Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Most of the US population is too fat, too criminal, too sick, too dumb, or too drugged out for the military. "Only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 are eligible to join without being granted a waiver."

Waiving some of the rejection requirements doesn't help. Most of those enlisted below standards don't make it past the first year.

The U.S. Army is trying a 90-day pre boot camp training program.[1] There are two tracks, one for the fat ones, and one for the uneducated ones. The educational track focuses on word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, and arithmetic reasoning. Enough practical literacy to follow the simpler Army field manuals. The fat track has the troops on this track losing 1 to 2% body fat per month. Those who can't meet the minimal standards for enlistment in 90 days are released.

[1] https://www.army.mil/article/258753

View on HN

The people with these qualities are victims of systemic problems. Underfunded education, poverty, abuse, criminal justice that just throws everyone in jail.

We fix those things, I guarantee the army will have much better recruits.

If you cleansed every conviction for petty possession that alone would solve the problem. But radical evangelicals hold senior positions in the services, and they don't like people unlike themselves.

Then we have other crimes of poverty like not paying parking tickets (no money for the meter, aggressive local govt parking restrictions to exclude undesirable poor people), driving unregistered (because they're broke but you're an unperson without a car) etc. And of course, driving while black.

This is one of those comments I have difficulty reconciling with my experience. Ex-cons and former addicts seem to be a substantial part of the evangelical churches I've been familiar with.

Of course I do not know any highly-placed military officers, but the officers I have known do not seem to be and would not describe themselves as religious. They all have sort of a mentality I am not really prepared to put my finger on. Generally, their whole world and interpretive lens centers around the USM.

The presence of 'saved' individuals sadly does not seem to alter their views of the damned.

The USAF and USMC are notoriously problematic with both evangelical/baptist and Mormon cliques. In the USAF this is on top of an already toxic culture -- as evidenced by the ongoing hemorrhaging of pilots. (I could reference many reports but e.g. [1] will do.)

The steady push towards religious prominence in military affairs is hard to miss [2][3]. Now your CO can invite you to his Church and his prayer service, and you'd best understand that your performance appraisal is the stakes. Probably not a good idea to mention your support of trans soldiers. It's all part of the broader culture war of course.

Many good officers hold the line against sectarian creep, including (or even especially) devoutly religious members, but the pressure to be Christian is growing.

[1] https://jqpublicblog.com/air-force-put-stop-loss-back-away/ [2] https://www.thechurchnews.com/2016/6/2/23214292/elder-bednar... [3] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/09/18/...

>Many good officers hold the line against sectarian creep, including (or even especially) devoutly religious members, but the pressure to be Christian is growing.

Maybe I'm in the wrong community, but I don't see this at all. My experience for the last several years is that a preponderance of the guys I work with is lapsed Catholics.

I have heard, however, that the Navy, and particularly officers (increasing at higher ranks) is comparatively left-leaning and secularist.

There are many communities in a huge military force, and obviously there are many Catholics too, both devout and lapsed.

I don't think I could characterise any of the USN leadership (O5 and up) as at all left leaning, though they have obviously travelled widely and generally worked with people in far flung places, unlike other branches.

> We fix those things, I guarantee the army will have much better recruits.

Great! How?

Ball reform, to keep low level nonviolent accused out of jail so they can hold down a job.

Social housing, widely distributed low rise apartments run by the city or state to ensure we can house everyone. Avoid high rise or dense social housing clusters.

Tax the wealthy, increase pay for teachers (not administrators), pay teachers overtime. Build more schools, and provide nutritious food for every student both because it's the right thing to do but also to build knowledge of what healthy food looks like.

Vacate convictions for things like possession.

Those are the simple ones, there's plenty more we could do.

Nothing on that list that I would disagree with.

But, this is all the exact opposite of what I've seen from electorally successful anglosphere[0] politicians.

Do you think you could convince people to vote for that?

[0] I live in Germany now, but my german language skill is only good enough to tell me that politically the AfD hate me and Die Partei are having a laugh

At what point do you think personal responsibility kicks in? Everyone has the option to eat healthy - the messaging on healthy diets is everywhere. Everyone has the option to study - Khan Academy is better than most private school instruction. It is free. Broadband is subsidized or free for poor families. Food is subsidized for poor families.

At what point is it a failure of the person and not the system?

Systematic issues are more important for an 18 year old than a 30 year old.

An 18 year old has spent their life eating what they’re given, exercising when they’re told, and having to get permission to use the bathroom.

This logic would then suggest that the parents are responsible. Why are they not more deliberate about the health, education and general welfare of their under 18 children?

Why parents specifically? Children spend more time in school than with their parents.

So that they can send them to be the army cooks tho?

The actual issue at hand seem to he that those kids have better opportunities.

How can it be personal responsibility when there’s enough of these people to create an entirely new boot camp model? If it always was personal responsibility then why is the system changing? Personal responsibility cannot be blamed when this country has so much poverty and lacking in opportunity for young poor children.

The costs of eating healthy are high. 2 years online schooling for most kids coming out of high school has lowered overall comprehension levels. Parents working long hours put in little effort to see that their child is active, healthy, and studious. No role models, no healthy lifestyles, no belief in a future.

The lack of physical activity is down to the parents. Generation X raised their kids with strict rules and a high safety concern. Can’t play outside when you’re not allowed to cross streets or climb trees.

I agree with you: it is down to the parents. It is the personal responsibility of the parents to use all resources available to help their kids.

What if the parents are overworked and underpaid, resulting in limited time and material resources - is it still an issue of "personal responsibility"?

