Should this kid be in the Army?

Asthma is disqualifying if he’s had an instance of asthma after the age of 13, although he may be able to get a waiver. If he has asthma currently, he’s disqualified. If he’s got really mild asthma, and lies about it to get in, and has an attack, he’s in big trouble. Besides that, to get in he’s going to have to lie to the recruiter during the screening process when asked if he’s ever used illegal substances.

I still recommend giving this kid the phone number to the local JobCorps, and then maybe sitting him down and working something out with him for his future after he gets his GED. He might clean right up and get his head together, and then again he might not. The military spends a ton of money on you the second you walk into the recruiter’s office and start filling out forms. If he goes in and wastes their time and money, it’s not going to end well for him.

That’s contrary to my experience. Lying about it is a surefire way to get booted if/when they find out you lied. My job involved a very thorough background check–interviews with past acquaintences, people they knew who may have known me, teachers, former employers, etc. There were guys in training right alongside me who disclosed drug use and were not disqualified, one even spent time in Amsterdam as a pusher. You can’t do it anymore once you sign up, but if you’re open about it and can make it clear that it’s all in the past then you’re ok.

Well, let’s see what you have to share first, before I decide to hate you, but maybe your own self assessment should be considered here.

Our station has enlisted three recent college graduates in the last three months. We have also enlisted a young man who has been active in his community in volunteer services for the hurricane evacuees that have arrived in this area. None of those four were hopeless. All had good records and wanted badly to join to be part of the Army.

Please, let’s, but I am not betting on it.

WTF, I thought we were being honest here. I don’t expect a cite, but at least let me know if you pulled this out of Travelocity, the Onion, or your own ass. I would guess, you believe that none of the Soldiers deployed to Iraq are assigned to a stateside unit and deploy when the unit does. By your belief, there are no stateside units, and if that were the case, what would stop Mexico from invading the US? Further, I would guess that the Soldiers that are deployed to Afghanistan, Saudi, Bosnia, Egypt, etc don’t ping on your radar.

Know what? Are you trying to suggest that hard working, motivated young men and women don’t enlist in the Army? Care to show me how you figured this out? Care to spend 5 minutes in a Future Soldier chatroom to talk to some of America’s newest hero’s to discover why these people joined? I didn’t think so.

In my Army, the parents don’t enlist. It is the applicant who enlists. I am very clear with my applicants about this. Anyone who says he/she is joining for Mom or Dad, I tell them that Mom or Dad is not making this decision, YOU ARE. Maybe not all Recruiters do this, but then again, maybe not all applicants are pushed by the parents.

Yes, huge doubt, but you don’t seem to need facts to support your argument. You have gone to this several times. What do you really believe the time is from enlistment to deployment to Iraq? What training is required? Who stays behind to provide support to the deployed troops? Again, since you seem to be a one trick pony, who stays behind stateside at Walter Reed, at Brook Army Medical Center, at Fort Polk to conduct training, at any other installation?

Absolute Bullshit. If you have never had to tell a young person who has dreamed of being a Soldier for as long as they can remember that they are not qualified for Military service for one reason or another, I would thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. I would thank you to clarify what standards have been lowered. PUHLES? QT? Moral? Not that I have seen.

I will accept that as your closing argument, so, allow me to retort. I think it is a shame that many proud Americans are using the current operation in Iraq as the basis for encouraging others to defer Military Service. The Army does teach discipline, the Army does provide values and direction. The Army does not provide re-hab. An applicant must show he/she has overcome any prior issues. The Army employs the whole Soldier concept. You may have made a mistake in the past, but if the person has overcome it, then he/she should be evaluated as such.
Finally, the Army has started a new program in which an applicant may obtain his/her GED while enlisted in the Army, but again, we will look at the whole Soldier and not many will qualify.
I wish all applicants the best of luck and thank them for their consideration.

SSG Schwartz

Every time I hear someone say this, I’m dismayed anew at the ignorance so many people display regarding the military. I’m also certain that these people have never been in the company of soldiers. I really, truly wish I could show you the young soldiers I’m surrounded with on a daily basis. They are brilliant, strong, brave, competent, and professional.

Soldiering today is *not * a job for those who are slackers or idiots. It’s an extremely technically demanding job (many jobs, actually), and America’s soldiers do a masterful job of it the vast majority of the time.

Peace Corps pretty much requires a BA. They would be very hesitant to accept a person who has had a drug addiction and certainly wouldn’t consider it until that addiction is completely treated and years in the past. It’s actually a somewhat selective organization and volunteers do some pretty hard work- I’m currently a college teacher with Peace Corps.

Reading between the lines it sounds like the mother is the reason he’s such a fuckup.

Getting him well away from her in whatever way is to going to enhance his life.

I would say encourage him to enlist,he wouldn’t be the first fuckup to have his life turned around by joining up.

If he doesn’t make the grade at least he’s had a go and even the partial experience of Boot Camp might help him in his future life.

And I wish posters wouldn’t project their own personal fears and phobias onto other people.

The thought of serving in a warzone/leaving home etc. scares the shit out of you ?
Then DONT join up,but dont go around telling everyone else not to.
Dont assume that everyone else shares your inadequasies,we are NOT all the same.

