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Comment by sputknick | Hacker News Reader

I spent five years in the Air Force. Posts like this are really helpful, a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college. My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders, and don't ask for feedback, and subordinates dutifully carry out those orders. None of those is true. There is a time to "shut up and color" but that is by far the exception. For the young people on here, I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you serving in the military was a positive experience for me.

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>None of that is true.

All of that is true about my Army experience lol. If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force. I agree that the military can be a positive experience and it's a good idea for some people, but the caveat with my endorsement is that you gotta carefully choose the branch and the job.

I almost chose linguistics, but for some silly reason chose mechanic and paratrooper, and wouldn't you know it I ended up with injuries causing me to walk with a cane in my 20s.

> you gotta carefully choose the branch and the job

yes absolutely. I'd even say "the job" is the most important part. There are Army jobs that are pretty good, and there are Air Force jobs that are pretty bad.

Yes, MOS is key…

There's a saying in the Navy I was told from day 1 at the recruiter's office:

Choose your rate, choose your fate.

Your choice can be the difference between getting out after 4-6 years and easily making six figures, or struggling to find employment at $35k. Not to mention your lifestyle while in and other side effects of your service like PTSD.

Are there known “good” paths that lead to the former result?

For sure, speaking for the Navy (though I'm sure the same applies for the other services as well). Cryptologic/electronic/nuclear fields are all known to be cash cows after getting out. Granted, you need to score well on your ASVAB, especially for nuclear fields. But the ASVAB can be studied for and is probably the easiest of all the standardized tests someone that age may face in my experience.

Thank you.

Can anyone comment with regard to the Air Force?

Not asking for myself. I am a high school English teacher, and I am currently helping a young man with his application to the academy. He is committed to the Air Force either way, but I try to pass along any information that I come across (with the caveat, of course, that I don’t know what I’m talking about).

I joined Air Force active duty for a 4 year hitch when 9/11 happened, and was in the Air National Guard for a few years after my initial enlistment. I mention that because some things may have changed since I've been out more than a decade, but I don't think they have. Individual job descriptions do change though, so I will only give high-level advice rather than specific AFSC/MOS.

I went into Satellite, Wideband, and Telemetry Systems, commonly called SATCOM (although we did have wideband terminals like the TRC-170 and the GRC-239 TSSR). It could be lucrative with the right experience, but for most people it wasn't (although I was able to get a civilian job pretty easily with the skills/training but it wasn't highly paid).

The Air Force has deepened their cybersecurity expertise quite a bit, and even has some great opportunities for enlisted airmen. That can be a very lucrative field when you get out (and is also badass while you're in, from what I'm told). This is a very lucrative field if you're good at it, and still a good living even if you suck. Before doing this, be confident that the person considering this would be able to get a TS/SCI clearance. Read the requirements and make sure they aren't disqualified. If they've smoked pot before but no longer do, they have never smoked pot ;-). If can't get a clearance, opportunities in the service will be limited and some specialized training will not be accessible.

Some people will say "linguist" but it has not been my experience that that is all that usable outside the military unless you want to work for State (US State Department). If you are really, really good you can find lucrative opportunities though.

Anything nuclear is also pretty good if you can get it. Aircraft mechanic can be good, but the number of employers isn't huge and you'll work your ass off while still in the service.

Probably not super helpful, but that's my advice.

Thank you for the comment!

From experience, nuclear is not good. The career field has some of the lowest morale in the whole DoD, both officer and enlisted. Postmil options are only available if you have advanced degrees and are highly geographically limited (national laboratories, some contractor sites)

As someone who has worked Nuclear (fast attack), Aviation (F/A-18 and H-60), and a few other things (LCAC Nav, USMC aviation, etc.):

Nuclear is horrible. Stay far away. Life sucks and everyone hates it.

Aviation sucks for a job outside and you work your ass off inside.

Go IT, go Supply (logistics is reasonably easy inside and has lots of opportunity outside), or go admin and get a degree while in.

Speaking as an Army Cyber guy who is also a reservist (about to get out, so FWIW); the Army Cyber programs are not good. The (US) Army Culture is bad, very bad. Sure, if you're intelligent and enterprising you can have a path to getting some awesome training; however, the reality is most of the Army is really, really, really dumb. Senior Leaders at the G-Staff level (O6 & >) will have very little understanding of the value to the mission, will constantly think Cyber <> Tech. are interchangeable disciplines and will be FAR FAR more focused on how high you can score on the fitness test than your actual ability to do the work (mission).

The missions I've gotten to be a part of were awesome; however, I could have experienced just as much "cyber knife fighting" in the civilian world had I taken that track (perhaps more, because less rules) and I would have had a lot less bullshit.

Now, I'm a physician, and I'd say this - my residency was more bearable than the last 19 years in the army guard. I'm happy to be getting out soon, and while I will miss the friends I've made, I won't miss the organization as a whole.

I'll say the unpopular but hard truth. Relative to other nations, US DoD Cyber Forces by and of large part are woefully inadequate and unprepared for the real cyber fight. Sure, bright exceptions exist at the 3 letter agencies, and the occasional few people in the uniformed services - but these folks are rare, and they rarely stick around long. There is a lot of Cyber "showmanship" and BS, and most people are dis-incentivized from telling the truth about how bad at is - because they all want the prestige to help them attract high paying civilian jobs. I get it. But, I'll say the US taxpayer should be very concerned about how so much money was spent for frankly so very little.

The average US Army Cyber soldier can't even explain how an exploit works, technically. Moreover, they have a complete lack of cloud training or concepts or really any depth at all. Yet, they have all convinced themselves that if "cyber 9/11" happened - they'd somehow be useful to civilian companies, city governments and utilities beyond getting the people who know what they're doing some coffee. And this is a shame, because 15 years ago the potential existed for this to be much better; but a lack of new leaders who understand tech, greed and the DIB machine have made the situation unbearable.

I feel sorry for the United States. We could have done so much better, but real systemic change in the Army seems absolutely impossible. I still hear racist, homophobic and sexist jokes on the regular - despite the big push for "zero tolerance". The DOD hasn't, and likely won't ever change. It is simply too big and too slow and too entrenched.

Plenty of options. Any sort of intel field, lots of technical or mechanic fields -- some of them like fixing F-18 radars, are serious door openers; even diesel mechanics can do well as a civilian -- and plenty of less shooty roles, like dental or x-ray technicians, electricians, satellite techs, etc.

I know dudes who went into the AF and USMC and ended up as programmers, to include 1+ years of coding training.

Meanwhile the infantry guys end up as cops or security guards, lot of the logistic guys end up as truckers, etc.

> All of that is true about my Army experience lol. If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force.

