https://www.newsweek.com/american-military-recruitment-problems-public-apathy-1842449
The military is struggling to recruit, amid an apparent disconnect with the younger generation. But it is a complex picture.
Two things not mentioned it that article:
Why would anyone want to fight for a country that is so callously disinterested in the welfare of it's citizens?
In the last quarter-century it has become extremely apparent that the US Military is not the "global force for good" that it wants to portray itself as. Most young people probably aren't interested in joining up to commit war crimes in the name of making money for the military industrial complex.
How's training and cleaning up mold supposed to line the pockets of the senator's buddy who owns the uniform company?
@kvasir476 @throws_lemy Suggested edit: After "In the last quarter-century" insert "I've finally noticed".
Butler saw the scam first-hand, 100 years ago. Every generation seems it must relearn the lessons of our grandparents.
As for young people not enlisting for wars of convenience - exactly. That's partially why a draft was around, and why it was so unpopular. And why the money each service pays for college benefits goes way up when there's a shooting war and goes down in peacetime.
My time in the Navy overlapped with the VEAP program, which would give me a 2-to-1 match for college - up to the maximum contribution of $2700. What a joke.
Compare that to the current GI Bill plus extra money each service pays directly.
\3. Pay hasn't kept up with civilian work.
\4. They stopped offering student loan repayment as a benefit.
- They stopped offering student loan repayment as a benefit.
What really? That was the biggest reason anyone joined when I was in. Wow. So the headline should be "Military reduces benefits of service, less people willing to serve"
After Germany declared war on them? They didn't defeat them out of good will, in fact, I'd say America and South Africa were the closest things to Nazi Germany outside of the Reich
Is it good to beat the shit out of the school bully after he picks a fight with you so he learns to stop picking fights with people? I would say so.
There's a difference between being a good country and being a global force for good. In helping to defeat the Nazis, the U.S. was a global force for good regardless of what else they did, had done or will do. The same with Stalinist Russia.
And then they took all the top scientists from Germany and Japan, who were guilty of crimes against humanity, and made them high ups in the American government
Really? Closer than Russia which actually did invade its neighbors? Go back to lemmygrad.
Should I remind you of the land the USA originally had and what they did to the people who lived in the lands they conquered?
You can if you want to pretend that Russia didn’t do the same thing and that it somehow makes the comparison better for you!
stopped clocked fallacy.
the united states is in so many wars, they were bound to achieve one somewhat correctly.
Ok...? Does that dispute the point? Original comment said they were "never" a force for good
Global force for better
Good would’ve involved them allowing Spanish civil war vets to fight
I would say it was a combined effort, but Russia suffered a lot more. They didn't liberate Paris though.
The Russians did nothing on the Western Front or North Africa.
But yes, they lost the most lives. I'm not sure why that means it wasn't a collaborative effort. Are you claiming that if the U.S. and Britain had sat by and done nothing, Russia would have defeated Hitler singlehandedly and liberated Western Europe? Because I find that to be a very spurious claim if so.
Suffering more losses does equate to contributing more to towards the victory. For example America's Lend Lease Act didn't cost American soldiers but contributed towards the allied victory.
Not really, no. And let’s ignore the part where the only reason they even fought is because Russia wanted to conquer some of the same land as Germany 😂
Because Stalin didn’t invade Poland and the Baltic states, right? And he didn’t sign agreements with hitler before the war?
Oh oh let me guess, they were “saving them from Nazis”! Now where have I heard that before…
The west constantly uses the memory of appeasement to justify its killings today but back when it was happening Stalin tried to start the war when Hitler could be easily crushed. It's only after the west decided they would rather use the nazis to kill the communists than prevent the holocaust that deal was made.
We've seen the bullshit reasons the US government use to send people to war and we've seen how the veterans are treated by Congress.
I watched my dad have to stay in bed day after day because the VA fucked up his meds for millionth time, basically my whole time growing up... Yeah, saw it first hand too.
My condolences and fuck the ghouls who use people like that.
No, we don't want to fight for racist, corrupt, misogynous, traitorous shitheads like Trump and DeSantis.
As pretty much any political minority will tell you, the country constantly uses us like ping pong balls and cat toys to win elections or internal battles.
I am sick of my rights, welfare, sense of safety, and hope for the future being dangled in front of me and ripped away over and over again so billionaires and career politicians can be greedy.
