FAIR.
Don’t you just hate it when you’ve hit the submit button, and just as the screen is changing, you see that STUPID typo…
I wouldn’t favor mandatory service, but Robert Heinlein had a great system in mind.
Citizenship is earned, not given, by military service.
You’re not required to be a Citizen. Anybody can conduct business, get rich, live and let live, whatever, but you cannot vote or hold office unless you are a Citizen.
Military service is 100% voluntary–you can quit at any time. You can’t be disqualified from serving, unless you are deemed to be incapable of understanding the implications of the oath of service. The only catch is that if you quit without being favorably discharged, you can never reapply, never become a Citizen, never vote, never hold public office.
In the military, you have fewer chiefs and more indians, so to speak. And EVERYBODY fights. No desk jockeys.
Yeah, it’s only a fiction book, but still a pretty cool idea.
Read Starship Troopers (the movie doesn’t count) for a better description.
Oh, what’s that? So now you say life sucks?
Well 99% of it’s what you make of it…
So if your life sucks, YOU suck!
Joe_Cool
While you’re at it Joe, why don’t you just throw the WHOLE Constitution and ALL of Human Nature out the window!?
The military has TWO purposes in a democratic republic: to protect the nation’s borders from foreign invasion and to defend citizens abroad (trade routes, embassies, etc.).
We don’t need 150 million soldiers.
A small, technologically advanced military (big R&D) is just the thing. In the preposterous event that China stages an invasion of the US, I don’t think we’ll have any problem getting citizen volunteers. And the citizens will be especially prepared if they’ve already got their own machine guns :).
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
I think this number is a couple of magnitudes large.
How many 18-19 year olds are there in the country?
Please, Freedom, joe was talking about everybody having to join to become a citizen. If this policy was instituted, everybody would have to scramble to volunteer to retain their status of Citizen, not just 18 year olds.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Many of you who are denegrating the military seem to have missed or blatantly ignored MajorMD’s (hi Doc!) excellent post; it’s on this page, so scroll up and (re)check it out.
I’ll just try and bolster what she said with my own observations of “Life In The Military”. I have some qualification to do so, having served six years on Active Duty in combat arms and two years in the Reserves in a tecnical support capacity.
Some of the brightest people I have ever met were in the military; and not just college-educated officers. There were Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and Enlisted men, from all walks of life, who brought their individual uniqueness to their units, suborning individuality to become a part of a greater whole in order to accomplish a goal.
Suborning individuality does not mean sacrificing individuality; there was plenty of time for eveyone to be themselves, but when the job had to be done, there was only one Boss and everyone else was expected to shut up and pitch in to get the job done.
I was a Sergeant E-5 in the Army, and made my E-6 Staff Sergeant in the Reserves. I was “Sarge”; the guy who told them what to do, when to do it, and how I wanted it done.
When my troops has questions, I had answers, even if I had to go look them up; I showed them how to do what had to be done, with a soft word, an example, or a swift kick in the ass, whichever I thought would be most likely to get throught to the soldier.
I dealt with proud southwestern Latinos, and arrogant hombres from the bario; ignorant red-neck yokels working side-by-side with homies from the 'hood; dim-wit sub-urbanite jocks and computer geek nerds.
I also dealt with young officers, full of themselves and their new-found abilities and responsibilities; I stood between my troops and these bright, young officers, serving and protecting both.
These officers were educated to be sure, and nearly all were very intelligent. All were grossly inexperienced and very eager to make their mark in the military; once again, I was Sarge, teaching them in the ways of the “Real” Army, protecting them from their equipment, their ignorance, and mostly, themselves.
I could never Command them to like one another; I couldn’t even physically force them to get along.
All I could ever do was set an example; provide instruction and guidance, leadership and motivation, and let them decide, as citizen-volunteers, whether or not they would join the Team and Serve or just half-step until their discharge.
But, when the shit hit the fan, I was GOD! Fuck with me and I will[ terminate your miserable existence!
We were not going to argue, we were not going to bitch, we were not going to whine about how tired we were, how scared we were, how much we miss beer and pussy!
We would pull together, yank our heads out of our asses and get the job done; build the bridge, evac the wounded, breach the obstacle, call the fire and rip out our enemies guts and have a feast of the damned!
And when it’s all over, and the dead are buried and roll-call completed, I, Sarge, would buy the beer, cook the steaks, toast the living, the dead, and the magnificent bastards who paved the way to glory.