Yes, it varies wildly based on branch, different units or battalions/brigades etc, and which MOS (job) you are. Or if you are enlisted or officer. I had a leadership change in my company over a period of like 6 months where all senior enlisted and officers changed, and it was like night and day different. Very micro-managed. It was like being back in Basic Training at Ft. Benning, insane. This ruined it for me, I chose not to re-enlist. I do really miss a lot of camaraderie, and every point in the "Why do I do it?" section of the article resonates very strongly with me.

I'd also chose Air Force or Navy instead of Army if I did it over again. Better training. More impactful missions I think for my MOS (Satcom). Not sure it would be available though, Navy and Air Force don't have as much "room" for folks then (2011) and especially now.

Space Force will be ramping up hiring as it takes over AF roles it's inherited.

As I understand it, space force is doing ramping up by keeping the same Air Force people in the same Air Force desks off the same Air Force building and changing their uniforms and insignia.

Well yeah, what’s it supposed to do rebuild all that infrastructure and institutional knowledge?

Not at all. But that's why they're not going to go through a crazy ramp up period.

It's also what happened when the Air Force split off the Army, which is why the Air Force has generals.

In addition to every other rank

Your biggest issue was choosing to be a light wheel mechanic in an airborne unit. If you think survival rates for combat dropping troopers are bad, I'd hate to show you the actual percentage of HMMWVs that drive away from a drop zone.

YMMV, but I was Army too. And everyone I dealt with was an adult.

HMMWVs

What does this acronym stand for?

It's the military term for Humvee - the huge vehicle that was popular for a while when gas was cheap. Or rather "hum vee" is how it is pronounced and the civilians spelled it phonetically.

"Hummer" was the brand name of the consumer version:

https://youtu.be/GEMRkQmh9WI

I originally wrote hummer, but I thought that was a slang term. Thanks

To directly answer the question: “High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle” [0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humvee

Oh, fun story time…

At the absolute end of the Cold War we were on the ground crew for a demonstration jump for some Soviet generals. The wind was too high for a safe jump but, Soviets, so they jumped anyways.

Two arty cannons and a Sheridan tank burned in because they got swaying enough to collapse their shoots. Plus three chalks ended up in the trees also due to the high winds.

They (luckily I wasn’t on the hook and ladder crew) spent the rest of the day recovering the parachutes from the trees while we just tried to not draw attention to ourselves so we didn’t have to help with the recovery operation.

Only time I ever saw heavy drops go wrong and I was on ground crew many a time — there were a couple times we did have to scatter because one was landing right where we were standing but those things are easy to see even on a night jump.

Everyone wants to get into the Air Force, so if you are applying to say subsidize your medical education, you’ll find that there aren’t many openings; so most people tend to opt for the Navy. The Army is the last choice for most people.

This goes back to assignment of conscripts in WW II. Since the end of the Cold War, spoilsports have noticed that one reason the old German army did so well was that they got a higher proportion of high-quality recruits than their UK or US counterparts. The US and UK needed navies to fight the war, and they also gave their air forces a higher priority for recruits relative to their armies.

I’m not sure that’s relevant to even Gen X’ers. I think the real answer is which branch of the military is more notorious for abuse with their members. Historically, it tends to be the Army.

The marines aren't gentle.

But on the plus side the crayons are delicious

The Marines have status that certain types of people want. It’s a different animal.

So you’re allowed to choose your job? I thought it wasn’t guaranteed what interests you had vs what you are placed in.

If you're smart (get a good ASVAB result), you'll have a lot more leeway in jobs.

Somewhat. If you say choose to be an electrician, and it’s later found you are colorblind, you will be placed somewhere. When I joined the Navy, I was given the rate of AV, which doesn’t really exist at the lower ranks. After joining (read contract already signed) I found out that I would be an AE.

A few things in play here. Each job has certain quotas they have to fill. Too many of one job will make advancement nearly impossible which prevents people from moving up into leadership positions and will eventually cause a shortage when those that can’t promote decide to leave. Recruiters have quotas too, like 2.5 recruits this month or at least one female this month, etc.

Your ASVAB score and likelihood of qualifying for a clearance are also considered. You can join the military without being a citizen (and can get expedited citizenship), but your job prospects will be limited to non clearance jobs, for example.

When you go to the Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS), you are put through a bunch of medical tests and once you are cleared for entry, you go on to negotiate the job you want. This is where you have to stick up for yourself. The recruiters there, who you don’t know, will try to push you one way. For instance, I wanted IT which I was told was full. Instead, I was offered “deck seamanship” which I was told let me get a feel of different jobs which I could the “strike” (apply) for. It sounded good, but I really wanted IT. I stood my ground and said I wasn’t in a rush and I could wait until IT opened up. They aren’t letting you out that door if they can help it, and I magically got IT with a signing bonus no less.

Come to find out deck seamanship meant I would be chipping paint and repainting the ship and other really hard grunt work. By the time I would have struck for another job, my peers would have been promoted years ahead of me. It helps to talk to a vet or have them go with you when talking to the recruiters. The recruiters don’t always lie, but they do sometimes only reveal the information they think is important.

Is "IT" in the military the same as citizen professional/corporate? As in, mostly "administrator" level work or is it more expansive? I'm just curious in the sense that it either may be all encompassing like programming too, or perhaps things I never heard of. Just curious, thanks! I appreciate the reply.

I'm guessing you can do the ASVAB before "signing on?"

In the Navy, MOSes are called Rates, so “choose your rate, choose your fate” was a common refrain.

> If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force

Aye, I hear that. Mixed experience, overall. I did signals intelligence stuff in the USMC and if I'd have to do it again I'd go back and be blue-water Navy.

Rah. If I had to do it over again I would have definitely picked Navy or Air Force.

Were these injuries in training or in War ? I thought that paratrooper training was made really safe nowadays with extensive basic training done by Sergeant Airbornes in the BAC course. (assuming US)

Both.

Airborne training is "safe" in the sense that they thoroughly teach you all the steps and do lots of ground training before getting in a plane. But by no means does that mean your body won't get wrecked by doing jumps.

The parachutes are designed for combat: their goal isn't a soft landing, it's to get you out of the sky as fast as possible.

I was stationed in Alaska. Wintertime jumps were a toss-up in terms of landing in a big pile of snow — or solid ice.

"My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders, and don't ask for feedback, and subordinates dutifully carry out those orders. None of those is true. There is a time to "shut up and color" but that is by far the exception."

Based on my limited knowledge, I think it's highly dependent on the leaders in the unit. I have a friend who always dreamed of being an naval aviator, went to the academy, and served for several years as a pilot. They are leaving due to the political BS of the organization and poor leadership by those in command. My relatives' experience back up similar experiences - up to and including the extreme example that an XO overrode a maintenance officer in order to bark orders that work needed to be done in a way that was contrary to documented procedures and resulted in loss of life (in training no less). Basically 9/10 leaders range from decent to excellent. That other 1 is the one that can make your life hell or get you killed with little to nothing you can do about it.

> an XO overrode a maintenance officer in order to bark orders that work needed to be done in a way that was contrary to documented procedures and resulted in loss of life (in training no less)

did the XO suffer any consequences from this?

