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I was in the Army for a few years and recently got out. The Army is considered to be the service which is the least concerned with its service members. That s

I was in the Army for a few years and recently got out. The Army is considered to be the service which is the least concerned with its service members. That said, the Army most certainly DOES have regard for its enlisted. When things like this happen, bad PR follows. Bad PR is bad for a variety of reasons, one of which being that it makes recruiting more difficult. People will be much less likely to join an organization which doesn't care about them, and would thus require more incentives to do so, incentives which cost money. Two: soldiers, airmen, etc go through a pretty intensive training process that lasts several months at a minimum, and that training isn't cheap. By the time you're a full-fledged member of your respective service, your service has a lot of money invested in you, and the more advanced in your career you are, the more valuable you are to them. Soldiers cost more money than you imagine. Three: morale in the military is of paramount importance. Without good morale, operations break down. If a group of soldiers feel that their leadership doesn't care about them, morale quickly goes into the toilet, and that has all sorts of detrimental and pervasive effects. When I was in the Army, I got sick of having to always go to another meeting about another program that, should we need it, was available to us. Everything from PTSD counseling to going outside of your chain of command if necessary to financial counseling to healthcare to complaining about the food, barracks, or what have you - there were channels galore to address grievances. They not only create these programs, but they force you to be aware that they exist. These aren't programs created just for show; they're programs which are created to be used. This isn't the Vietnam Era. The military is an all-volunteer force, and unless the draft comes back, it can't afford to not care about its members. In an organization of many millions of people who constantly deal with difficult, dangerous things like this, incidents will occasionally occur, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.

lostlogin 13y ago
Thank you for your comment, hearing from someone involved in these things is excellent so please keep commenting. It's the insider perspectives that makes HN great IMHO. I've just come to this thread after reading the below link on sexual assaults within the military (and yes, I'm way behind on my reading). Do you have any thoughts on it? How can it go in challenged and unaddressed when courses are being offered on trivial things like financial planning? And the PR angle you mention should, at a minimum, have some influence. http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21588131-can-new-campaign-persuade-pentagon-reconsider-its-attitude-breaking-silence http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21588131-can-new...
- AaronIG 13y ago
  Every branch has mandatory sexual assault training (I just attended one three weeks ago), but I agree it's not enough, nor working. Air Force JAG held a summit last week to address this very issue. Part of the problem is the way the military criminal justice system works. Commanders have too much discretion in whether or not to prosecute service members, and the ability to overturn or lessen convictions. A lot of victims don't report attacks out of fear of retaliation from their own command. Prosecutorial authority needs to be taken out of the chain of command for sexual assault cases, if not at the felony level entirely. That alone will have some impact. There's been some effort to amend Article 60 of the UCMJ within the Senate; however, it's never gotten past committee.
justin66 13y ago
> This isn't the Vietnam Era. The military is an all-volunteer force, and unless the draft comes back, it can't afford to not care about its members. In an organization of many millions of people who constantly deal with difficult, dangerous things like this, incidents will occasionally occur, but they are the exception, rather than the rule. I'm curious, is it your view that the Army dealt well with the people who had Gulf War syndrome? (or whatever we're calling it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome I had a cousin go to war very healthy and come back sick and his experience getting treatment wasn't exactly great. It's nice to think that we're not living in the Agent Orange days anymore but I wonder if the government is really any less inclined to stonewall sick vets whose problems go against the official narrative than they used to be. edit: you're right that it's important for retention to have good PR and make it look like there aren't serious problems. Damaging the credibility of sick people seeking help is one way the DoD does that.
- notdrunkatall 13y ago
  From your link: >A November 1996 article in the New England Journal of Medicine found no difference in death rates, hospitalization rates or self-reported symptoms between Persian Gulf veterans and non-Persian Gulf veterans. This article was a compilation of dozens of individual studies involving tens of thousands of veterans. The study did find a statistically significant elevation in the number of traffic accidents suffered by Gulf War veterans.[44] An April, 1998 article in Emerging Infectious Diseases similarly found no increased rate of hospitalization and better health overall for veterans of the Persian Gulf War in comparison to those who stayed home.[45] >Despite these studies, on November 17, 2008, a congressionally appointed committee called the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, staffed with independent scientists and veterans appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, announced that the syndrome is a distinct physical condition. The committee recommended that Congress increase funding for research on Gulf War veterans' health to at least $60 million per year. The DOD is a large, cumbersome bureaucracy, and Gulf War Syndrome was an entirely new disorder which is still controversial today. It took a decade, but the DOD came around, and to my knowledge, people with Gulf War Syndrome are being treated.

lostlogin 13y ago

Thank you for your comment, hearing from someone involved in these things is excellent so please keep commenting. It's the insider perspectives that makes HN great IMHO. I've just come to this thread after reading the below link on sexual assaults within the military (and yes, I'm way behind on my reading). Do you have any thoughts on it? How can it go in challenged and unaddressed when courses are being offered on trivial things like financial planning? And the PR angle you mention should, at a minimum, have some influence. http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21588131-can-new-campaign-persuade-pentagon-reconsider-its-attitude-breaking-silence http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21588131-can-new...

AaronIG 13y ago
Every branch has mandatory sexual assault training (I just attended one three weeks ago), but I agree it's not enough, nor working. Air Force JAG held a summit last week to address this very issue. Part of the problem is the way the military criminal justice system works. Commanders have too much discretion in whether or not to prosecute service members, and the ability to overturn or lessen convictions. A lot of victims don't report attacks out of fear of retaliation from their own command. Prosecutorial authority needs to be taken out of the chain of command for sexual assault cases, if not at the felony level entirely. That alone will have some impact. There's been some effort to amend Article 60 of the UCMJ within the Senate; however, it's never gotten past committee.

justin66 13y ago

> This isn't the Vietnam Era. The military is an all-volunteer force, and unless the draft comes back, it can't afford to not care about its members. In an organization of many millions of people who constantly deal with difficult, dangerous things like this, incidents will occasionally occur, but they are the exception, rather than the rule. I'm curious, is it your view that the Army dealt well with the people who had Gulf War syndrome? (or whatever we're calling it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome I had a cousin go to war very healthy and come back sick and his experience getting treatment wasn't exactly great. It's nice to think that we're not living in the Agent Orange days anymore but I wonder if the government is really any less inclined to stonewall sick vets whose problems go against the official narrative than they used to be. edit: you're right that it's important for retention to have good PR and make it look like there aren't serious problems. Damaging the credibility of sick people seeking help is one way the DoD does that.

notdrunkatall 13y ago
From your link: >A November 1996 article in the New England Journal of Medicine found no difference in death rates, hospitalization rates or self-reported symptoms between Persian Gulf veterans and non-Persian Gulf veterans. This article was a compilation of dozens of individual studies involving tens of thousands of veterans. The study did find a statistically significant elevation in the number of traffic accidents suffered by Gulf War veterans.[44] An April, 1998 article in Emerging Infectious Diseases similarly found no increased rate of hospitalization and better health overall for veterans of the Persian Gulf War in comparison to those who stayed home.[45] >Despite these studies, on November 17, 2008, a congressionally appointed committee called the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, staffed with independent scientists and veterans appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, announced that the syndrome is a distinct physical condition. The committee recommended that Congress increase funding for research on Gulf War veterans' health to at least $60 million per year. The DOD is a large, cumbersome bureaucracy, and Gulf War Syndrome was an entirely new disorder which is still controversial today. It took a decade, but the DOD came around, and to my knowledge, people with Gulf War Syndrome are being treated.