71% of Americans between 17 and 24 can’t meet the minimum criteria for service | Hacker News Reader

71% of Americans between 17 and 24 can’t meet the minimum criteria for service

taskandpurpose.com

49 pointsAnimats71 comments

I was hoping that the article would touch on what the physical requirements are, and was disappointed. Here's some interesting resources

http://work.chron.com/armys-minimum-physical-requirements-jo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Physical_Fi...

The criteria are:

- BMI

- Eyesight

- Physical fitness on push ups, sit ups and length of time to run 2 miles.

Notably, the differing physical requirement minimums for men vs women are quite significant.

Ironically, the _maximums_ for women pose a serious problem for women who want to go for the toughest roles. You need to seriously bulk up to get in.

If you take a look, the problems they’re describing are direct counterparts of problems society has: The prison/industrial complex and the war on drugs is disqualifying people on the character test, the basic fitness requirement is undoubtedly affected by the food deserts in major cities and so on.

This is pretty serious: an armed force that doesn’t resemble the general population is a recipe for conflict and tyrrany.

The fairness of prison sentences for drug abuse or dealing is a different debate, but I am not convinced drug users and drug dealers should make it to the army. It's not the war on drugs that creates drug users.

It doesn’t create users, but it and the absence of any decent jobs is definitely what creates convictions for drug dealers.

As the article states, it sounds like the Army is unconvinced “Has never smoked pot” is a sensible requirement either, given the rise of waivers. It’s hard to find an argument against pot that doesn’t apply to alcohol (except for “it’s illegal” which is only true because of the War on Drugs.)

Agree, it should be about substance abuse, not have you ever tried drug x (even for hard drugs). Like alcohol abuse should also make someone ineligible.

Less convinced about the absence of decent job in a country where unemployment is at an historical low. There might be an absence of jobs in a particular city, but people can (and should) move then.

You...know that moving isn't something you can just do at a whim, right? You need to find a place to move to, which takes time, money, and energy?

If you're unemployed and dirt-poor, moving is not likely to be something that's easy for you to do.

Some 10-12 years ago, I used to teach a simple CompSci 102 course on a military base while in grad school. A drill sergeant taking this class was a veritable fountain of stories of military mishaps; one that he liked to repeat was that before Thanksgiving break, he would tell his new recruits that they would be tested for drugs when they came back on base, and encouraged them not to indulge. And when they came back, a non-trivial percentage would invariably be kicked out due to drug usage.

To me, this said more about how casual users think about drugs than about what they believe regarding Army regulations; a disparity between these outlooks that the Army (represented imperfectly by this drill sergeant) was unwilling to budge on.

> I am not convinced drug users and drug dealers should make it to the army

Throughout history, the strongest soldiers of the strongest armies have always been on a kind of permanent high. It's uncertain anyone can withstand the hardships of military life, and of wartime, for any serious length of time, without drugs.

Lots of people have done it, so no, it is actually completely certain.

That was at a time when the army was expected to walk up to the enemy and shoot them at short distance. The approach demonstrated its limits at WW1. I am no military expert but I do not believe this is compatible with modern warfare. Not to say that there wasn't drug abuse in later conflicts, but that these were probably not helping.

Methamphetamine was used for pilots on long missions at least from WW2 to Desert Storm.

Could you please clarify what you base this premise on?

Sometimes the other way round; not just the extremes of the Nazis using methamphetamine to make blitzkreig possible ( http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2016/10/10/blitzed-the-thir... ), but the US army does have a history of both experimentation with performance enhancement and also the simple necessity of a lot of loosely secured morphine for field treatment.

Not that it affects your thesis, but food deserts aren't a thing:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132076786/the-root-the-myth-of...

Someone on reddit pointed out something the other day that made a lot of sense.

The GOP is afraid of subsidized health care and subsidized/free college, because it would remove the two biggest recruiting tools the army has -- free lifetime healthcare and money for college.

Without those carrots, few would sign up for the military.