It seemed like a sore point so I didn't ask questions about it (form things I pieced together it sounded like they were injuried and their copilot, maybe others, died; in sounded like the XO probably didn't have any serious consequence or I think they would have mentioned it). Generally, I would only ask questions about the good stories they shared but let them just share what they wanted when they were not happy stories.

> They are leaving due to the political BS of the organization and poor leadership by those in command.

I have a brother-in-law (a chief) leaving 3 years prior to retirement for the same reason. Except it’s exactly the opposite. They’re not allowed to yell anymore, have a lot of limitations on punishment, and have to accept things like enlisted being late to work. They’re leaving because they think the military is on a downtrend and can’t control the high schoolers under their command.

There has to be more to this story. You don’t walk away at 17 because you are annoyed at having to do the paperwork required to get someone properly punished rather than doing whatever you think is best.

For reference, I’m a 21 year Chief with time at Squadrons, Ships Company, USMC commands, and a few other places.

If you can’t stand waking up everyday because of your job then at some point mental health steps in.

Since you’ve been there for 21 years, I’m sure you’ve seen the changes as well. Is the Navy the same as when you started? The crossing the line ceremony for instance. When I was in, they had to have permission to haze you. Nude mermaids are no longer on the certificates as well from what I understand. Many little things changing since he joined is what did it.

How does basic training even work now in this post yelling world? I was called “Porky the Pig” in basic. It forced me to exercise much more than threat of some fake arrest.

> How does basic training even work now in this post yelling world? I was called “Porky the Pig” in basic. It forced me to exercise much more than threat of some fake arrest.

As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their workplaces, without anybody raising their voice.

In normal life, an organization that bullied its employees in the way that's routine for militaries would be considered extremely dysfunctional, and you would expect to see extremely dysfunctional and toxic people flourishing in that atmosphere.

The point of bootcamp isn’t just for you to learn how to do this or that, it’s also about breaking you of your individualist civilian mentality and molding you into a soldier/sailor/marine/airman who can put the mission and their fellow service members above themselves. Being yelled at is negative reenforcement and quickly helps you understand your mistakes. Camaraderie also flourishes when you all hate your drill instructor. When you get out and join the real military, you often think back some drill instructors as the “stern but fair” types.

Navy bootcamp was surprisingly easy. You quickly figure out what they can and cannot do, how many push-ups you have to do before they’ll let you up, how long they can make you PT, etc. We still had people who couldn’t handle it and were sent home. It was probably for the best. The military isn’t always easy and it really helps to be resilient. If someone criticizes you for doing something stupid and accept that you did a stupid thing, or you can’t let it go, you may not get very far.

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple of centuries. Therefore, a technically capable soldier who is cowardly, individualistic, and occasionally insubordinate would be, in some roles (say intelligence) superior to one who was none of those things, but didn't have the technical skills or aptitude.

Realistically, a ship is a big machine, so it would make more sense to prize people that fit the typical 'conscientious engineer' profile, warts and all, even if those people are going to be pretty awful at traditional soldiering. These kind of roles have absolutely proliferated over the years, and it makes zero sense to prize physical fitness and ability to follow orders in a lot of them.

Imagine if you were a hiring manager for a gigantic industrial complex with cutting edge technology, producing a delicate and high-stakes product, in a environment that often demands extreme creativity and imposes severe timetables. Except all your hirees have to be able to do twenty pushups and be OK with being shouted at by some guy in a big hat. That's the literal situation of human resources on an aircraft carrier, and it's insane.

I think what you wrote makes perfect sense and I could get behind not caring so much about some standards for some positions. What would you propose for the support jobs like “Culinary Specialists” or “Logistics Specialists”?

My thinking is that a peacetime military is basically a skeleton that needs to be able to be rapidly fleshed out when it becomes necessary. That's not exactly a novel thought, but I think there's a lot of room to explore when you stop thinking about fighting wars, and start thinking about how to build the machine that builds an army (preferably within weeks) if a war breaks out.

European countries can be quite good at this: the whole logic of Finland's conscription system is to have it so that if a war breaks out, you can mobilize the whole nation within a short time, and everybody knows where they fit in.

In previous big wars, nations have typically just slashed their standards when the war broke out to meet manpower quotas. It would be better, generally speaking, to build an institution that can, in an emergency, use everyone. That would mean, in peacetime, working out if there are profitable places to put people to use, so when you get a deluge of asthmatic flat-footed civilians signing up because a big war has broken out, you don't waste time trying to make them into infantry.

Obviously, my view is informed by being a peacenik. If you want an army to do offensive, expeditionary operations on a budget, there's much less to change. Having a big and capable HR department would be important if you were going to get all the dysfunctional people in a country to fight in an actual war, but it would be better, in a small professional force, to just not induct anybody who doesn't meet a bunch of stringent standards.

At this point you are just trying to force fit your ideals to the real world. Please stop, you clearly don’t understand. the original post i made is clear, make your army hard. or lose your country. maybe you’re russian…

This entire paragraph reinforces what's mentioned elsewhere: that modern people are completely divorced from what the military is actually required to do and how it does it.

Why does every person on an aircraft carrier need to be physically fit, follow orders, and be able to put others or the mission ahead of themselves? Because under fire, in a casualty (fire, flooding, etc.) those technically apt, out of shape people die and get other's killed. I need to know you can put on the SCBA, carry smoke curtains and hang them, etc. No, we don't have dedicated fire fighters or casualty handlers; in a SHTF situation everyone needs to pitch in. There isn't room for dead weight.

To go further, I haven't found that those "conscientious engineer" profile people are even worth the time. The people who we get into the jobs are often far more competent than you would give them credit for, while still being fit and capable of taking orders. We get plenty of that profile in my jobs (I used to be one if I'm being honest) and though they excel at the technical aspects of the job they are so bad at everything else that's required that they often end up getting hurt or getting others hurt even in daily activities. Performing demanding technical tasks (like running software updates on a linux distro, only the bash script is corrupted so you've got to understand WTF is happening, pull the required info from the aircraft's systems, slip it into the patch so it will be authorized, then push it manually) in 40lbs of safety equipment on a flight deck with moving ordnance and launching/recovering aircraft is something we need a well rounded person for, not a prima donna.

Basically you are making an outsiders mistake of thinking you understand what's required to make that ship function. If you are interested in learning what's really required there are any number of people in this topic that would likely be happy to tell you. I'm one.

My feeling is that a lot of people work in dangerous workplaces, where mistakes can and do kill people. The miltary is one of those workplaces: if you look at the stats[0] you can see that ordinary workplace injuries absolutely dwarf combat-related injuries.

Even in wartime[1], the number of deaths from enemy action rarely exceed those from accident.

What makes this worse is that the military is a pretty dangerous workplace. Even in peacetime, the US military typically loses more people to accidents than any other profession (I suspect a lot of this is down to people being 'on the job' even when they're not, but even accounting for that, the stats are bad).