I wish him luck and hope his mother gets her claws out of him.

[hijack]How on earth do you get that from the OP? She’s trying to help! Have you ever had to raise a drug addicted child? It’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world, you know. It sounds to me like she’s doing the best she can.[/hijack]

I also have to agree with her that this kid doesn’t belong in the army (although I think he’d be washed out of the program rather than be “eaten alive”). Acid Lamp pretty much nailed it. A recovering drug addict with physical issues who can’t even hold down a regular job isn’t going to cut it in the military. He should stick to something more down to earth. Job Corps sounds like the perfect choice.

Oh, and while I don’t agree with the Iraq War, DMark, you’ve got a lot to learn about the army.

I have seen a few rocks in the Army. I have seen some fucking idiots in every job I’ve had. Looking around Iraq I see mostly decent smart professionals. Not the hopeless and dregs of society. Just one data point but I’m in Iraq and you’re not.

Speaking as a drunk guy who couldn’t even run a quarter mile going into his enlistment I have to point out that this is simply not true, Linty. I’d say a successful military career depends entirely on the mettle the kid’s got and not what he’s been doing with it.

The fact is that new recruits are more inclined to be poor and have fewer alternatives.
Here is a recent article from the Washington Post.

As I said, I am sure there are some kids who are signing up because of more patriotic reasons, but it still sounds to me like a lot of kids are signing up out of sheer desperation and having no other alternatives.

More like kids who do have other alternatives don’t sign up because military service doesn’t pay very well. Army privates start at $15K whereas an entry level civilian employee (GS-2) grosses $20K.

Before he even makes a decision and starts planning he may want to be sure he even qualifies. The possibility of asthma alone would most likely prevent him from getting in.

Does he, or has he ever used an inhaler?

That’s the vibe I’m getting from this thread re the athsma being a deal killer for him

I think this study is the one they’re talking about, and this chart illustrates the income data. Interestingly, the proportion of recruits from middle-income areas (household income from $30K to $60K) has gone up, but the proportion of recruits from the poorest areas (household income under $30K) has gone down. So it seems that there are fewer, not more, of the “economically desperate.” As for the fact that a disproportionately small number of recruits come from from wealthy families, I suspect that that’s been true for a long time.

Wartime recruiting is a lot harder, and the Army appears to have acknowledged that they have lowered standards to meet their needs. However, I would hardly say that a 15% decline in “high quality recruits” means that the army has become “the last resort of the hopeless.”

Amen

As a pacifist and opponent of the US Military in general (and of the specific American mindset that “Army discipline is good for people”) I would say definitly no.

I’ll leave out the question whether it’s ethical/moral to enlist to kill other people just because one’s own life is messed up. I’ll also leave out the real current risk of serious injury in Iraq (and/or PTSD simply by being in battle), and just look at the general issues I have with the Army/Military.

I know that many (esp. the hard-core conservatives) Americans believe in the myth that the military discipline and the rigors of having your spirit crushed in boot camp is good for a person (makes a man out of boys). In reality, however, as any competent therapist/psychologist would tell you, discipline forced onto you - esp. on somebody who already has discipline problems! (drug abuse, problems with quitting) - is worse than useless. Once the external force is withdrawn, the person crashes worse than before: without anybody telling him what to do (And taking responsibility for the decisions by giving the orders), he doesn’t know what to do and will be more of a slacker than before.

If he wants to improve his life and get it in order, the wish = need for this must come from within himself, not the nagging by his mom, and must be strong enough that he himself does the necessary things. A typical good rehab program is living unit of several ex-druggies and some therapists who live together in a house, getting used to housework and living alone and taking responsibility and doing duties again step by step. As the people progress, they get given more indepence and freedom. The Army works quite the other way: you have to obey orders more if you want to continue.

If he wants to do regular hard-working stuff away from the usual crowd he hangs around with (that’s often a big factor, too, in recidvism, hanging out with the same guys that got you in trouble before because you don’t have any new clean friends or new activities), there are bunces of other options besides the Army: the peace corps, Habitat for Humanity, working in a National Park for little money*, social projects helping others …

All of these programs get a person away from home, with hard work, unlike the Army, he doesn’t have to kill anybody, but does good things, and learns to manage his life in the meantime. He can also walk away, without getting traumatized.

The best that would happen to him is that he is kicked out of basic training because of physical/ emotional reasons, or he drops out because he finds that the discipline is too tough for him. In that case, he has to take a different path, anyway, and has lost some time.
The worst case, however, is that he comes back from Iraq wounded, dead or traumatized. Or (from a certain point of view, that’s also bad) he learns how to be an efficient killer without any emotions, obeying all orders.

  • The Anna Pigeon crime novel series is about a woman park ranger. In one of the early books, in a flashback, it’s described how she used to live in NY with her husband, until he died in an accident. Depressed, she left the city, driving around, until one day, she tried to comit suicide. A park ranger found her just before, and put her to hard work the next couple of days to get her out of her funk. She fell in love with the nature in the park and stayed. I found this interesting and believably described.