So, yeah. Not interested in serving. If my country wants me to fight for it, then it should fight for me as well.
I have two sons in their early 20s and I’m scared to death one of these fascist chucklefucks decides to get us into some conflict we don’t need to be in just because he wants to prove he has BDE and reinstates the draft.
I was in the Air Force in the late 70s. Twenty years ago (roughly) I pushed both my boys into the military, because they were being fuck-ups and I didn't know any other way at the time.
I'm thankful as all hell that they had the good sense to tell the military to get fucked when in Basic and got out.
Learn from my stupidity.
Some people can thrive in the military for sure. I have a stepson that’s one of the hardest workers I know. He has issues with basic life skills (anxiety and stress) and taking care of things on his own but thrives in an environment with lots of discipline and order. He’s too old know but had he gotten into the military I’m sure his life would have been much better now.
But given some of the things they send the military to do recently (cough cough …Afghanistan) it seems like a waste of human life and resources. I’m glad your boys were smart enough to understand it wasn’t a good fit for them at the time and had the courage to make that decision. Hopefully it’s worked out for them.
That was honestly the main reason why I didn't join the military over the last few years.
That and I just refuse to be a part of it.
Ah well, soldiers haven't fought for their country for decades. Instead they've been fighting for the interest of industrialized military, and the whims of politicians.
the american military-industrical complex is little more than a welfare/jobs program for americans with profits made overseas while at home were prostetlized that were 'defending' ourselves with overt patriotism
its absolutely revolting, and it boggles my mind how anyone in the military can find this a good thing for humanity.
Remember the video of the Iraq vet that was screaming at Bush to apologize in 2021 I think? He talked about all his friends being dead and a million Iraqis being dead all because of a bunch of lies. And while Iraq was one of the latest foreign failures, it was far from the only one. It just so happened to occur right around the same time the internet started connecting everyone. MSM couldn't whitewash or ignore what was actually happening like it could a few decades prior.
Eustice, who served 26 years in the Minnesota National Guard, noted that young adults were the military's prime target for new recruits—currently Generation Z, or those born after 1997—and argued that growing up in the internet age had made them used to "immediate gratification."
Oh look, another out of touch boomer. ItS tHoSe DaMn CeLlPhOnEs! Gen Z grew up watching America get involved in, then stay involved in, a deeply unpopular war. Gen Z grew up in an age where you can fact check someone on the spot and it makes it that much harder for recruiters to lie. They grew up in an age where half of the government is trying to drag the country backwards by any means.
I am in the military. I overheard my leadership talking with a woman who wanted to get out. When they asked her why she said it was because of the Roe V Wade decision. "Why would I fight for a country that won't fight for me?" I don't blame her.
A person saying kids don't want to join the military because they're too used to "instant gratification" is some of the most obnoxious shit I have ever heard lmao
If someone went up to me and said that, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves and leave, because fuck all of that.
I have a child who was born in 1999. The other thing men and women of that general age group has heard is "DON'T JOIN THE MILITARY" from their parents, starting at a young age.
Yeah. I was in the military, the Marines in fact. I will tell my two children don't join the military, especially don't join the Marines, and if you need to join the Air Force and work on AC units or some shit.
Everyone here suggesting joining the military means you're going to combat is mistaken. When I was in a combat role, the number we always heard was 10% of people in the military are in combat ops jobs, and 10% of those people see actual combat. The military absolutely offers opportunities to learn a trade for folks who are in a tough spot, and you can make it work for you.
Everyone who says shits fucked now and the country is just billionaires, I'm totally on board. But if you're some poor kid from Mississippi, being an engine mechanic in the Army might be your best shot at a decent life, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone that.
A country is supposed to provide 4 things to it's citizens, and the united states are failing on all 4.
safe to drink water: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’ government study finds
safety: The record 48,830 total gun deaths in 2021 reflect a 23% increase since 2019
additionally, nearly every fundamental system (education, healthcare, insurance, car-dependent city designs, etc.) within the united states is designed to take everything away (or restrict access to everything) from it's citizens through poverty, thus making the above problems exponentially worse.
What is there to fight for?
