I would guess that any romantic appeal (of being a soldier) went away with the advent of WWI. All of sudden, war became a terrible affair, with no redeeming excitement. The decline of fancy uniforms, and units like horse cavalry also played a part (I would guess). Seriously, does army life appeal to young men any more? Seems like the truth behind war is now apparent-and being a soldier is all about being wet, cold and dirty-with the added possibility of getting killed.
Huh? Look at all those ads for the Marines with handsome guys in crisp dress blues silhouetted against the sunset or whatever. Certainly there are a lot of people nowadays who don’t think it’s ridiculous to associate soldiering with glamour and pride, although certainly nobody believes that a soldier’s life is all heroic poses in fancy uniforms.
I think the only romance ever tied to war has been a sense of patriotic duty to one’s nation/state/tribe/etc…that and gleaming uniforms, which invariably attract loose women.
Perhaps there’s a little something to your OP, what with the terrifying weapons we now have and what they can do to the human body on a scale never before seen.
That’s what being a soldier was always about for the ranks. Read up on the US Civil War, or on the everyday life of a British Infantryman under Wellington in Spain. Generally the poor joined the military because they had no choice, not in a quest for glory and fancy uniforms.
The appealing life you are talking about existed only for officers.
I would guess that you have no idea what you are talking about.
I served in the military, and taught at a military academy prep school for several years. Even during wartime, we had no shortage of recruits. There are plenty of young people who serve for a variety of reasons. They may be looking for a way out of their home town and want to see the world, or feel there is a lack of opportunity in their current situation, or are looking for a challenge, or want to learn leadership skills, or want to pick up marketable skills, or earn money for college, or simply want to serve their country out of patriotism.
The military absolutely still appeals to young men (and women, too). Check out the commercials sometime for the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps during football games.
As for uniforms, the USMC has some of the sharpest looking uniforms around. And horse cavalry? :dubious: I’d rather have the hardware that soldiers today routinely deploy than a useless horse, any day.
While being a soldier is certainly not without risks, it’s a lot safer being a soldier or Marine today than it was in the past.
Moving away from soldiers and Marines, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force also still have strong recruiting campaigns.
If anything, the situation is reversed. People joined the military in the past because they were made to do so. For the U.S., today, people who join the military are volunteers.
There was a concerted campaign in the West during the Cold War by the fifth dir.of the K.G.B. to alienate public opinion against anything to do with the armed forces of their countries.
This campaign was not conducted overtly by the Soviets but used local agents of influence to start the ball rolling which was picked up by the gullible,the easily led and those who had no genuine strong views one way or the other but wanted to appear Hip and trendy.
This campaign was particulary successful in America,particulary allied with the news footage of fighting in the Vietnam war.
I believe that the O.P.s idea of popular opinion about the armed forces in the West is not a true one.
Many people in the West are proud of their servicemen,their servicemen are proud that they are servicemen plus war films would never make any money if the audience was anti armed forces.
cite?
Yeah, and they wanted to put fluouride in the water, too.
If there’s anything in the world that makes sense, is rational, it is a reluctance to go somewhere and have other people shoot at you. What men and women will do in times of hard necessity is one thing, but looking on soldiering and war as glamorous or exciting is no longer hip. If it ever was.
The ancient Greeks said War is the father of all things.
I say the ancient Greeks don’t set the trends any more.
Various traditional ballads of the 19th (perhaps even 18th) century carry an Anti-war or military theme. Off the top of my head I can think of Mrs. McGrath, Arthur McBride, and The Lowlands Of Holland. So for some soldiering lost its appeal a long time ago.
A few years ago I saw one of those super-macho rah-rah recruitment ads during a showing of All Quiet on the Western Front. I think the resulting headache is the essence of the OP.