If you compare the military to other institutions that do similar things the military doesn't look good. If you have an underperforming car plant that keeps on maiming employees, and the last two car models were both hideously expensive flops, then you don't go around telling people that they 'don't understand' the special requirements of your institution. You reform. I think a lot of the people in the US military are on that page already (judging from the stuff I've read about the upcoming overhaul of the marines), but in general, I think militaries would be better off if they were way more open to civilian criticism.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-103/pdfs/96-103.pdf [1]: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_number_serve.xht...

We are absolutely open to criticism; my point is you don't even know WHAT to criticize.

Your entire argument is predicated on a flawed understanding of what we do and the resources we have to do it.

Note that I'm not saying we are perfect (or even close), and there are so many things we could do better I could write a book, but you are moving goalposts rather than addressing the points I brought up.

The plain and simple fact is that the things we do and the conditions we do them under aren't analogous to anything in the civilian sector (with some very small exceptions) and need to be looked at and understood as such.

I'll be the first person to tell people they probably shouldn't join, but it has nothing to do with this particular argument that you are making.

> my point is you don't even know WHAT to criticize.

Yeah, sure. That's what I'm responding to with all the stats. The nice thing about numbers is that they are fungible. Anybody can read a chart and tell you the US military is really bad at workplace safety, whether or not there is a war going on.

It's a bit like the US police force. You can show a bunch of figures to a LEO, and the figures for law enforcement in the US are worst in class - the US spends more and gets less from its police than almost any other nation on earth - and they'll just say straight up that you don't understand their jobs, not realizing that the figures clearly show they don't understand their jobs either.

Now, the US military is much better than the US police force, but there's the same underlying problem. It doesn't have to fix its problems because there's no soldier's unions, there's no competitor coming in to eat its lunch, and the only oversight is the worst kind of political interference.

If I was in the military, I'd see it Iraq and Afghanistan as a golden opportunity for reform, just as the Sino-Vietnamese war was for the chinese PLA. You can use defeat as a bludgeon against entrenched tradition. It's no good in that situation just saying to outsiders that they don't understand your special requirements - you want to actually encourage academics, journalists, etc, especially the unsympathetic ones, to pitch in and try and work out what went so awfully wrong.

The first step in that would be to absolutely draw every parallel and draw every lesson you can from the civilian sector, because that's your testing bed for organizational strategy. That's what people like Robert MacNamara did in WW2 - they took civilian traditions like accountancy and statistics, and applied them to the USAF, to devastating effect. If you're in a situation where you feel like there's some experiential special sauce, it needs to be absolutely pinned down, quantized, and described, so you can work out how its effecting all the other metrics.

That was a lot of scrolling for a lot of nothing. Do you have anything to say or just filling space?

> As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their workplaces, without anybody raising their voice.

I've worked at large orgs, to include F500s and national-tier multinationals with plenty of yelling.

> In normal life, an organization that bullied its employees in the way that's routine for militaries would be considered extremely dysfunctional, and you would expect to see extremely dysfunctional and toxic people flourishing in that atmosphere.

Bollocks. I've worked with plenty of ruthless, absolutely out-to-get-you sociopaths in brand-name corporations that I'd bet most of you'd know. Just cuz there wasn't out-and-out yelling doesn't mean it was nice, and most were far more dysfunctional than the military orgs I was involved with while enlisted.

There is something to be said for not shying away from conflict and having it out.

I take your point, but if somebody called me a 'porky pig' in the first month of a new job, I'd probably a) quit, and b) assume the organization was seriously messed up. I'm not a particularly sensitive person, but I don't want to waste my time on an organization where high levels of interpersonal aggression is normal.

Intuitively, you'd expect organizations that have management styles that make everybody miserable to have high turnover and low productivity. That's why it doesn't make sense to me when militaries actively teach and propagate management styles that are, by normal standards, misery-inducing.

>I take your point, but if somebody called me a 'porky pig' in the first month of a new job, I'd probably a) quit, and b) assume the organization was seriously messed up.

Even if that job requires physical fitness?

As another stated, it's a good thing that such people quit basic training.

I was a Chief and got out at 16. They made me CMEO so instead of doing my job, I was handling Equal Opportunity and Harassment complaints, which are taken very seriously. When I was told of something, I had mandatory reporting timelines and had to send messages to big Navy, NCIS, etc. Nearly all of the complaints were from junior sailors who lacked the resiliency to withstand an ass chewing or were suicidal because their Chief made them work late correcting something they messed up. It was all very strange and it wasn’t worth the mediocre retirement pay. I am much happier as a civilian.

I signed up for 4 years for the US Army in order to finish college. Ended up doing 5 years for being stop lossed due to a deployment that got extended. When I joined I had 72 hours college under my belt, went in as a PFC. The reality of service is it is both the good as portrayed here and the shit experiences I know we have all had in the service. Would I change anything, no. Was it all cake, hell no. But I wouldn't change anything. The single best thing about service, that I think most people actually need in life, is the forced mega dose of reality, and how the military deals with it, especially when as a person you've refused to, and made it the militaries problem. Everything about my time in has helped me in my civilian life, except how to explain to people that they are denying reality.

>is the forced mega dose of reality

>except how to explain to people that they are denying reality.

It would be great if you could expand on this.

The Military forces you to strip yourself of your preconceptions. To see things as they are. No lying to yourself, no lying to others, that is a great way to get called out, its expected and encouraged, but you better be right. The concept of this if foreign to civilians. Most civilians would be down right offended at the idea if questioning someone's beliefs, its expected in the military. INTJ's that I have met seem to do this naturally as Civilians but they are the exception. Academic debate, papers, also does this but the acts are again frowned on outside of that environment. After years of this Military members have a core belief system that has been striped and rebuilt, with all the fluffy civy nonsense discarded. All this happens during those in-between times in the Military, the times we spent waiting for the next event, training, location to be at, bullshitting to each other. Someone inevitably say's something so naïve or untrue, they get called out on it. This happens enough and you start examining yourself. You want to fit in, belong, your subconscious starts to reorient its self and realign your thinking.

I don't doubt your experiences, more generally the military is quite unreal - a world with very different cultures, rules, clothes, jobs; a world where you can exist without dealing with outsiders very often. There's almost nothing else that is quite so much a parallel reality. A lot of people leaving the military have trouble adjusting to real life.

> forced mega dose of reality

Sounds dreadful.

To me it sounds wonderful.

I've recently came across what appears to be a pretty sober take on what is being a soldier about from Ukrainian soldier[0]. It's likely much different if one serves during peace time or away from the front lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfgFGe8ujA8

Some reserve units in the US are highly technical too. I did a cyber education course at AFIT when I was in Air Force ROTC and there was a particular reserve unit somewhere in Maryland I want to say nearish NSA that had a lot of super smart security researchers that came to guest lecture us including Raphael Smudge (creator of https://github.com/rsmudge/armitage)

I refuse to look up the name Raphael Smudge. I choose to believe it is the name of a villain in the third Sonic movie.

