First off, Forgive me Cecil, for I have sinned–for no good reason, I stayed away from the Dope for a year, but now I’m back!
I can’t help remembering that when I was younger (about three decades ago) and the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia was winding down, people not much older than me (when convicted of things like selling small amounts of weed to their friends) were sentenced --in lieu of jail time-- to joining the military (for their own good, of course “to straighten them out”).
It seems to me, since that this particular war may last awhile, that the punishment for people found guilty of aggravated offenses against the unarmed and unsuspecting civilians at home should entail being put in a situation where someone might shoot back!
–Alan Q
I once posed a similar theory to an Army recruiter that I know. He growled in response: “The Army doesn’t want your rejects!”
Think about how much money is involved in the training of one soldier. If the criminal refuses to “play along” then all of the resources and time of the trainers have been wasted.
Criminals are by nature defiant to authority. This simply would not work in a combat situation. (Just imagine the corps comes under fire. Sarge gives a command to one of his criminal recruits who responds, “Up yours!”) Army life requires discipline, and criminals have a complete want of self-control.
The idea of simply putting criminals in the military does not address drug/alcohol addictions, mental problems and serious character disorders. Would you want to sleep in the same barracks as a man who might just take it into his head to kill you in your sleep?
What’s to keep them from running off? Raping civilian enemy women? Some criminals are the LAST people on earth you would want to give a loaded weapon.
Lissa,
You’re quite right; I guess I was feeling simultaneously grumpy about the world at large and giddy at being back in the fold.
–Alan Q
I don’t know. Isn’t part of the initial training for the armed forces basically getting the shit beaten out of you until you don’t know to not submit to authority any more? There’s a lot of “follow orders or spend the night marching through a muddy field” in normal training, how will this not help to “straighten out” petty criminals?
I’m not advocating it, for other reasons, but I don’t think that it will necessarily not produce soldiers who are just as capable of following any orders they are given.
And besides, sometimes the difference between a squaddie and a convicted criminal is only that the squaddie joined the army BEFORE he got a chance to break any serious laws and get himself into trouble.
Not really. Movie life, I am assured by military folks. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they do require a lot. They want people to taste the hardships of war and learn what it means to push your limits. However, they do not, apparently, go around “beating the shit out of you”.
Lissa said, "Criminals are by nature defiant to authority. This simply would not work in a combat situation. (Just imagine the corps comes under fire. Sarge gives a command to one of his criminal recruits who responds, “Up yours!”) Army life requires discipline, and criminals have a complete want of self-control.
The idea of simply putting criminals in the military does not address drug/alcohol addictions, mental problems and serious character disorders. Would you want to sleep in the same barracks as a man who might just take it into his head to kill you in your sleep?
What’s to keep them from running off? Raping civilian enemy women? Some criminals are the LAST people on earth you would want to give a loaded weapon."
My husband was a bit off track (putting it lightly) as a youth, and was given the option of military service. He went to Vietnam and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Marines. He was nominated for the Silver Star.
The fact is, the military will take just about anyone they can get their hands on if they need the bodies. We haven’t been involved in anything “Vietnam sized” in many years, but trust me, they’ll take the drug dealers and car thieves and street brawlers once the casualty numbers really start rising.
I don’t believe they’ll take rapists or murderers, but anyone else is fair game. Military service straightened out guys like my husband. He considers it the best thing that ever happened to him. Even though it was one of the worst things that ever happened to him.
Clarification, please: what do you all mean by “straightened out”? I’m not sure what the connotation of this phrase is.
It basically means, as far as I understand and use it, get them used to working within a structure such that they can operate within society. Of course, as a commie-nazi-pinko-hippy-liberal (for whom hanging is too good), I’m not keen on people being conditioned to obey “The Man,” but as a realist, I am aware that you learning how to operate within the rules is essential for the rest of us to live our lives without you getting in our way.
Whether using the army to condition people to follow orders is a good thing or a bad thing I couldn’t say. Training them to kill people might undermine whatever positive influence it had. On the other hand, it might not. Drawing huge generalisations over populations as to what would definitely work and what wouldn’t is hard.
McDuff, that’s precisely what it means. My husband learned respect for other people’s stuff (for one). He learned that sometimes, other people do know more than he does (i.e., keeping your ass attached to the rest of your body has everything to do with paying attention to people with more experience than you have).
And my husband is also a hippie-biker-pinko (he actually wrote the handbook for the club). He doesn’t follow “the man” and his stifling rules and regulations too much, but he was able to buy a house, drive a car that doesn’t have to be worked on every weekend, and enjoy life much more than when he was stealing cars and breaking into boats on Lake Michigan in the early '60s.
Which is pretty much what I’d hope the results would be of such a plan.
On the other hand, that’s anecdotal, and I don’t know whether my hopes and expectations translate into the ineffable What Actually Happens more often than not.
Air Force basic training emphasized a few things. Adherence to a command structure is one of those things, but people who enter willingly understand that. Teamwork and attention to detail were also of great importance. Lastly, it created an artificially stressful situation, to weed out those who could not respond to stress.
It was not a ‘scared straight’ program designed to teach reprobates how to coexist willingly.
McDuff, I agree…I don’t think the military is the end-all answer to the wayward boy’s troubles. I am a dove, through and through. Husband and I agree on some things and loudly disagree on other things. I don’t think military might necessarily makes a man. In fact, the military did some pretty nasty shit to the likes of Timothy What’s His Name from Oklahoma City fame. But it does have a positive effect on some people.
The point I was making was that the military takes all types when the going gets tough. If this war turns into a ‘Nam-like fiasco, you can bet your still-attached ass that some less-than-desireables will be totin’ guns and marchin’ double-time.