We are no different than you in our backgrounds, our experiences, our basic motivations.
We are different than you in that we have (mostly) knowingly agreed to give up a part of ourselves, to serve a greater whole, for money, for benefits, for opportunity, or maybe even for lack of anything better to do.
We are you.
ExTank
My dad was in the military from the end of WW2 until halfway into Vietnam. I “grew up” near bases: Long Beach, Yokosuka, San Diego… After that he was FAA in the high desert. There was Edwards AFB. I’ve met a lot of nitwits in the military, but most of the personnel I’ve come into contact with have been normal people.
I made up my mind to Go Navy and Fly Jets when I was 3 years old. Too bad I took that fateful ski trip to Tahoe in High School. They won’t take you if you’ve torn up your knee. I’ll always regret not serving.
I don’t think that military service should be compulsory. It’s anti-freedom, IMO. But I think that positions should be found for people who are somewhat fit, but not fit enough for combat. This would free “able-bodied” soldiers, sailors, etc. for “the mission”. Don’t expect me to run 5 miles or hump a pack all day; but you say you need a helicopter delivered from Miramar to Port Hueneme? I can do that. Sit in an AWACS and provide support (or even fly it)? Yes.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
A question for Majormd amd ExTank.
First, to avoid any misunderstanding, a little personal history.
I served in the USN '64-'68, Three of those years in and around Vietnam. On the USS Ogden, a LPD with 300+ Marines on board. A lot of whom were killed or wounded. I didn’t like the military life one bit, but I stuck it out. Did pretty good, as a matter of fact. Making E5 in my four year hitch. I was one happy puppy when I got out.
On to my question;
In boot camp there were several people who were just not suited for military life. Some of them even tried, but just couldn’t cut it. To put it bluntly, they were treated like shit. I’m not talking about the understandable rigors of military life. They were forced to remain until they fell apart mentally or physically, or both, then kicked out. This was the beginning of my real distaste for the military. No one knows from listening to the sweet-talking recruiter what’s in store for them inside, and the selection process doesn’t try very hard to weed these people out. At least that’s the way it was.
So, is it still like that?
And i think that the draft, excect in case of extreme emergency, is wrong and counter-productive.
Peace,
mangeorge
ExTank: Wow - eloquent.
egkelly: Peacekeeping missions are undoubtedly unpleasant assignments sometimes, but they’ve redefined the engagement rules since the early UN days in Bosnia, where UN troops did take a lot of incoming and more or less had to beg permission to fight back. (They had to paint their bloody tanks WHITE…) After careful redefinition of the rules (i.e., a general permission to return fire), Bosnia at least has turned into a “heavyweapons police action” - there’s even a contingent of police officers down there right now, trying to build a local police force. That, at least, is progress. Anyway, it’s traditional: Danish troops have been part of the UN presence on Cyprus for over 20 years.
Digression, danish place names: The “-strup” ending signifies that when the town was founded (in the early Middle Ages, IIRC), a clearing had to be made to make room for the town. (The country was more or less covered in forest back then). The word probably made sense back then - “strup” is not a current danish word, though it still wouldn’t be the silliest in the language. Digression ends.
Freedom: Perhaps I should have been a bit more specific. I’m (a bit) proud because the troops are handling a difficult task in a competent manner - they’ve negotiated when that was called for and fought (apparently quite well) when that was necessary. On the other hand, I’m not at all sure that the entire involvement has been handled very well by UN/OSCE/EU/NATO/insert-your-favorite-acronym-here, but that’s another story. A thread on involvement in Ex-Yugoslavia (or specifically Kosovo) could definitely be interesting. The 100.000 figure sounds a bit unrealistic - are you sure the reference wasn’t to refugees ?
And another post got too long…
Norman
ManGeorge: I agree with you in that there are people who don’t belong in the military, even though their hearts in the right place.
And I’m not talking about gays, either; regardless of race, creed, color, etc., gays are Citizens, too. They have every right to give back to their Nation some form of Service, if they so choose, and their sexual preference should in no way disallow them.
But to your question, perhaps a simple psych test in the Receiving Station could help pre-screen the unsuitable.
But I’m not entirely convinced, as I feel motivation is key. Take the overweight. I feel they shouldn’t even be allowed into the military in the first place, until they’ve shown a recruiter, over a period of time, that they have the willpower and motivation to begin slimming down.