Mudge is great. Super smart guy. He, too, left, rather tired of the mess. People like him are exceedingly rare and never appreciated.

> a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college.

I think that's a serious problem. Americans have little idea how the US military works and tend to form extreme opinions, either glorifying it or villifying it - the former especially in the last 20 years or so but neither is at all healthy. When people understood the military - when we had a draft and a wide spectrum was personally familiar with it - we had popular entertainment like Gomer Pyle and MASH, and expressions like FUBAR and SNAFU. The military was seen as an enormous, absurd, powerful bureaucracy; people understood its limits and capabilities, and could make decisions about using it. Warfare was not glorified so much, but seen as the scourge it is, the last option, because many actually had experience of it. They also had skin in the game during a war, risking being drafted and knowing people who were. Now we fight the 20 year GWOT, send people on one tour after another, and many outside don't even realize there's a war on or wonder how it's going - but they do say 'thank you for your service' endlessly (a young relative in ROTC (US undergrad trainee program) was thanked several times wearing their uniform around town!).

Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits. In the US Army, 79% of recruits come from families which already have service members. [0] Consider that only a few percent of the population is in the military. Also, I read that the military does not recruit in - or puts very little effort into - major cities (though I can't find the cite now, and it was a few years ago). [EDIT: cite found: 1]

[0] https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-ex...

[1] From 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-i...

The flip-side is that with mandatory manpower for military adventurism, politicians and the military leaders who advise them have fewer reasons to temper their aspirations.

> Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits.

I wonder if this relates to how military service (not civilian-contractor roles) appear to have a bit of an, er, "sign your soul over and hope for the best" mechanic.

I dimly recall some event where some state was offering a "Try it for a year" promotion for their National Guard service, and the guy on it ended up being stop-lossed over to Afghanistan or Iraq.

>The flip-side is that with mandatory manpower for military adventurism, politicians and the military leaders who advise them have fewer reasons to temper their aspirations.

That's not really true. Open democratic societies that still practice conscription like Israel for instance, have a much higher level of civic engagement and understanding of foreign affairs amongst the average people. The population is ultimately much less tolerant of macho strong men and war mongering when they know what it looks like in reality.

While I hope that's true, and could see how it might be, how do we know it?

Israel uses their military heavily, so I'm not sure it will provide a great example.

>Israel uses their military heavily, so I'm not sure it will provide a great example.

Take a look at their neighbors. When you're surrounded by people who are ideologically bent on your complete destruction, paranoia is no longer an irrational response.

That changes the discussion from, 'do drafts in democratic countries temper civilian perspectives on the military' to 'is Israeli military policy justified'. Tangents happen, but what do you think of the former issue?

Israel? AFAIK Israel is increasingly radicalizing itself. Starting as an experimental European Socialists complete with communes and ending up rather jingoistic. Not an example I would use at all. I wouldn’t put all the blame on conscription as there are many other factors at play, but I also wouldn’t use Israel as an example less war mongering via conscription.

> "Try it for a year" promotion for their National Guard service, and the guy on it ended up being stop-lossed over to Afghanistan or Iraq.

AMERICA AF

One issue with reserves, especially army. Through the iraq/afghanistan deployments BOG time was way up (ie, your service commit is not just that weekend a month). BOG = Boots on ground time.

In afghanistan Army deployments (both active and reserve) were far higher than other service branches.

My quick understanding is that normally they would like to target 1/4 BOG/Dwell time. So if you are thinking of reserves, particularly army, be asking, could I be gone 12 months out of 48, with potential for more?

Is there data on how much real service one might be doing? As in incoming mortars, bullets flying over your head, in a place with IEDs or mines etc.

I feel like if I wanted to be put in that specific situation, I'd want a whole lot more training than a reservist.

I can't speak for other people's experiences but I did deploy to Afghanistan as a combat arms reservist in the Canadian army. Typically, you're expected to be overseas for 6 months but anything from 5-8 isn't that uncommon. Other roles had other expected deployment lengths. To prep for a 6 month tour involved full time training for about 8 months. This is the same training time the regular forces got and was done with them.

I think you may also underestimate the amount of training reservists do. To get fully qualified in my trade took over 3 months of full time training split up over a couple years. During my time in the reserves you'd do 1-2 evenings a week from September to May/June. You'd also have 1 weekend a month training for most of those months and 1 week long training exercise per year. During the summer, people who had the time could do full time work taking or teaching on courses.

> Is there data on how much real service one might be doing?

Not really ‘data’ but the last time I was in a combat zone there were mortars/rockets flying in on a daily basis, usually around chow time.

Also ‘safe’ jobs weren’t a guarantee. We were going out on a convoy mission and the reservists unit escorting us was short handed so just found a warm body to ride in the gun truck in the form of an office girl in the Air Force who had been in country three weeks and probably hadn’t touched a weapon since basic training.

Mission takes priority and if you need a body you find a body.

Also my last ‘real’ deployment was in a reserve unit and I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Zero discipline and we were a transportation unit so mobile enough to get into all sorts of trouble. We got out of there before things got really bad (our mission was over so they just sent us home) so there’s that.

Yeah that’s what I’m saying. If you’re going to do it and head into a dangerous situation you’d likely want to be with a bunch of people of professional mindset, not people who thought this would be an easy paycheck + health benefits.

Being in a transport group sounds horrible. Possibly taking orders from someone who doesn’t know where they’re going etc etc.

At least you survived.

>> My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders

I heard Petraeus (I think) on a podcast and he said the biggest misconception by civilians about the military is you can just order people to do things, and the biggest misconception by the military about the private sector is you can just sack people.

I spent 4 years in the USAF and echo the same sentiment. Military service isn't for everyone but I had a positive experience and my decision to join remains one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

> a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

Why do Americans need to be connected with the military though? What do you think the benefits of being more connected would be?

Many of us are disconnected from members of the constabulary, from members of the ambulance services, from members of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing, Pipefitting and Sprinkler Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada.

It's just how disparate careers go.

From a leftist perspective, it’s beneficial to have something like a draft because it forces all classes to confront the reality of our wars. Instead of how it is now when it’s mostly the lower class that goes to war.

The last draft we had was Vietnam, which was a PR disaster for the US military because middle class america saw (and experienced) the war for what it was: destructive and unnecessary.

I guess the difference is the sprinkler fitting industry doesn't result in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths the way a war does, so I don’t really care how the general public perceives it.

> None of that is true.

Really depends on your AFSC (job code), unit and era. I was in one of the more infamous career fields (Security Forces), and the running joke was that we were "real military" compared to the rest of the "Corporate Air Force". A lot of maintainers I knew had similar sentiments towards other office-based career fields.