Its too bad that some people believe people only join the military to go kill people in exotic lands. I enlisted at first years ago because I wanted to see someplace else other than my home town and get “experience”. I planned on only doing one tour but I stayed in because I really enjoyed the travelling and camaraderie. Keep in mind when I say travelling it doesn’t always mean deployments. I’ve never enjoyed that part, but its part of the job. Still, I’ve been fortunate to be statioed in places where I was able to travel to places cheaply and easily.
I’m in the Army, but I have to admit the USMC has some kickass commercials.
You know, Army dress blues don’t look so bad either. I always enjoy wearing mine.
I’m not crazy about the relatively ACUs. I liked the BDUs a lot better. ACUs do have the bonus of not having to have patches and nametags sewn on though.
People tend to think of everything in the army and the marines as being in the middle of combat. They forget about all of the support guys and gals that make it possible for the troops to fight.
The USAF and USN need to recruit less people than the army and the marines. They still have good campaigns, but at least when I was recruiting the navy and air force guys needed way less numbers than the marines and the army. There was one month where the navy recruiters told me they couldn’t put in any females because they were out of slots for them. :eek:.
Some people still believe you can join up if you get in trouble. “go to war or go to jail” stuff. we once had a guys father go bananas in our recruiting station because we told him we couldn’t put his criminal ass son in. Kid had every cop in town looking for him at the time.
I don’t think the romanticism about warriors is gone from America. Even a cynical leftwinger like me who resents the claim that soldiers in Iraq are fighting for my freedom can feel it. Though in my case its result has been limited to picking up the odd W.E.B. Griffin novel and not actually joining up.
Also, keep in mind that movies like Transformers and Iron Man. Transformers was a two hour long Air Force commercial, and stuff like that works.
Take me for example: I’ve been to Iraq twice had my first “I should be dead” experience not two months after I turned 20 and yet I still have to talk myself out of joining back up. There is something about being apart of something greater than yourself and when you see all those cool gadgets and machines on tv you remember that someone has to be in control of that.
And a part of me has always wanted to be a ground-pounder. Hell, when I was in high school I wanted to me a Marine corpsman, but I was under 17 when I was shopping around for military branch and my parents refused to sign.
I would say it went back a lot farther then that. During the Civil War, a number of battles were extremely costly and bloody on both sides. I don’t think anyone who was at Fredricksburg and survived walked away believing that war wasn’t a horrible thing. Hell, Lee won the battle handily and said “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it”.
Try being a musketman in Napoleonic times. Lack of accuracy meant massed volley fire. Massed volley fire meant you had to stand close together. Close proximity made tasty targets for artillery; and breaking away from your colleagues meant you got run down and slaughtered by cavalry.
That was if you lived to fight, as opposed to dying from disease in camp, or brutal punishment, or malnutrition because of poor supplies. And when you weren’t at war, you were thought of as dangerous vermin by the people you were meant to be protecting. Often because you were…
Fair point,I expect that Iwill be able to dig one out (Baring in mind that I’m bone idle)in a few days,so I hope that you will bear with me.
From the KGB’s own archivist.
Soldiering lost it’s appeal when we got stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once those conflicts conclude, it will begin to gain appeal again until the next war.
Yeah and they laughed at Newton and Gallileo too.
Do you actually have some sort of a rational point to make?
If theres anything in the world that makes sense is that people with very sheltered lives and decided opinions are blind to the fact that most of the men and women who have signed up have done so NOT during times of hard necessity but because its what they’ve wanted to do and some of them (Myself NOT included)DO find the life rightly or wrongly glamourus.
It IS exciting some of the time,you DO make the best mates of your lives,you DO get to travel to places that you otherwise would’nt be able to do so(and I’m talking Italy,Greece,the Bahamas and Disneyworld here,from my own experience),you DO get to do things that you also wouldn’t do in civilian life(From my own experience,skiing,power boating,parachuting etc.)
I do not wish to come across as being offensive but you really do sound as though you have had a very limited life and are very young.
If I am wrong then I totally apologise.
Just a nitpick, but nowhere in that book’s Editorial Review does it mention anything about
Can we get a more specific cite, plz?