Just to clarify, there is a difference between a decline in “high quality recruits” and the Army lowering its enlistment standards. There are basically two pools that the Army draws from. We have those that have or will have a high school diploma or better, and can score above a 50 on the ASVAB. These are the high-quality recruits that the article speaks of. Most of these applicants will be qualified for every job that the Army has to offer.

Then there are those that score between 30 and 49 on the ASVAB and do not have a high school diploma. These recruits are, and always have been qualified for service, but may not be eligible for all jobs. However, the Army will train these new Soldiers and allow them to retake the ASVAB while they are in, so that more jobs will be open to them.

As to the asthma issue, a good recruiter will take the applicant to a medical doctor and have a PFA done. If the results are good, the doctor will recommend the applicant, and then it will be up to the MEPS doctor.

SSG Schwartz

I haven’t read any of the replies to the OP yet, because I want to say what I have to without beind influenced by anyone else’s opinion.

I’m also 23, and I’ve been in the Army National Guard for two and a half years. I was a slacker up to that point, but I knew that I was intelligent enough to go to college and get a good job and all. So I talked to a recruiter and within two weeks I was flying south for basic training.

My MOS (er, job) was a medic, so after basic I went to Fort Sam Houston, TX, which is just outside of San Antonio. I struggled with alcohol down there (we had more freedoms than we did in basic training), and a lot of my friends from basic who had joined for reasons similar to my own got into drugs (meth, mostly). They all got kicked out.

When I got home, I had more problems with drinking, but the Readiness NCO for my unit was able to help me. I can’t overstate how much that guy has helped me. Because of him–and the Army–I’ve really gotten my head on straight, and I’ve attended one semester of school so far in which I actually made money (I made the dean’s list, too!).

I guess my point is this: I think it’s great that the guy wants to get things turned around, and I think his mother needs to let him make this decision for himself and not treat him like a baby. That being said, if he’s still in recovery for his recent drug problem, he needs to get that as straightened out as he possibly can before he thinks about making the lifestyle adjustment that will be joining the Army. Has he talked to a psychiatrist about all this? Has he been diagnosed with anything that could have led to his drug problem, like depression or bi-polar disorder? Disorders like those are definitely something he wants to find out about and get taken care of before enlisting.

I guess that’s all I have to say. I know people like SSG Schwartz will have a lot of information, but if there’s anything else you’d like to know from me, I’d be happy to help.

(Oh, and by the way, I don’t think the Army is supposed to take people with asthma, but that may have changed.)

I am editing your post, because I respect your opinion regarding this thread, and the fact that you are a pacifist, is fine with me. I don’t even get worked up about the fact that you are an opponent of the United States military. But I do want to address some factual and emotional issues you pose and leave in your logical arguments.

As to your comment that “You have to obey more orders to continue”, every employee everywhere has to obey orders, from what time to show up to personal hygiene standards. Even if a person starts his own business, he will have to submit to his customers if he wants to stay in business for very long. Granted, in the Army, the Uniform Code of Military Justice can be used to enforce standards, whereas in the civilian world, you may simply be fired.

IMO, getting kicked out of Basic Training would not be the best thing for him or anyone else who enlists. A person made a commitment and has found that he or she cannot live up to it. I have talked to several people who got discharged during their initial entry training (Basic Training) and most want to come back to try again to prove to themselves that they really can do it. Fulfilling that commitment, to a lot of Soldiers, is the best day of their lives.

As to your comment about coming back dead, traumatized, or an efficient killer who blindly accepts orders without emotion, I think you seriously misunderstand the US Army. For example, my job is Combat Stress Control. I counsel the Soldiers that have been in harms way. I help them process the experience and we believe that it will minimize the possibility of PTSD. There are also cooks, truck drivers, parachute riggers, plumbers and many other jobs that killing is not a job requirement. All are trained in self-defense, none are trained to blindly follow orders. Hell, even those that are in the combat arms jobs are not trained to be mindless killers. That would be an extreme combat stress reaction and would mean that the combat stress control teams are not doing their jobs.

SSG Schwartz

First of all, the Peace Corps does not exist to give slackers a free plane ticket to an exotic locale. This kid doesn’t even have a GED and has never held down a serious job, and you think he’s going to live in a remote African village and be responsible for an important task? The Peace Corps is a major commitment, and the candidate must either have a Bachelor’s degree or some kind of amazing experience (like your parents were missionaries and you grew up all over the world and speak five languages) to get in. Americorps might accept this kid. Might.

He might volunteer with HfH, but other than some church missions I don’t know of any HfH program that involves sending people far away for extended periods of time, well, none that don’t involve paying money, which he’d probably have to get from his mother. Once again, even if he got that involved, he’d have to demonstrate responsibility and willingness to respect and work with others.

The National park jobs you’re talking about is likely the SCA. Like the other programs, if he gets a position, he will have to show up for work on time, be polite and respectful, stay off drugs, and work hard.

This guy needs to get cleaned up and get a GED and some marketable skills before he takes on any major commitments. He’s going to have to develop self-respect and self-reliance, which is hard to learn when you’re already 23 freakin’ years old.