And that was only at a stateside base - the dynamic got really weird when we deployed on in-lieu-of taskings to relieve understaffed Army units in Iraq. Their Military Police had a similar level of intensity as us, but most of their rank-and-file in the role were augmentees pulled from other career fields without a law enforcement background.

Posts like this are really helpful, a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college.

8% of the US population are veterans. 34% of the US population have a bachelors degree. That suggests to me that quite a low proportion of people use the military as a route to education.

> especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

Weird! In the UK the army is very cross-class

High five. 6 yrs in the USAF here.

>especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

This is a often repeated myth. The upper class serves more per capita than the lower class.

The man who did my job back in the 80s was a literal billionaire, putting on the same uniform as me for the same pay.

Are you claiming that billionaires serve at the same rate as others? Or that there are many billionaires in the military?

They're even more rare in the military than in the general population. Firstly for the obvious reason - they don't need any of the benefits so they don't join. Secondly - someone that becomes that wealthy while serving (via a trust-fund, large inheritance, or winning the lottery) would no longer be a good fit for the military. They usually get offered an Honorable Discharge. However, if they still desire to serve the remainder of their term, they can place the money into a blind trust.

> someone that becomes that wealthy while serving (via a trust-fund, large inheritance, or winning the lottery) would no longer be a good fit for the military. They usually get offered an Honorable Discharge.

That's shocking. Where is this rule? Have you seen it happen? I didn't know wealth defined fitness for service.

Of course wealth defines fitness for service (in America, anyway).

Isn't "money for college and healthcare" kinda obvious about it? Like there's almost a wink and a nudge at the end of it.

It's super blatant that having very few economic options and no healthcare chooses fitness for service for you.

In the UK it’s pretty common for wealthy upper-class people to do a few years in the Army before they take over the family business.

The evidence is to the contrary--middle class and above are over-represented in the US military.

"Their median family income is more than $73,000, compared with $66,000 for civilians, and recruits are most likely to come from families in the middle of the wealth distribution, with median wealth of $87,000, almost $10,000 more than civilians."

This is for enlisted members. It's probably safe to have some intuition that officers will skew wealthier.

I just gave you an example of someone who was still in as a billionaire.

There have been many billionaires, or billionaire-equivalent for their time-period, in my tiny unit alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cheshire_Yeomanry_off...

Thanks. Quickly looking at the links, it seems all pre-WWI, mostly 19th century. Is that still true?

No, as I said the Squadron was operationally commanded by a billionaire as recently as the 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Grosvenor,_6th_Duke_of_...

It's still very common for upper class people to join the Army in the UK.

Thanks for explaining it all!

sure, but not in combat roles

and while sure, those 6 or 8 or whatever out of 10 army people per 1 grunt do contribute a lot, they don't get shot at. no risk, all reward

Yeah because no one in a logistics or support role was ever awarded a purple heart /s.

sure, and if you go back in time far enough, you can say that generals get killed in combat too

how many logistics and support personnel casualties did the US have in any war during this century?

Not sure if this is sarcasm, but quite a few on here from 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'

https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/oifnames-of-fa...

well alright, I stand corrected

still tho, senators' and millionaires' sons aren't the E-rank grunts driving the trucks

No they’re the young platoon leaders putting themselves in harm’s way.

The reference was to "Fortunate Son".[0]

[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/john-fogerty-a...

An odd reference as we don’t have a draft anymore.

Agreed, but not just because there is no longer a draft, but that the song referenced does not differentiate between the rank of those who serve. It does distinguish between those who serve and those who send them into harms way with no risk to themselves.

why go back in time, just be a russian general...

When people say “combat,” they mean the combat arms. Pretty much any soldier could be exposed to combat, but the infantry is going to see more combat than a Human Resources soldier.

>sure, but not in combat roles

That is false. Middle and upper class are more likely to serve in combat roles than lower class.

Do you have a source for that? The nearest I could find was this[0] and it doesn't support your assertion.

[0] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military

Yes, and that data stops the grouping of household income at $87k and higher, which isn’t really that high of a floor, and is telling in itself. There are no further breakouts, such as 87-100, 100-200, 200+ because it would presumably be insignificant.

Because that is reality. $65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

The link YATA1's been posting actually does [0]. About 3.46 percent of people enlisting come from households making more than $100K, although those households make up about 8 percent of the population [1]. In general, it looks like it matches the population more than the quintile breakdowns do.

[0]: On page 6: http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf#page... [1]: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2007/demo/cps/hinc-06.htm...

"Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented." [0]

"Military recruits mirror the U.S. population and are solidly middle class.

A recent report shows that more recruits come from middle-income families, with far fewer drawn from poorer families. Youth from upper-income families are represented at almost exactly their fair share."

Your source is inaccurate because it's for enlisted only. Upper class are far more likely to be officers or warrant officers.

My point stands: upper class serve more than lower class.

[0] https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/who-serves-the-us-mi...

[1] https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/whos-joining-mili...

My point stands: upper class serve more than lower class.

While that may very well be true, it i worth highlighting that the reports you are citing as evidence is looking at the years 2003 and 2006-2007, and a lot has changed, economically and politically, since then.

Also their cut off for "high-income" seems to be significantly lower than what most people would consider "upper class".

“Upper class starts at $65k/yr” is peak Heritage Foundation.

Jeeze, not just 65k, but 65k household as your neighborhood's median.

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

Or that just means that upper class doesn't start at the boundary of the top quantile.

I'm sorry but no stretch of the imagination has upper class as a couple making 33k/yr each. That's absolutely absurd. That's $16.50 an hour with no overtime.

Looking at it, upper class typically is the top one or two percent of the population.

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

That's not absurd - if you define "upper quartile" to be so broad, you get the conclusion you want - that they're "overrepresented".

The OP specifically mentioned "upper classes". It is a fact that the lower classes (lowest quantile) are underrepresented, and the higher classes (highest quantile) are overrepresented [0].

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

> “Upper class starts at $65k/yr” is peak Heritage Foundation.

Yes, peak facts that don't care about your feelings. $65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

There might be good reasons to use that breakdown, but I still think referring to people with a household income of $65K as "upper class" is misleading.

There's also something a bit strange with this breakdown. The top 20 percent of households made more than $91,705 [0][1] in 2007. $65K appears to be the top 20 percent of census tracts. That doesn't seem right, though, because you wouldn't expect 20 percent of the population to come from 20 percent of the tracts, unless they're exactly the same size (which tracts are not), so maybe I made a mistake in interpretation.

[0] https://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2006/11/05/2005-us...

[1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

But ‘class’ isn’t income quantiles.

The OP specifically mentioned "upper classes". It is a fact that the lower classes (lowest quantile) are underrepresented, and the higher classes (highest quantile) are overrepresented [0].

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

And the military is far more likely to be enlisted, so the effect is going to be minor.

