If as many people are trying to join up as they say, what is the military going to do with all of them? A “measured response” is likely to be surgical, using a few highly-trained specialists, not piles of raw recruits like an Iranian charge.
So recruiting targets will be met, for a nice change. The services can be as selective as they would like to be normally. The guys who are turned down will know they made an effort. Do all these guys really expect to be thrown into the front lines against international terrorism? Would they be better off joining the FBI?
I’m not American so I can’t say what the US military is like. Just as a WAG, I’d say that the “dirty business” of taking care of this particular problem for the most part would be over and done with long before any recruit that signed up this past week would even finish basic training. I don’t think today’s US military works like a revolving door of “come in September as Joe Couch-Potato, walk out October as Sgt. Slaughter with bazooka ready to annihilate Afghanistan” - they are quite professional about proper training and discipline. I’m not trying to squash any recruits hopes here, but the new ones probably won’t find themselves on the front lines fighting terrorism for some time yet.
A FOAF in the little dipshit town of Havana, Illinois went to the local recruiter to enlist. As soon as he signed on the dotted line, his recruiter told him, “There’s a car outside waiting to take you to St. Louis. Get in.” :eek:
This war is going to be neither quick nor surgical. It’s going to be a sustained effort that will probably cost many American lives and last several months at a bare minimum. And after it’s over, America’s military presence, both home and abroad (especially at home), is going to be bigger, better and badder. All those boys (and girls) signing up these days are going to serve, one way or the other.
No need for a draft yet. The “draft,” or military conscription, involved telling people that they, specifically, were now in the Army. So far this is a spike in voluntary enlistment.
Another way conscription has been used was to place incoming soldiers where they were most needed. This was done in the later years of WWII because fewer men were volunteering for the infantry than were needed.
[somewhat connected aside]
I just saw that the CIA is getting three times as many resumes as normal.
[/somewhat connected aside]
A recruit is someone who has signed up and is going thru the process (filling out papers, taking the pledge, getting a physical). Once they have done that and have been issued uniforms, and had their hair cut, then they become “shitheads”. Or at least that is how it used to work.