Not at all the same situation but I did not elaborate. In a time of total mobilization including a draft there was a need to find a way to deal with those who have genuine religious objections and also weed out those who are trying to weasel out of the draft. It would be hard to maintain a draft if there were well known magic words to get out of it. Alvin York had a genuine crisis of faith but ultimately decided that service was not in conflict with his beliefs.
In a volunteer army they are most likely to just boot you out of basic if the issue happens to come up in week 3.
Currently with troop draw downs the standards are pretty high to join. They will not jump through hoops for some random private.
That’s worked into a Basic Training marching cadence: “There’s no point in looking down, ain’t no discharge on the ground”
But still, finding an undeserved section 8 is probably about as easy as avoiding a deserved one. Both situations just require a bit of awareness and consistency.
What did they do in WW2, when they needed every warm body who could possibly serve in combat? Not to mention that drill sargents back then more latitude to administer Special High Intensity Training.
I learnt in an SDMB thread some months ago, that this kind of routine is known in the US Army as a “Jody Call”. Am not American, and had never before heard that splendid expression. SDMB is highly educational…
I was in Navy ROTC in college, which is administered by active duty Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Go figure, the Marines were in charge of drill and PT. Anyway, everywhere we ran, we sang cadences referred to as “Jodies.” So maybe it’s a Marine term?
That may be your opinion, but in the fictional world of Kubrick, the Marines wanted him in. The immediate juxtaposition of Animal Mother, a close look-alike facially and physically, is clearly a Private Pyle who’s been in the field for a while; ie, Pyle was perfectly acceptable (he was accepted) if he hadn’t gone and shot himself. And remember, Animal Mother was a perfectly fine, brave Marine, especially as his portrayal progressed.
When I was in they told us straight out ‘we’re gonna fuck with you, we’re going to put pressure on you and you’re going to handle it, and if you can’t handle it we’re gonna find out now instead of when you’re on the line.’ We had one or two that didn’t handle it.
Stanley Kubrick and Gustav Hasford’s world, actually; the lusthog squad is from Hasford’s novel The Short-Timers. It could well have been Kubrick’s intention to portray Animal Mother as a Pyle who’s been in the field for a while, but that’s not how he was portrayed in the novel:
Definately an interesting character; in the movie for all of his constant racism (“thank God for the sickle-cell”, etc) he unhesitatingly refuses Cowboy’s order to leave Doc J and Eightball behind and charges the buildings the sniper is hiding in alone.
My Dad said there was a similar guy who had a kind of slow, country, Gomer Pyle-like personality who did everything slow and just couldnt seem to do anything right. Yes was always respectful and likeable.
But, when Dad saw him walking out the door he kind of quietly turned to him, winked, and said “fooled the son of bitches didnt I?”.
R. McNamara went to great effort to rehabilitate his reputation in his later years, but he will burn in Hell forever for what was called “Plan 100,000.” The middle class was getting upset at their boys getting hurt in the war so big Mac got the idea to quiet that particular political problem by easing requirements for kids drafted for combat. Forrest Gump and Bubba and Private Pyle and numerous sociopathic car thieves and drug addicts were inducted to the tune of 50,000 a year as cannon fodder because Mac felt these were people nobody cared about. It didn’t hurt Pvt. Pyle’s chances that he shot Expert. Plan 100,000 helped wreck the Army of that era, and The Army seems to have learned the lesson well, although in the last couple years of W’s big war I did start seeing a lot more short fat soldiers transiting through DFW.
I met a young man on his way home to Wyoming, Cheyenne I believe, happy as the proverbial feces covered porcine that he had been discharged as “Unable to adapt to military life”. I always wonder what what he did that he couldn’t adapt to the post Viet Nam army.
It’s still in force. You have to be on active service for 24 months, or discharged due to injury or illness incurred in the line of duty, before you’re eligible for benefits. Something preexisting such as cancer, TB, or pregnancy, do not qualify.
Things may have changed, but there used to be a 6 month window where an enlistment could be terminated fairly easily with the military & the service member essentially shaking hands and saying that the enlistment was a bad idea (like an annulment). This may be due to health issues, attitude problems, personality disorders, undiagnosed Asperger’s, etc. It doesn’t absolutely preclude a later enlistment, but there may be a show-cause requirement as to why the military should consider someone who wasn’t suitable earlier.
I was in a basic training platoon of 60 women during peace time, so needless to say, all volunteers. There were two screw-ups trying to get out and go home almost from day one. There was a lot of whispering, gossiping and speculation about why the fricking hell they joined in the first place.