When I went through basic, we had a 36 year old who was grandfathered in because of prior-service and National Guard; he wasn’t out of shape, but being a 36 year old weekend warrior didn’t exactly put him in the same physical category as the 18-20 year olds that made up the gross majority of our basic training.
“Pops” never gave up; even when he looked like he was dying. He humped rucks and machine guns and ran and did push-ups until his arms almost did fall off. He also had a maturity most 'teens were lacking, which is what I feel helped him along, and made him a “big brother” to alot of us kids.
And then we had another fella, who was a lazy tub of lard from jump-1. He never put any effort into his PT or his studies, and the Drills had to constantly monitor him in the mess hall lest he pig out on carbs and starches instead of lean protien and veggies.
“Fat Boy” barely made it through basic, and after four years, had barely made E-4, when the majority of our class still on active duty were E-5s and E-6s.
Inexplicably, he re-enlisted, even though he hated the military. Go figure.
As I stated before, getting volunteers to get along and work together was hard enough; I would hate to think how I might have stood up to the Leadership Challenge of riding herd on a bunch of pissed-off draftees.
One interesting note:
When I was stationed in Germany '86-‘88, my unit routinely conducted Border Patrol on the East-West German border. Seeing the Warsaw Pact up close and personal, and being in a forward deployed unit (First To Fight, Last To Die!) brought the whole Cold War into sharp prospective. We were highly motivated to learn and do our jobs well; we had esprit’ de corps as a unit and a sense of 'elan as individuals.
Then I went to Ft. Hood, Texas; a garrison post with little to do, and no sense of mission. Soldiers were despondent, unruly and undisciplined. Getting them to do the absolute bare minimum was a monumental task, one that had to be waged each and every day.
But on August 4th, 1990, that all abruptly changed. That was the day our Compny Commander came back from an emergency meeting at Battalion with the news that our unit (1st Cavalry Division) had been put on Alert for immediate deployment to the Persian Gulf.
The sea-change in attitude was phenomenal; we NCOs couldn’t teach our troops fast enough. Their thirst for knowledge was insatiable, their trust in us as Leaders skyrocketed. These unruly boys matured in the space of a week into professional Soldiers, calm, disciplined, dedicated.
I was proud of them, and proud to have served with them.
Like I said: Motivation.
ExTank
*a.k.a. ‘Sgt Bob’.
ExTank, nice knowing you were over here - thanks! (BTW, my unit would’ve deployed in Germany, had the crap hit the fan in 88.) Now imagine knowing that your HOME is a 4-hour trip by landing craft away from the nearest East German brigade. Unpleasant.
I guess everybody who’s been serving has seen some people rise to the challenge - and others just fall through miserably. I’ve even seen a couple of “pissed-off draftees” still pulling through - not because they liked the military life at all, they hated it and bitched about it non-stop - but because they knew that their squadmates would suffer if they underperformed. They didn’t really want to be there, but they took it in their stride.
I guess it can be considered morally defensible for a nation to draft people for said nations self-defense. But drafting people for foreign wars is another thing entirely, and I definitely understand the reservations among the US posters.
Oh, and Sake: Even though I have no reason to doubt that you’re a pretty good shot, there’s a couple of other skills I’d want you to aquire before I’ll want you in my squad 
Norman
Admit it, Spiny Norman: the Danish army’s ulterior motive is the eventual reconquest of the Virgin Islands!
Over here in the States we were treated to an outrageous propaganda campaign.
At one point they were comparing the Albanians to the Jews during the Holocaust. They actually estimated the Albanians murdered around 100,000.
A good starting point to insure a professional, all volunteer military would be to pay them. Many good, potentially career minded people get out simply because they simply can’t afford to support themselves or a family on what the military pays. This is good for industry, but maybe not so good for the military.
Peace,
mangeorge
Please excuse my last post. I realise its not smart to make a joke at the expense of any army - even the Danish (of whom most of our only reference comes from “Elvira Madigan”)
Mainly I wish to address the two divergent opinions of Extank and Mangeorge.