Exactly. The same idea can be used to explain voter disengagement. Why bother voting when both parties have engaged in scuzzy tactics, manipulation, lies and/or outright illegal activities?
food (fox news): But food banks are struggling to meet the higher demand due to decreased donations, supply chain delays and inflation, according to NPR.
safe to drink water (the wall street journal): Nearly Half of U.S. Tap Water Contains ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Study Says
shelter (the national review): Neglect won’t be an option. Left unaddressed, street homelessness tends to expand. Twenty-person encampments have a way of becoming 40-person encampments
safety (the Washington times): If we take the example of health care workers, the extent of the issue is made painfully clear. A recent nationwide survey highlights that almost half of hospital nurses report an increase in workplace violence, a 119% rise in nurses compared to March 2021.
There you go, 4 different conservative news sources that point out the same issues. the facts that I had stated in that comment are agreed upon on both sides of the political spectrum, the only thing that's up for debate is the solutions. and regardless of what you think the solutions are, they are not currently happening withing the united states of america.
again, I'll ask, what is there to fight for?
Imagine thinking the Washington times and NPR are conservative. You're out of your fucking mind. WSJ for Christ sakes the biggest lib rag there is.
why in the fuck would any sane person sign up to die in a failed attempt to implement some shitty politician's whim half a world away? no one has fought for America in decades, they fight for the aristocrats.
Centuries. Up to ww1 they're was an official policy of isolationism militarily, we only got into ww1 because Germany was pissed off we were selling everyone arms, WW2 happened because Germany was pissed off we were selling everyone arms.....
If we kept to ourselves we wouldn't likely have ever entered either war and the "moral war" excuse only cropped up after we were attacked in both wars.
“moral war” excuse only cropped up after we were attacked
I think a lot of people would agree that the US had at least some moral authority to enter WWII after pearl harbor. Did it happen because we used diplomatic and economic policies in provocative ways that essentially amounted to taking a side? Yeah, but it also happened. The people who were killed really did die.
We are also kind of white washing the US's imperialist murdering before WW1. We were at war with Spain for dubious reasons and then we invaded the Phillipenes and murdered anyone that didn't like us extracting wealth and resources from them.
And that is a single instance.
We don't like to call it war when it isn't against Europeans.
Sure, that said we did not enter the war because it was a moral obligation, we got into the war because we did capitalist bullshit that got us attacked. The only moral war in the last two centuries is arguably the civil war and that could easily be argued to be a economic decision not at all a moral one.
I imagine I'm going to get pushback about the civil war thing but let me be clear, slavery is immoral no question. It just isn't actually why we got involved in the civil war, that was purely an economic decision.
I would call WWII a moral war, at least for the allies. WWI was just imperialist bullshit plus an arms race. WWII was a very different beast.
It may be because we can look at it from a modern perspective, but yeah, I would gladly sign up to kill some nazis. At the time, many, many Americans were actually sympathetic to the nazi party. Pearl Harbor is what galvanized us against the Axis.
We did not enter either way for moral reasons. There's also no moral war but that's another issue entirely given wars throughout history tend to be for land or resources with the occasional excuse otherwise.
I'd definitely fight FOR our country. But I would not fight for our country and those that currently control it. They're after all, the ones we have to fight against.
Not really. You just need to go back to my first post in this thread. Explains it perfectly. The country itself. I would fight to save it from the people that currently run it. But I would not fight for (in service of) the country and the people that currently run it.
The country isn't, like, its own entity. America isn't real. There isn't some ideological spirit of America that you can separate from the people that run it. At most you could argue that America is also its culture, but uh, the culture has been pretty fucking bad since the start!
American society is terrible. America's government is terrible. American culture is terrible. It's an irredeemable shithole country.
What the fuck would you fight for?
Actually there is. They talk and talk and talk about it ad nauseam. They simply just do it rhetorically and always fail to embody it. Even countries with a traditionally large immigrant population like the United States have a lot more culturally that tends to bind, then they have differences that divide. And after all what is a country? If not the people in it?
… And its 1, 2,3 what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
The next stop is Vietnam,
And its 5, 6,7 open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
WHOOPEE we're all gonna die
Killing brown people so the oligarchy can exploit their natural resources is not fighting for your country.
I don't think it is that (it should be).
Unemployment is at historic lows and real wages are starting to grow again.
There plenty of alternatives that don't involve risking your life.
That's because Democrats are brainwashing people to hate their country and has absolutely nothing to do with Republicans voting AGAINST any and all help for veterans, Republicans constantly stopping service member pay with government shutdowns, billionaires killing us so they can make an extra dollar, billionaires using us to do dangerous tasks for minimal pay or Republicans voting to dismantle the VA. It's OBVIOUSLY the Democrats fault!
