ExTank;
I mentioned, in an above post, that the military loses a lot of good people due to the relatively low pay. Was this true, if I may ask, in your case. And is it still true in general?
Peace,
mangeorge
mangeorge, though your question was directed to extank, I have to post this in response:
One of the incentives to enlistment is the VA Loan: no down-payment when buying a house. HOWEVER - as the guarantor of your “down” (NOT the entire loan) Uncle Sam reserves the right to turn down loans on properties the vet wants to buy, if Uncle Sam appraises the house for less than the asking price. Also, due to the govt. paperwork, closing takes longer. Result: where the seller used to be able to put, but now is bared by law, from putting “No Blacks, No Jews,” etc. on their selling contracts, they CAN put “no VA applicants.” My wife, a qualified vet, and I have been turned down for bids we’ve placed due to this. (yes - I know - lots of minorities enlist for school & home buying oportunities otherwise out of their reach - does this = “de facto” red-lining? I leave that to another thread). What would/will happen to enlistment needs when/if this becomes widely known? - that VA loans may as well often be paid in Confederate money, and that GI bill school money is only granted to full-time students, with nothing extra for living expenses (that means you must attend college full time and also, given rents and grocery rates, work full time; or live with those parents who thought they’d gotten rid of you when you went to boot camp).
Those were my sentiments exactly after reading your previous jingoistically preposterous post.
My little disclaimer in my last message was not meant to insult you by indicating that I don’t read any of your prior postings (quite the opposite), but that I am quite familiar with your SDMB personality and was addressing you based soley on that one post for the sake of the matter at hand. I do realize that I can be overly harsh, but your post revealed a side of you I did not wish to see.
Your last posting showed that you are a man of honor and not Uncle Sam’s barely-restrained bestial lackey. The acerbic nature of my rebuttal was due to the attitude you were displaying like some dung-splattered holy relic in front of my face. You admitted your overly zealous use language and I appreciate that - it would have been awfully easy for you to return the attack - thanks.
We have had drastically different experiences with the Army and I am not about to try to tell you that yours were delusional or exceptional: I’m just very glad you were able to come out of the whole thing a stronger man who is also pleasantly wiser.
If your first post was worded like your last post, I wouldn’t have cut into you at all.
I’ll try to find some statistics for you about the high abuse rates in the military. I had no luck searching just now, and only found these two lackluster sites: STAMP & WAR AT HOME. The latter site has some USA Todayesque pie charts which demonstrate that the majority of 16,463 incidents of spousal abuse studied resulted in the military siding with the offender, not the victim. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say if that number is for one month or one year.
I grew up on several military bases and the rampant physical abuse was a mostly unspoken fact of life among my friends and relations. It wasn’t until we grew older that we started to bring it out to the open. I don’t want to get into your background (or mine) any deeper, but can you honostly say that it would greatly surprise you to learn that the military HAS a very high rate of physical abuse? I’m just surprised you’re demanding cites (although it is typical of the SDMB) I suppose.
I’ll try to oblige.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Sake: no, I certainly don’t require cite for your assertions; extended seperations, lack of control over your life (like coming down on levy for Korea immediately after returning from a tour in Germany), and the mindless tedium of a garrison posting (Ft. Hood); all these are negative factors that can cause the kind of personal and professional frustration that can lead to all kinds of domestic troubles.
All this I have seen with my own eyes.
But as far as how widespread this kind of thing may be?
I think it boils down to expectations.
I joined the military for certain benefits, and knew full well going in that I was at the bureaucratic mercy of the Army, and did my best to prepare myself emotionally for that.
But many others join (or are enticed by unscrupulous recruiters) thinking that it’s just a regular 9-5 job with funny clothes and wierd rituals. The resulting reality is all the more shocking in that these miguided people are unprepared mentally or emotionally for the rigors they may be called upon to endure.
For my part, this mental preperation entailed adopting some of that military “macho” hard-core attitude, where I abandoned my needs and desires to serve the needs of the organization. You might say I lost part of myself in doing so, but I feel I just “put it on a shelf” for a while, so to speak.
Was I changed from the kind of person I was before I went in? Of course; Life is change, through experience. And experience need not be good or bad, but what we take from it.
I’ve seen the best and worse of people in the military, and I think the dividing line between the two has less to do with the military and what it does to people than how prepared those people were in the first place, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually.
ManGeorge: I re-enlisted as an Avionics Technician in April of '90, and was “short” in my assignment as a tanker at Ft. Hood when the Persian Gulf broke out. The military put a “Stop-Gap” program into action, freezing all transfers and seperations in place “for the duration”.
Thus I was locked into going to war with my current unit instead of going to my new MOS’s school and my next asignment in Korea.
After the dust settled and things got back to normal at Ft. Hood (July '91), I tried to get back on track with my re-enlistment contract.
However, I now had less than two years left on my contract, and Aviation Branch didn’t want me anymore; because I had over six months left, I couldn’t “extend” my contract to give me the requisite time to fulfill my contract. Catch-22.
So I was resigned to spending another 21 months locked into Armor, with bleak re-enlistment prospects due to that fact that I was being considered for promotion (and I was too prideful to “tank” my qualifications to preclude my promotion)
Then in October of '91 the Early Transition Program was offered to qualified applicants (which I was) and I jumped on it, figuring I had a better chance on the “outside” of hooking up with the Reserves, getting the schooling I wanted, and then maybe going back full-time.
While that didn’t quite work out the way I (didn’t) plan for, all-in-all I have no reason to complain as I have a great paying job, even if it is slightly strenuous on my personal life.
ExTank
ManGeorge: sorry, I neglected the second half of your question.
As far as current retention problems in the military, I hear more soldiers griping about increased deployments and operating tempo than anything. I don’t know if more money or benefits would offset this burden, however; you can only miss so many Christmas’ and birthdays before your kids are all grown up and you feel like an absentee parent.
As well, I hear them griping about the lopsided nature of their deployments, especially “Peacekeeping” mission. Let’s face it, combat soldiers make lousy cops. Standing in the middle of a foreign civil war 10,000 miles from home surrounded by hostile natives (who would likely spit on your bullet-riddled corpse as help you out) on Christmas day with only one 10-rd magazine of ammo because some bonehead in The Administration doesn’t trust young GIs with guns and ammo doesn’t make for good retention numbers.
The Air-Land Battle Doctrine is founded on [Battlefield] Initiative and Mobility, and it is on these principles that our soldiers are indoctrinated and trained (even if they don’t even realize it) from the moment that they enter the Army (all my time as Training NCO paid off!), and placing troops in a Static, Reactive situation (like being bullet-sponges in the middle of someone else’s civil war)is unnerving and frustrating. Not a good enticement to re-enlist, no matter how much money you pay them.
Add to that the hostility the military and the current administration bear towards each other…well, it’s not a pretty situation.
ExTank