
- yownie 9y ago
  and yet if the policy is so haphazard and misguided wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice? Doubly so because their cost is measured in lives.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    > wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice Pretty sure your OP is not opposed to that, but the "Little Johnny" language bullshit that his parent wrote.
    - libertyEQ 9y ago
      I took it as a reference to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Maybe it would, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they are serving their country to a far greater extent than most, and I’m not going to blame them because there’s some neocon shithead giving them idiotic orders. They sure as hell aren’t doing it for money.
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      It's my understanding that many are doing it for the money and other benefits. The benefits are the stuff of dreams for many who join. Medical, dental, education, housing, pension, genuine advancement prospects, coupled with a steady job that won't vanish in a weekend. These are big draws, especially to a person whose other option is a zero hours contract at a chain store. I've been a reservist (non-US) for almost 20 years; I certainly am not in it for anything involving serving my country, although of course everyone has their own motivations.
brightball 9y ago
And their job involves indentured servitude punishable by law if they quit early. Just the act of joining means that for at least the minimum term of service the individual turns their life over in service to their country. Any other job doesn’t involve getting shipped overseas for service and being unable to quit. So yes, just the act of turning your life over to serve your country is pretty dang brave and absolutely not just another job.
- mbrameld 9y ago
  I feel like I was pretty fairly compensated for my time in the service. It's not like I was forced to join or had no idea what I was getting into. Also, outside of the deployments which were interesting if not fun, it wasn't much different from a normal job, so saying I turned my life over seems a little hyperbolic. I had most evenings and weekends free, 30 days of paid vacation a year, and unlimited sick days. Since getting out I have worked a job that involved both foreign travel and a contract that didn't allow me to quit without ramifications. That job wasn't associated with the military or DoD at all, it was at a bank. The military, at least for folks outside the combat arms jobs, really isn't that far off from being just another job.
- ionised 9y ago
  And yet if they offered you a way out, you would be able to quit once you realised the war you were fighting was utterly inexcusable and entirely in the interests of rich old fucks back home. You would never sell people on wars like this so you have to prohibit a way out. Can't have troops thinking critically and deciding they aren't totally sold on the cause.
mbrameld 9y ago
As a US combat veteran I agree with you, very few do it purely out of patriotism and altruism. I think most of the glorification comes from gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job. The fact that the conflicts aren't necessary is slowly changing that, though. People used to be able to trust that the government would only commit us to necessary wars, so the feeling was that somebody had to go and fight and win or Something Really Bad would happen to the rest of us. In that context the glorification makes sense. Now it doesn't really feel like that anymore.
- Spearchucker 9y ago
  As a veteran of the border war I have zero understanding for the sentiment of "gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job". I similarly struggle with the whole "lest we forget" thing in the UK. The reason is that in my opinion it legitimizes war, violence and killing. It promotes patriotism, which is nationalism by another name, and a bus stop short of fascism. Fundamentally it suggests that one nation's people are worth more than anothers'. It's a neat trick, and I have a real problem with that.
  - Banthum 9y ago
    It's doesn't have to mean one nation's people are worth more than another's. But it does mean that a person may care about their nation's people more than another's. This is the same principle as caring about your child more than a stranger's child. A nation is a kin group just like a family is. Ingroup preference is perfectly healthy when channeled appropriately.
    - ionised 9y ago
      > A nation is a kin group just like a family is. Given how divided some of the most jingoistic 'democractic' countries on the planet right now are (US and UK) I don't think that supposed kinship is what these people get from nationalism. To me, it looks like an excuse to tribally hate another group or nation without admitting to it.
brandnewlow 9y ago
How much would you need to be paid to have people shoot guns at you with intent to kill? I can't think of a number, personally. I see arguments for diminishing the significance of military service, but at end of day those who do it are signing up to (potentially) die to protect their country and that's worth special consideration.

parent5446 9y ago

The article says that the primary problem is the number of eligible volunteers. Changing what wars are fought isn't going to affect individuals ability to pass military fitness and character tests. If the problem was that there are so many eligible people, but nobody wants to volunteer, then you might be on to something.

0xbear 9y ago
29% is tens of millions of people. I just pointed out why people might be reluctant to volunteer.
- parent5446 9y ago
  Have you read the article? It says the effective recruiting pool is 1.7 million, and the goal is 180,000 recruits. That means you'd need to convince every 1 in 10 eligible person to enlist. Even if the military was a glory-filled job, I doubt you'd get those numbers.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Numbers don’t line up. There are 30 million people in that age group in the US. 30% of that is nearly 10M. There may be fewer volunteers than that, of course, but that problem is fairly straightforward to fix: pay more, and get the hell out of the Middle East.
Animats 9y ago
Biggest single problem is obesity. There are just too many fat teen-agers. Second is a criminal record or drug abuse. Third is inadequate education; the US military requires high school graduation now. As of 2009 [1]: - 27% - too fat - 31% - other health problem The Army used to run fat recruits through a "fat farm" phase of 6 weeks of exercise. But they no longer do that. There's talk of bringing it back. The Marines want you in shape before you enlist. Marine recruiters help promising recruits get in shape before they enlist. [1] http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR-Ready-Willing-Unable.pdf http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR-Ready-Willing-Unable.pdf

benevol 9y ago

> Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world In the US, war is big business. So it's not going away as long as a couple of ultra-rich people are making themselves even richer by inflicting suffering onto others.

bambax 9y ago

The so-called "Founding Fathers" were strongly opposed to professional armed forces for exactly that reason: it's less likely that ordinary citizens recruited via conscription would be sent to fight "bullshit wars". Vietnam changed all that, or, more to the point, verified it. The anger against the war was fueled by the fact that anyone could be sent to fight it. Politicians realized that wars would not create such uproars if they were only fought by professional soldiers. And indeed this is true to this day. Most Americans don't care about US foreign wars, because for them personally the stakes are low.