While this makes a lot of sense, I really hope it's not true.

I don't know any Republicans who felt this way or even brought up the topic.

Congressional Republicans. Particularly the ones on the Armed Forces committee, who are acutely aware of the recruiting problem.

> Someone on reddit pointed out something the other day that made a lot of sense.

I'm afraid I'll need a better citation than that.

Why do you think they fight abortion? Unwanted babies that grow up in mishandled homes are ripe for army recruiters!

What's undesirable about this situation? We need a military force to protect us, I don't think that is a controversial idea. With certain political groups doing their utmost to absolutely kill any kind of nationalism or patriotic feeling, what incentive do we have to put our lives on the line for our country if not for the rewards?

We could increase military pay to make it more attractive but the overall budget to be gained by axing healthcare and education spending probably would not make a huge difference in the bottom lime for most soldiers. What are the proposed alternatives?

Living in the UK here. We don't have money for college anymore, but we still have the NHS. And we've never had that much trouble recruiting.

Perhaps they should send a fact-finding mission across.

Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world and you’ll have plenty of capable volunteers. No one wants to get their extremities blown off just because some military industrial complex CEO needs another beach house.

Are you implying little Johnny isn't a real hero? He lived in a military camp in Baghdad for 4 months! He even had a gun pointed at him at one stage!

I really don't get America's glorification of combat "veterans." In the old times, sure, but these are just people doing their jobs at the end of the day, and jobs that frequently involve killing people. I'm sure most people who sign up don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the sake of "peacekeeping."

As someone who has served in a European army infantry unit, I also find it very strange.

Many European countries had or have mandatory military service.

- Finland [0]

- Germany (until 2011) [1]

- Sweden (until 2010) [2]

- Denmark [3]

- France (until 1996) [4]

- Greece [5]

- Switzerland [6]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Sweden

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Denmark

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_France

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Greece

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland

To get the glorification you need to consider that those men and women are willingly exposing themselves to mortal danger. This kind of thing is hard to understand for someone who has spent all their life in an all white upper middle class neighborhood with not a worry in the world.

The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making.

and yet if the policy is so haphazard and misguided wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice?

Doubly so because their cost is measured in lives.

> wouldn't it be better to steer them away from a completely a wasted sacrifice

Pretty sure your OP is not opposed to that, but the "Little Johnny" language bullshit that his parent wrote.

I took it as a reference to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun

Maybe it would, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they are serving their country to a far greater extent than most, and I’m not going to blame them because there’s some neocon shithead giving them idiotic orders. They sure as hell aren’t doing it for money.

It's my understanding that many are doing it for the money and other benefits. The benefits are the stuff of dreams for many who join. Medical, dental, education, housing, pension, genuine advancement prospects, coupled with a steady job that won't vanish in a weekend. These are big draws, especially to a person whose other option is a zero hours contract at a chain store. I've been a reservist (non-US) for almost 20 years; I certainly am not in it for anything involving serving my country, although of course everyone has their own motivations.

Annd logging is about 3 times as likely to kill you than the military. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/15/dying-for-...

Also there are many, many jobs in the military that do not go anywhere near combat.

Except most of them don't expose themselves to any danger. The average fatality rate per 100k in the military is far, far, far below the rates incurred by fishermen, loggers, steelworkers, farmers, garbage collectors, landscapers, roofers, taxi drivers, etc. The military isn't in the top 20 for dangerous jobs.

I think that the fatality rate is lower than I would expect because of improvements to the medical care. If you look at ratio of injuries to deaths: in Afghanistan it's about 8:1, in Vietnam 2.5:1 and in WWII it's 1.5:1 [1]. If it stayed the same military would still be the most dangerous profession. I would argue it still is - sure injured soldiers survive but often without limbs or with serious health issues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...