Also that report seems to only consider ROTC and West Point Cadets, and I’d bet both are wealthier on average than the officer corps as a whole.

>And the military is far more likely to be enlisted, so the effect is going to be minor.

Immaterial. You're announcing to the world that you don't understand what "per capita" and "underrepresented" means.

>Also that report seems to only consider ROTC and West Point Cadets, and I’d bet both are wealthier on average than the officer corps as a whole.

No it doesn't. It specifically talks about enlistment. Of course officers are going to be from upper classes, a four year degree is a requirement.

No need to be rude. It sounded like you were suggesting that if the two populations were merged, the underrepresented-rich effect would rise above the minimal level for enlisted alone (0.1%). And I’m saying it’s not going up by much.

The section of the report on officers starts at page 9, I’m looking at the graphs on pages 9, 10, and 11. If you see the data elsewhere, please share.

>If you see the data elsewhere, please share.

$65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

Thanks for providing some citations. The military.com link is to a military recruiting ad, and Heritage's business is generating talking points and 'research' for conservative/Republican policy (look at their front page).

Here's a report saying that 79% of US Army recruits come from families with service members. [0] IIRC, the military is overwhelmingly rural and does not recruit in major urban areas - which matches my experiece in major urban areas. [EDIT: 1] Also, the officer corps is overwhelmingly white people, afaik, in a country that is only about half white people in that age group. However, I realize I've only provided one [edit: 2!] good cite[s] myself!

[0] https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-ex...

[1] From 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-i...

>The military.com link is to a military recruiting ad

military.com is a news and information website that covers topics such as benefits to military members, veterans, their families and those with military affinity. Even if there are links to recruiting, this does nothing to refute the facts.

>Heritage's business is generating talking points and 'research' for conservative/Republican policy

Reality has a conservative bias apparently. The facts are here for all to see.

>Here's a report saying that 79% of US Army recruits come from families with service members.

Which is a meaningless statistic. This number could be the same across all income classes, or again, higher income classes could be overrepresented.

>the military is overwhelmingly rural and does not recruit in major urban areas

That is hilariously wrong. Your own sources shows Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Tampa, Atlanta, etc. all in the top counties for recruitment. "Blue cities" != "[all] major urban areas". Your anti-Southern bias is showing.

>Also, the officer corps is overwhelmingly white people, afaik, in a country that is only about half white people in that age group.

This is to be expected due to requiring a four year degree, among other things. Whites are slightly overrepresented in the officer corps. The US is 73% White (including Hispanic), and the officer corps is 75.8% White (including Hispanic). Asians are also ever so slightly overrepresented in the officer corps.

You can see the report that covers this here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

I can easily attack your source(s) as fake news outlets (New York Times especially), but I'm not going to use fallacies like you have here. Your sources simply do not back up your claims.

The richest quantile is overrepresented. The aforementioned report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

QED.

I think it’s fair for the person you’re replying @ to point out the heritage foundation is a self professed conservative think tank if you point out that you believe the NYT is not trustworthy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a conservative think tank but it’s important to consider how data presentation might be impacted by the person(s) presenting the data. Which is in line with your suspicions of the NYT.

QED.

I wouldn't be so even-handed. Asserting something is biased doesn't make it so; assertions aren't taken as fact or truth. Assertions are worthless and two assertions are equally worthless. I talked about the factual basis of my claims and the parent claims, not assertions.

Honestly, I agree with you, but I was attempting to be diplomatic in case that would help drive the point.

It's sad to see the discussion turn to an attempt to shut down conversation. I have so many things to do in my day, why would I read that comment?

>It's sad to see the discussion turn to an attempt to shut down conversation.

I'm not shutting anything down, you're just throwing in the towel because...

>I have so many things to do in my day, why would I read that comment?

You won't, because you know you've been proven wrong.

>Whites are slightly overrepresented in the officer corps.

This is why whites were overrepresented as a percentage of troops killed in Vietnam, because so many young officers were killed leading platoons in the jungle.

Yeah, just not in any combat duty, except the rare ocassion. Combat is for the lower classes, preferably rural poor

>Combat is for the lower classes, preferably rural poor

(Former 11A here)

This kind of glosses over a lot of cultural reasons for why you find "rural poor" in combat branches. For a lot of the folks in my platoon, it was a family affair. Many were from e.g. Texas or Georgia, and had a brother/cousin/uncle/whatever who were also an 11B/13B etc. There isn't really a "preference" that the Army or Marine Corps has for poor people, but there is a cultural reason why people who like combat tend to be rural poor. This is of course my experience, and precise demographic data is hard to come by without a FOIA request.

Just wanted to throw my two cents out there. The guys in my platoon weren't the "dumb hicks" a lot of people seem to think populate the infantry.

The parent poster is talking about "rural poor", i.e., socioeconomic class, not "dumb hicks", i.e. perceived intelligence/education level. I think this is an important distinction.

Yes, this is anecdata, and yes, there are many reasons why people serve, but I know some smart people (from college and in my career) who've served (in infantry) because they saw it as their only way to get money for college. I think that says less about military recruiting tactics than the government overall, because there really should be more options presented to someone looking to get an education to move up the socioeconomic ladder.

I recently read an article where Army Chief of Staff, Gen. McConville, said that 79% of recruits come from families with service members, and how they need to expand the pool.

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-ex...

As far as the rural, the military focuses their recruiting in rural areas and barely touches major cities - an odd choice given where the population centers are and the efficiency of sales in high-density population. In a quick search, I found this from 2019:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-i...

> The guys in my platoon weren't the "dumb hicks" a lot of people seem to think populate the infantry.

Where have you heard that? I've never heard someone say that. People deify the military (in an unhealthy way) these days, IME.

I don’t have the links handy, but yes many are fully aware that the AVF (All Volunteer Force) is in some ways sectioning themselves off from the rest of the population. In other ways I could argue it’s almost becoming a “warrior caste” situation, where fathers serve, (at least one of) their sons serve, and so on. I’m not ready to say this is unhealthy, necessarily, but it’s a very real trend. The only way to fix it is to bring back the draft, in either full or some modified form.

>Where have you heard that?

My classmates in grad school, other networking events with perhaps over-educated professionals. N = 1 and all that.

> The only way to fix it is to bring back the draft, in either full or some modified form.

One idea is a draft for the reserves, not for active duty. That gives us the benefits of an AVF - the professionalism, etc. - and also gives Americans 'skin in the game' when at war, when reserves are called up. It's hard to imagine Afghanistan dragging on for 20 years if, for the whole time, civilians were being sent there to drive trucks, make dinner, even do some skilled labor, etc. And it would solve the civilian-military divide.

But how much effectiveness would we lose with draftee reserves? I believe that volunteer professionals are far superior to draftees in active duty, but reserve jobs frequently seem different.

> I could argue it’s almost becoming a “warrior caste” situation, where fathers serve, (at least one of) their sons serve, and so on. I’m not ready to say this is unhealthy, necessarily, but it’s a very real trend.