And when "all your resources" is $35k a year because school is stupidly overpriced, and most of that has to go to rent because the country refuses to build affordable housing and you have 2 young kids because your state voted that sex ed wasn't allowed to say anything other than "sex is a sin and you should stay a virgin" which is laughably stupid?

> Everyone has the option to eat healthy - the messaging on healthy diets is everywhere.

Healthy foods have been hit by inflation, and if you grew up on food stamps you may never have had access to the right amount of healthy food to make it through childhood with a decent diet.

Healthy food is surprisingly cheap. Inflation is a recent phenomenon and is not responsible for the past generation of unhealthy diets.

The Government has excellent resources on meal planning and budgeting on SNAP:

https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/nutrition-education/nutrition-ed...

Having good education resources doesn't make up for living in a food desert, having a parent that's working two or three jobs to make rent and doesn't have time to cook, having neglectful or abusive parents, or having parents that don't know that these resources exist and even if they do can't access or understand them.

I agree that these resources exist, but actually being able to practically implement them is different than them existing.

The typical person on HN is probably educated enough and is in a position in life where these things aren't problems as adults, but that's not going to help a kid that is still living with parents or in a situation that they do not control.

I used to think this, but it's so broken as you apply it.

I aslo didnt realize the arrogance that is embedded in it as well as the role that chance played in my good financial position.

My best friend is a chemical engineer. He's studied 2 or 3 magnitudes harder than me, but the last 20 years didn't favor Chemical Engineers as much as software engineers. He's done well or plenty good, but to reduce the question of economics to a sense of personal responsibility as if those who are not financially stable -- deserve it, because they are lazy or not aware -- is a gross understatement and exactly why there is a such division in this country.

> Everyone has the option to eat healthy

Yet some people live in food deserts and can't readily access reasonably priced healthy foods. 19 million Americans have limited access to a proper store (https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts) and unhealthy foods cost poor Americans less than healthy foods in both money and (more importantly) time.

> Broadband is subsidized or free for poor families.

and yet during the pandemic school districts had to drive school buses acting as hotspots into poor communities in order to help the ~15 million public school students who had zero internet access but had to participate in remote learning. (https://all4ed.org/publication/homeworkgap/) Millions more have some form of internet access, but don't have internet speeds or devices capable enough for online learning. In Alcona county for example 60% of the students don't have reliable internet access at home.

The system is failing a whole lot of people. That doesn't absolve people from personal responsibility but it's wrong to pretend very real problems don't exist and influence people's actions and outcomes.

The core issue we have here, IMHO, is a completely weakened and abused working class of the US in the name of efficiency gains with all sorts of costs externalized on them. It's not everyone, but much of the population has been herded into this weakened position, ripe for economic abuse.

Yes but this population by and large also WANTS this. If you give them an alternative to vote for, one that says they will help, that population instead votes in a buffoon and eventually DOES WHAT THE OTHER POLITICIAN SAID THEY SHOULD DO ANYWAY

That number means nothing if you exclude the fact that the military has comprised less than 1% of the overall US population for at least thirty years. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili...

Sure it does, because that 23% intersects with college and athletic opportunities, and not as much with line cook opportunities.

Yes, that is true, however line cook is not the only opportunity in the military - even though it is the subject of this thread (broadly). The point I was hoping to illustrate is that only 23% of the overall population being eligible for the military is not exactly dire given that we need less than 1% to maintain the status quo of what is - even if "most powerful" is debatable - the biggest military in the world.

And of course, I certainly wish that people were/had more opportunities to be healthier and more literate in the US in general.

You forgot too old. You can't be over 40 and cook food for them. Agism at its best.

Army cook isn't exactly a zero-combat MOS. Cooks at FOBs come under fire all the time: https://www.army.mil/article/49294/army_cook_earns_bronze_st...

What happens if you're both fat and functionally illiterate?

You can lose weight, be taught to read and write, and march in step. Been done for decades.

Indeed, we even used to do this BEFORE you asked to join the military.

But apparently now that's socialism soo....

This is something the US Army at least has recently started trying to tackle. If you fail to meet the education or fitness requirements there's a 90 day course to help you reach those goals: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/10/11/the-army...

I'm neither American nor involved with any military - but this came up in a podcast I was listening to recently, as a potential solution to recruitment problems that the US Army was having recently. It's a fairly good one, IMO, and certainly a more reasonable one than hoping people will decide on their own to "lose weight, be taught to read and write"

Is there a stoner camp, too?

Saying 'Yes' on the 'Have you ever used drugs?' recruitment question would put you in the 'Too dumb' camp.

On immigration forms you have to say, in one question, whether you have ever used, possessed, distributed or sold illegal drugs. Basically asking people to lie, I guess.

I don’t know how it is phrased in army recruitment, but if they are willing to take the fat and stupid, they might also allow the honest.

It's not asking people to lie, it's because they can kick people out for lying, but they can't kick people out for having used drugs.

The recruiter will tell you to cross that line out and fill it in correctly.

I would disagree. If you work in any position that requires a clearance or will at any point (the further your career goes the higher the probability) it's far easier to be honest out the door and skip any headaches. People you think are your friends or colleagues, will dime you out when OPM sends someone to interview them. Let's also not forget that OPM will interview people that don't like you. Anyone with a clearance can actually request their adjudication documents and you'll see things you would never have expected.

The military will accept recruits who have previously used marijuana (and some other drugs). But they need to pass a urine test when they actually enlist.

And last few years the military has gotten somewhat woke, driving away the traditional people who joined the military despite the crap.

Probably should provide some (readily available) examples with your claim...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com