Are you suggesting that for any of the other professions I mentioned the non-fatal injuries are not serious? The fatality rate for military service is so low because few people in the military actually face any serious threat whatsoever. It should also be pointed out that the fatality rates in all of the other more dangerous professions was much higher in the past and has been steadily getting better due to improvements in equipment, procedures, and medical treatment. Military service never has been the most dangerous profession and current reality is no different. What is different is that there is not a half-billion dollar propaganda campaign behind getting people to volunteer to become loggers.

> The US foreign policy might be haphazard and misguided, but don’t you dare shit on the very real sacrifice these kids are making

Not to be ... well regarded as an ass, this is no longer the 1960s it might be time to rethink this line of thinking. Take modern day Iraq, was that worth the "sacrifice", what was the "sacrifice" actually for ?

You could extend this to almost any war the US has been involved in. Attacks on US soil (not counting terrorist actions) have been pretty rare. WW2 can be similarly deconstructed and the intentions found to be impure. Remember: USA does not get involved in wars for reasons of morality, despite what excuse they may present.

And their job involves indentured servitude punishable by law if they quit early. Just the act of joining means that for at least the minimum term of service the individual turns their life over in service to their country.

Any other job doesn’t involve getting shipped overseas for service and being unable to quit.

So yes, just the act of turning your life over to serve your country is pretty dang brave and absolutely not just another job.

I feel like I was pretty fairly compensated for my time in the service. It's not like I was forced to join or had no idea what I was getting into. Also, outside of the deployments which were interesting if not fun, it wasn't much different from a normal job, so saying I turned my life over seems a little hyperbolic. I had most evenings and weekends free, 30 days of paid vacation a year, and unlimited sick days.

Since getting out I have worked a job that involved both foreign travel and a contract that didn't allow me to quit without ramifications. That job wasn't associated with the military or DoD at all, it was at a bank.

The military, at least for folks outside the combat arms jobs, really isn't that far off from being just another job.

And yet if they offered you a way out, you would be able to quit once you realised the war you were fighting was utterly inexcusable and entirely in the interests of rich old fucks back home.

You would never sell people on wars like this so you have to prohibit a way out. Can't have troops thinking critically and deciding they aren't totally sold on the cause.

As a US combat veteran I agree with you, very few do it purely out of patriotism and altruism. I think most of the glorification comes from gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job. The fact that the conflicts aren't necessary is slowly changing that, though. People used to be able to trust that the government would only commit us to necessary wars, so the feeling was that somebody had to go and fight and win or Something Really Bad would happen to the rest of us. In that context the glorification makes sense. Now it doesn't really feel like that anymore.

As a veteran of the border war I have zero understanding for the sentiment of "gratefulness that somebody else is willing to do a necessary and unpleasant job". I similarly struggle with the whole "lest we forget" thing in the UK.

The reason is that in my opinion it legitimizes war, violence and killing. It promotes patriotism, which is nationalism by another name, and a bus stop short of fascism. Fundamentally it suggests that one nation's people are worth more than anothers'. It's a neat trick, and I have a real problem with that.

It's doesn't have to mean one nation's people are worth more than another's. But it does mean that a person may care about their nation's people more than another's.

This is the same principle as caring about your child more than a stranger's child. A nation is a kin group just like a family is.

Ingroup preference is perfectly healthy when channeled appropriately.

> A nation is a kin group just like a family is.

Given how divided some of the most jingoistic 'democractic' countries on the planet right now are (US and UK) I don't think that supposed kinship is what these people get from nationalism.

To me, it looks like an excuse to tribally hate another group or nation without admitting to it.

How much would you need to be paid to have people shoot guns at you with intent to kill?

I can't think of a number, personally.

I see arguments for diminishing the significance of military service, but at end of day those who do it are signing up to (potentially) die to protect their country and that's worth special consideration.

The article says that the primary problem is the number of eligible volunteers. Changing what wars are fought isn't going to affect individuals ability to pass military fitness and character tests. If the problem was that there are so many eligible people, but nobody wants to volunteer, then you might be on to something.

29% is tens of millions of people. I just pointed out why people might be reluctant to volunteer.