I've seen that phrase many times, but how can that be a good thing, especially in a democracy?

Hold on.

We got lied to about Vietnam. Iraq had WMDs. Afghanistan was a budding democracy, fully equipped to stand on its own. Russia was an unstoppable modern military and we need hundreds of billions to hold them off!

Now. All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population for not having skin in a game which is clearly run by liars, and not "doing more" to stop these liars?

We've watched it mangle generation after generation of our young people, and none of the liars are held responsible.

Of course we don't want skin in the game.

In a healthy democracy, these military liars wouldn't last. It's not a healthy democracy.

> All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population ...

Those people are us. The system is us, including you and me. There's nobody else to blame, and nobody else to do anything about it. Nothing in the parent comment offers a solution, or a better solution, or an improvement on the existing solution.

Blaming some unnamed entity, pulling out a list of bad things that have happened over a half-century, simplifying and hyperbolizing them, taking them out of context (of the good, of the possibilities, of the causes and effects, etc.) - that only disrupts the situation further, and that act is part of the reason our system sometimes doesn't work. That comment was written in your capacity as a fully fledged, fully vested actor in the system. Of course it isn't working right here, right now.

...what? Those fucks aren't us. At all.

No. There's no context - they lied to get us into multiple wars. The American people don't want that shit. This sounds like apologia for the military-corporatic interventionist garbage.

Honestly it's the same infuriating "personal responsibility" CRAP like recycling - it's a smokescreen, meant to make a collective problem your personal responsibility. It doesn't matter how many bottles you throw out if you allow the factory up the street to make 1B of them, some of them are going to end up in the river, but do we hold the businesses accountable or make them switch to glass bottles? "That would impact their profits!"

A rational actor would avoid, if at all possible, anything to do with the military. It hasn't "worked" for us for decades and decades. Those people are NOT US.

Partly because some of the system functions like that comment, we predictably get the results we've seen.

Nobody is coming to save us, nobody else runs any mysterious system, there is nobody else. It's you and me buddy.

That was one of the reasons I joined the USAF. Dad was in the 99th ID at the Battle of the Bulge (Purple Heart, Bronze Star) and later crossing the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Granddad was a Sergeant Major in the Cheshire Regiment[1] for His Majesty doing secret stuff he never talked about. I was the underachiever of the family - serving in Germany during the Cold War.[0] But I felt compelled to follow in the family tradition, and I'm glad I did as it helped me get my shit together.

Most of the people I served with had some college. There were a couple of guys in Basic with Bachelor's degrees, and we wondered why they went enlisted instead of officer. But each to their own.

[0] Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpu5a0Bl8eY

[1] Different unit than the author of the article was in. The Cheshire Regiment was line infantry, so full-time soldiers.

>Yeah, just not in any combat duty

That is false. Middle and upper class are more likely to serve in combat roles than lower class.

>Combat is for the lower classes, preferably rural poor

Complete opposite actually.

Just define "upper" class at 65k/yr household income, and boom! Lots of upper class households serve!

Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

[0] http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/cda08-05.pdf

...that actually supports my point though?

Facts don't care about feelings, but this doesn't support your point at all.

>...that actually supports my point though?

It actually doesn't.

>Facts don't care about feelings, but this doesn't support your point at all.

It 100% supports the OPs point: lower classes are underrepresented. Upper classes are overrepresented.

QED.

You're talking about a society with HIGHER wealth inequality than right before the French Revolution, and you're defining "upper class" as anything above 60-odd K - an amount that would not allow you to rent a two bedroom apartment...almost anywhere in the USA.

It... Doesn't support your point at all?

Here's the Wall Street Journal saying the quiet part out loud:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/student-debt-relief-payment-pau...

"If young Americans can access free college without having to earn the GI Bill or sign up for follow-on military service, will they volunteer for the armed forces in adequate numbers?"

It's really hard to say "rich people are overrepresented" and then "who will sign up if we make college free" in the same breath.

>You're talking about a society with HIGHER wealth inequality than right before the French Revolution

Immaterial. The class definitions are in quantiles which means proportional per capita. The facts of the matter is the lower classes are underrepresented, the upper classes are overrepresented.

QED.

>and you're defining "upper class" as anything above 60-odd K - an amount that would not allow you to rent a two bedroom apartment...almost anywhere in the USA.

"Upper classes", as in, the top quantile of classes. $60k (2007 numbers) would allow you to rent a two bedroom in almost everywhere in the USA, except the most expensive areas (in 2007). Not everyone is making $300k combined. Your SV bias is showing.

>It... Doesn't support your point at all?

It... 100% supports my point absolutely.

>Here's the Wall Street Journal

Paywalled opinion piece.

>saying the quiet part out loud:

Leftist shibboleth. Not that I'm surprised, but reddit is that way.

>It's really hard to say "rich people are overrepresented" and then "who will sign up if we make college free" in the same breath.

Yeah... Because it's an opinion piece from a random contributer that similarly fell for the fake news. Poor Americans are not joining the military in disproportionately higher numbers to pay for college and what have you. That is a fact. If college becomes free, the military can raise pay and sign on bonuses, add other programs, etc. They'll find a way, no doubt.

"The class definitions are in quantiles which means proportional per capita. "

Yes - hence the problem with income inequality in the numbers.

The "upper quartile" is so low, it includes people making 60k a year.

More granularity in your numbers would show that actually wealthy people don't sign up.

It looks like you're using statistics to lie. It's pretty clear that "wealthy people are overrepresented" is only true if you do things like, define "rich" starting at 60k.

>Yes - hence the problem with income inequality in the numbers.

Immaterial. You're just announcing to the world that you don't know how "per capita", census tracts, or quantiles work.

>The "upper quartile" is so low, it includes people making 60k a year.

Because that's the facts for the median income of the census tract.

During 2009–2013, Beverly Hills had a median household income of $86,141 as an example.

Pacific Heights has a median household income of $125,550 per year.

>More granularity in your numbers would show that actually wealthy people don't sign up.

It would show the complete opposite, as it shows with the quintiles now.

>It looks like you're using statistics to lie.

No. I'm using statistical FACTS to tell the truth. It's an inconvenient truth that shatters the narrative and the fake news the left has been spewing on this topic for decades, but it's still the truth.

The fact that you just can't handle the truth shows how bad you've been subverted.

>It's pretty clear that "wealthy people are overrepresented"

Of course it's clear, that is reality.

>only true if you do things like, define "rich" starting at 60k.

The upper quintile for census tract median income starts there. You want to deny statistical fact because it goes against the narrative.

The statistics show clearly that the lower classes (lowest quintile) are underrepresented. Poor people do not serve as much as the upper classes (top quintile) do. QED.

There did seem to be a rule that the Ivy League turned out for Armageddon. Elliot Richardson, who as about as upper crust as you can get, landed in Normandy on D-Day, as did Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

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