Like Mangeorge, I too was in the gator navy on an LPD ("little plastic duck") and saw perfectly decent, hardworking human beings ground down and spit out by the system. I was one of them: and not a dirt-bag or fat boy, either. I was an E-3 filling in for a vacant E-6 billet, with 4-0 (highest possible) evaluations in my service record right up until the morning I asked the ship's chaplain to get me out of his fucked up navy before I killed myself. The E-6 I had been filling in for had been ground out of the service through the process of "once we smell blood we'll keep circling closer and closer." And I saw lots of other shit that I gave up on describing years ago because nobody could believe or would believe it about their "Tom Clancy" military, and becuase after not too long I stopped thinking I owed this shitty human race the time I'd put in trying to describe it. point to Mangeorge.
I also observed the service in which Extank served - my wife was posted at Schofield Barracks during Desert Storm, while my brother was in the Air Force at the same time. I wasn't my hell-hole all across the board. Ordinary people, high and low on the chain, can indeed have their best characteristics brought to the forefront. Point to Extank.
So I hope you two guys who, in your own ways, served our nation: Extank by doing your job despite the differences and shortcomings of the average American kid; and Mangeorge, by keeping in mind the underlying American quest for human justice for which those same kids serve (even if they think it's just to earn college money and VH housing loans)will NOT spark some stupid flame war here between the armchair generals vs. the coffee-house reformers. It is a big, big military complex, and you can be in one part of it and have no concept of the other parts.
Your deep sea diving suit is ready, me brave lad.
No excuses necessary, Tove, I got a chuckle out of it anyway.
Norman
ExTank, you said:
Substitute “military” for any other field and anyone can make this claim. If you spend 8 years around any large, professional group of people, you will likely meet many bright individuals.
On the whole though, I think the average officer or soldier have an IQ substantially lower than the average civilian sewage worker or porn- site Webmaster.
Doublespeak. You are a free individual when I say you are!!!
Here is the meat: the heart of the matter. This ignorant, weak, sadistic, macho attitude which turns potential men into children. Schoolyard bullies. Power. THIS is why the armed forces have astronomical rates of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, violent hazing and battery.
I don’t so much mind any of these violent acts during times of outright war, but during times of peace it is intolerable and inexcusable.
Let’s glorify death some more. :rolleyes: You are truly the Big Toe! My guess is I’ve seen more combat than you have, ExTank, and none of it has been glorious. Spare me the “You can’t HANDLE the truth!” routine.
Running for office? You are intrinsically different than I am. I am a strong individual who does not need an artificial power construct to deal with men and look at myself in the mirror. You are a servant, and like the sheep who strives to be shepherd by getting on the farmer’s good side, you will be hated by the herd and when times get tough, you will be the first on his dinner table.
Keep in mind, that I am basing my perception of you on that one posting alone. I have a history of dealings with violent military men and their women and this certainly has created bias.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Slithy Tove: not at all. I’m getting the impression that you and ManGeorge were Vietnam or immediate post-Vietnam vets or servicemembers? Different eras, perhaps, that what I may have experienced?
Or is it just the Navy? When I left the Ragular Army to be a weekend warrior, I re-classified and went to Ft. Eustis, VA. for school.
One of my classmates was a prior-service Navy E-5, and from what he told me of his time in the Navy, Had that been me I would’ve started chucking officers and chiefs overboard in the middle of the night with Hungarian neck-ties.
No Army officer or NCO with a shred of a sense of self-preservation would dare treat their troops the way my classmate described his treatment in the Navy (without details, there’s no basis for comparison with what you may have gone through, but I suspect that your stories would dovetail on several points).
ExTank
HI-HO, HI-HO, it’s over the rail you go…
I have worked with the military for over 27 years, the question of what happens to those who are not fit to be in the military. In the Marine Corps during basic the recruits are valuated if they do not live up to standards they discharged for failure to adapt to military life, this is done because of the high cost of train. You only want to spend money where it will do the most good. What would have if you kept the misfits in, it was tried under Carter, they were classified as catagory 11, training cost went through the roof. All training materiels have to be redone to match a fourth grade level. I know because I was writing them, they ended up being comic books. The current PM monthly magazine put out by Army still has a comic book format. As to mandatory military service for all, as I see it, it is a form of slavery. This is not what is needed in a free country.
ILLEGITIMUS NON CARBORUNDUM EST
Sake Samurai, I’ll address your points in their order of relevancy as I see them:
Judging people on this board from one post using past experience bias is a mistake; as you have over 700 posts, you should be more familiar with this board than I am, but I’ve learned (to my chagrin) not to make that mistake. When I assume, I’m careful to let the poster I’m responding to know that I’m making an assumption, so as to avoid these little misconceptions.