Have you read the article? It says the effective recruiting pool is 1.7 million, and the goal is 180,000 recruits. That means you'd need to convince every 1 in 10 eligible person to enlist. Even if the military was a glory-filled job, I doubt you'd get those numbers.

Numbers don’t line up. There are 30 million people in that age group in the US. 30% of that is nearly 10M. There may be fewer volunteers than that, of course, but that problem is fairly straightforward to fix: pay more, and get the hell out of the Middle East.

Biggest single problem is obesity. There are just too many fat teen-agers. Second is a criminal record or drug abuse. Third is inadequate education; the US military requires high school graduation now. As of 2009 [1]:

- 27% - too fat

- 31% - other health problem

The Army used to run fat recruits through a "fat farm" phase of 6 weeks of exercise. But they no longer do that. There's talk of bringing it back.

The Marines want you in shape before you enlist. Marine recruiters help promising recruits get in shape before they enlist.

[1] http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR-Ready-Willing-Unable.pdf

> The Army used to run fat recruits through a "fat farm" phase of 6 weeks of exercise. But they no longer do that.

Why not?

They didn't have to bother during the recession.

>If the problem was that there are so many eligible people, but nobody wants to volunteer, then you might be on to something.

They way I read it this is the problem:

> Once you take into account whether or not the remaining 9.7 million are enrolled in college — and that the Army doesn’t want the bare minimum for its future soldiers — the recruiting pool shrinks to just 1.7 million.

The biggest contributor is 7 million college students not wanting to enroll even though they can get the military to pay for college. I bet bullshit wars on the other side of the world affects this number.

Alternatively, maybe they just need fat camp as a pre-boot camp step.

> Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world

In the US, war is big business. So it's not going away as long as a couple of ultra-rich people are making themselves even richer by inflicting suffering onto others.

The so-called "Founding Fathers" were strongly opposed to professional armed forces for exactly that reason: it's less likely that ordinary citizens recruited via conscription would be sent to fight "bullshit wars".

Vietnam changed all that, or, more to the point, verified it. The anger against the war was fueled by the fact that anyone could be sent to fight it. Politicians realized that wars would not create such uproars if they were only fought by professional soldiers.

And indeed this is true to this day. Most Americans don't care about US foreign wars, because for them personally the stakes are low.

Perhaps the US should explore the concept of a foreign legion. A 5 years service would become a fast path for foreigners to gain US citizenship.

key point!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15506021

The US had program a bit like that for while (MAVNI), but it was very limited in who it would accept and was recently shut down.

Luckily, the services only enlist less than 2%.

Isn't this largely because standards are relatively high right now because the military has more people enlisting than it needs? If they needed more people they would just lower the standards a bit like they were a few years ago and they would have plenty of people. They would have to do a bit more work during training to get them in shape and they would have to overlook some minor issues that they aren't willing to now, but they wouldn't actually have trouble getting enough people.

Oh don't worry, if army ever gets a shortage of people they will just lower standards. They can do it pretty much indefinitely.

You can read the article as “it is a problem for the army to recruit”, but also as “we in the US have a health & crime problem”.

Just send more robots into warfare. I keep reading about robots displacing civillian workers, but why not anything like this about the military? Why so little concern for these kids getting blown up by IEDs or otherwise killed while fighting for peace in some remote country who's culture they don't understand?

If you're fighting against robots the only answer you have left is terrorism, as a way to make people who drive the robots, care about the fight.

More drones, more robots, more terrorism.

This seems like the only upside to obesity, the drug war, and lack of education that plague our country.

With a lop sided supply-demand situation, Trump ended a program (MAVNI) that allowed immigrants to obtain citizenship if they served the armed forces for six years. Many previous such enlistees have given their lives (for the US) in war. Ironic

That program was ended in December 2016 while Obama was president: https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/bcm-1612-02.pdf

Maybe better publicity for the college assistance available to veterans.

Some of those-- drug use and fitness problems-- seem like they can be fixed if people understand the incentives.

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