This lie is akin to "No one wants to work anymore"
It's not remotely true. It's just some bullshit the employer says when they're not paying enough and they treat their employees like shit.
I don't think this is true. I lived in a big military town and not fighting for an America whose policies I didn't agree with was one reason I avoided the military when so many of my friends and classmates joined and served.
Nobody joins the military because they want a job where they are treated well. Pay and benefits definitely factor into it big time though, and are probably the main reason my late brother joined. He and I talked about how that is effectively mercenary though. Of course there are a lot of great things in America to join the military and defend, and we still do have a lot of freedoms that other countries do not, but it's pretty clear that it's not what it used to be. America isn't even in the top 10 on the human freedom index (we're 14th). https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country
I'm not convinced a soldier has been sent to fight for my country at any point during my lifetime.
I'm an oif veteran, and I honestly don't think we've fought for our country since pearl harbor
"Operation Iraqi Freedom" in quotes because that's its name, I should clarify I find the name ridiculous because we freed no one
managed to turn a 2nd world country into a 3rd world country and boy howdy did we stop all those wmds :|
but honestly, thanks for serving when so many never consider it. hope you got your disability and bennies covered.
Ukraine isn't my country. They're fighting for their country.
My point wasn't that "fighting for your country" isn't a thing that happens; my point was that the many fights the United States involved itself in over the last 30+ years...aren't that.
If there's one thing I can guarantee is on no Ukrainian soldier's mind right now, it's "What will happen to America if we lose?"
A foreign power has invaded their country, and they're fighting back. Ukraine is on the right side of history here. They don't need you to grandstand for them.
Is it grand standing if it's true? There are absolutely Ukrainians who believe they are fighting to stop a modern fascist form invading all of Europe and pressing through to America, the country which led the international response to the invasion and which is Ukraine's political and economic partner over the past decade. I know they aren't defending America so to say as fervently as they are defending their home, but they know what is at stake.
I was in 7th Grade when the towers fell. That whole day nothing happened and we just watched the news. Once we had a day or two to digest it my Social Studies teacher talked to us about what it meant. She talked about how the Vietnam war lasted nearly 20 years and that was not triggered by an attack on US soil. She basically told me that everything was going to change and that we were going to be fighting someone forever.
I'm sure she wasn't quite that precient at the time and I am colouring my memories, but she really got it to stick that the world had changed overnight for us.
Long story short, we have been murdering brown kids in their homes my entire life. Even if more death and destruction is justified in response, we really went overboard. Why would people my age and younger have any fucking desire to support more of that?
PLUS we finally talk a little more about mental health in this country and it is clear that when you brainwash young people to be ok with murdering humans, and then have them do that while watching their friends get blown up, they fuck their brains up.
I was on track to go in to the military as a kid. I wanted to serve my country and get college paid for, but by the time I was 18 it no longer seemed like a fair trade. I'll go in to debt to the capitalists to start my life, seemed like a better deal than a pension and a lifetime of demons from my past to battle.
Where they ever fighting "for their country?"
How has the majority of people in the US benefited from the US-caused wars in Vietnam, Panama, Iraq or Afghanistan?
"Fight for their country"
...
Ten thousand miles away
Of course not, what sane American would buy into that bullshit?
Forced draft ruined the lives of my father and uncle. (Vietnam) My husband is permanently disabled from his time in the balkins and the VA fought us tooth and nail for every cent of his disablity pay. I would never, ever, ever join the miltary. All you get is a broken mind, body, and a shitty flag when you die.
Fighting for a shit government full of crappy politicians is already a weird choice.
Going in other countries to kill random innocent people for the profit of said government is an even weirder one.
Korea, too.
And dozens of “minor” conflicts in South America and Africa over the years (for example, task force ranger and the battle of Mogadishu… as imortalozed in black hawk down,)
Yeah. Us military might as well be fighting for big corporations.
Even now with two wars the US isn't even fighting in, their corporations are making billions. Israel and Saudi Arabia are a couple of their largest buyers.
Korea was not as disheartening as the other 3 on that list. Gulf War would be the next example. In Korean War the US had a major victory, created a long term ally, and the soldiers were met with overwhelming positivity that continues to this day. (At least among the older generations... younger Americans are making an ass of themselves in Korea now and drawing more ire).
When people go on and on about fighting for our freedom, I'm at a loss as to exactly what they're talking about.