Having re-read my post with a more critical eye, I realized that I may as well have had an American flag flying as a backdrop, with the “Battle Hymm of the Republic” playing softly in the backgroud, and can see how you may have arrived at your conclusions.
I must strongly disagree. Not knowing what periods during which you served (I’m suspecting the Vietnam era), I can’t comment on the people that you met in the military.
I served in the mid/late '80s, when the Army was offering substantial enticements for enlistees into critical-shortage fields; hefty bonuses, Army College Fund and G.I. Bill. This attracted a wide spectrum of people, from all walks of life, many with some college already, looking for money to continue their education after leaving the military.
Among our officers, an ROTC graduate was more common than an Academy grad, as ROTC scholarships were a good way for people from lower income brackets to obtain the higher education that they might not otherwise be able to afford.
I can only assume that you are alluding to those few individuals that attain more rank and authority than they are capable of handling. These people exist, whether they are in the military or on the factory floor or supervising your office; the difference being that you can tell your civillian boss to “KMA!” and quit, whereas in the military, you have to put up with it until your enlistment ends.
But during my time in the Army, such individuals were rare, and usually a quite word from a fellow NCO would keep them in line. I didn’t allow other NCOs to mess with my troops too much, and didn’t really have to worry about it. I had good troops, for the most part, and my fellow NCOs almost always conducted themselve professionally. Sadists were not tolerated.
Maybe I was just double lucky in my unit assignments and leaders, but I don’t think so; I had enough friends in other units that I would’ve heard something if there were walking-talking anal retentive power-mongers among us.
Could you provide some cite for the section I bolded? Or are you just quoting from personal observation/experience?
I think my use of language was a little over-the-top; I was speaking figuratively, to illustrate the difference between calm, rational civillian committee-rule and the kind of exigency rule common to military situations (emergencies, combat, etc.), where there needs to be “one voice”, with no dissention or hesitation because lives are at stake. Hell, in peace time, there were plenty of circumstances where our leaders allowed us great flexibility in determining our course(s) of action.
The Army that I served in found those acts intolerable and unexcusable, regardless of the circumstances. Any perpetrators would have been punished to the full extent of the UCMJ.
Once again, over-the-top writing on my part.
I agree with Patton in that it’s better that the other guy dies for his country than you dying for yours; I certainly didn’t mean to imply that anyone ever rush out to die in some gruesome manner to prove themselves or advance their cause.
What I was saying is that I would honor the memory of those who gave their all, that others may take example from their bravery and dedication. Not much different from firefighters who perish trying to save the lives of someone trapped in a burning building. It’s dangerous, deadly so, but they go into the flames, again and again, to bring back one more person, at great risk to their own lives.
I will not shed crocodile tears at their loss; they volunteered! I will honor their decision, their bravery and their sacrifice, even as I mourn their loss, personally and professionally.
The miltary I served in rewarded initiative, intelligence and creative thinking. Doesn’t sound very sheepish to me. If anything, I’ve had to contend more often with “Don’t Make Waves, Follow The Herd, Toe The Line” co-workers and supervisors in the civillian world than in the military, and it has cost me promotions and pay raises (and even once, my job), not to mention grief. But I still stick to my core values of working smart, working hard, of honesty, integrity and professionalism. I can work well with a team, but I’m usually left alone as my current crop of bosses know that they’re getting their value for their money as I don’t need a supervisor standing over me cracking a whip.
Leadership was a prized quality, and I struggled with the concept, falling on my face several times, before coming to my admittedly limited understanding of it.
It isn’t just barking orders and marching soldiers into a meat grinder for a piece of real estate. It’s setting an example of competency, honesty, integrity; of perserverance in the face of adversity, be it physical discomfort of imminent danger; and letting your people know that you expected their best at all times, that we may all go into any situation and through training and teamwork all come out alive and intact.
Anywho, strong wording aside, that was the true gist of my post.
Having read many of your posts with great interest, I honestly expected better from you. You seemed to me to be an intelligent, understanding individual.
But your diatribe has lowered my opinion of you (for whatever it’s worth) a notch.
ExTank
I’m gonna change my screen name to the ‘Great Big Toe’."