J
Jetfire
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If governments could get away with breeding zombie soldiers...they would.
Ghost in the Shell, coming soon to the millitary...
- Thread starter Meredith
- Start date
You don't honestly believe me do you?
Recruiter: What do you want to do for a living?
Student: I want to be a musician.
Recruiter: You can join the army band!
Student: Actually, I want to be a journalist.
Recruiter: Great! You can write for Stars and Stripes!
Student: No, actually, I want to work with kids...
Recruiter: Wonderful! The army has daycare centers for military families!
Student: Uh... actually, I want to be a scientist.
Recruiter: You know the military conducts some of the most ambitious experiments in the world...
Student: Yeah... I don't really want to have to go into combat though...
Recruiter: That's no problem! You can join the army reserve! Just one weekend a month and you can be stationed close to home!
Student: Really?
Recruiter: Absolutely! Plus, if you join the reserves we'll give you a free ride to college, so you can get your bachelor's degree while you're in the army!
Student: Okay... well... I guess I'll sign up then.
<Six months later>
Recruiter: Welcome to Baghdad. Here's your rifle and thirty bullets. Use them wisely, because they have to last for nine months.
Yeah, that's not how it works.
Its amazing, just glancing through this thread there are so many misconceptions that it would make your head spin
I can provide you with at least a dozen references suggesting that this is, in general, the exact formula for military recruitment.
Essentially, anything you can possibly think of as a future career or field of interest, a recruiter will tell you "You can do that with the army, plus [insert benefits here.]" Upon actually JOINING the service, however, that long list of potential military careers usually turn into "infantry."
Naturally, it works considerably different for officer candidates and professionals (medics, surgeons, pilots, experienced engineers) but since the issue was raised about soldiers being shanghaied into something they didn't really expect to volunteer for, the point stands: the kinds of people who get suckered into enlisting in the armed services aren't the kinds of people the military would spend that sort of hardware on. Pilots and special ops guys, probably, but that pretty much rules out the "I only joined for the college money" crowd in the first place.
Yeah, and as someone who enlisted in the military and is currently serving asn an officer I know for a FACT that your statment was bullshit, as are many other statments in this thread
Lindley,
Who's John Ringo, and what did he write about?
Newtype Alpha,
Exactly!
And these people would be unable to say no if the Armed Forces decided to fit them with all sorts of implants, even though they were effectively hoodwinked into joining
Who's John Ringo, and what did he write about?
Newtype Alpha,
Exactly!
And these people would be unable to say no if the Armed Forces decided to fit them with all sorts of implants, even though they were effectively hoodwinked into joining
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Which has WHAT to do with you knowing how military recruitment works?
My point is that sidewinder-recruits of this type would be, like draftees, considered slightly too expendable to waste those implants on. The ones that are for some reason NOT expendable would be in a different situation, but I don't expect it would be a widespread military policy to fit every rifleman with set of night vision prosthetic eyes and a manually-controlled adrenaline shunt.
Because not only have I BEEN recruited and gone through the recruitment process, I have worked with recruiters to recruit new soldiers so yes I do know how the system works and no it isn't anything like how you described.
EDIT: And just so I can educate you so this farse doesn't continue, the way it works is you go in and take the ASVAB. Depending on your score and your ability to gain a security clearance you are presented with a list of open positions. From there you choose which job you want. Each and every job is described in detail from numerous sources. if anyone winds up in a job they don't like, they solely have themselves to blame for not researching it before hand. For example, this is what i enlisted as http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=245
and this is what i am currently serving as
http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=299
Also, most jobs do NOT turn into infantry. are all soldiers expected to fight? yes. Is every soldier going to be engaging targets and hunting down the enemy? No. You clearly have no idea how the infantry work or operate if you're confusing the role the infantry play with basic soldier skills.
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Which doesn't really answer the question, does it?
The matter you are objecting to is:
1) The assertion that recruiters misrepresent to potential recruits their potential options and benefits in the military (you claim they don't).
2) The assertion that recruits, having joined the military, have little or no control over what happens to them in the service, where they are deployed or what they will do when they get there (you claim they do).
This despite the fact that this type of behavior has been well documented for many years. (And this is just google search output; I've heard some things--and been told things--that would send you sprinting to the local JAG office).
I'm sure you believe you do, but without something more substantial than "I'm in the military and I love the military" to back that up, my anecdotes (and they're not alone) are as good as yours.
Besides, if you're honest with yourself you know good and damn well that in a choice between doing the right thing and accomplishing a military objective, the military will invariably choose the latter, especially in the absence of an accredited journalist. Hence the recruiter who told me in 2002 and again in 2004 that I could apply for helicopter pilot training based on my high school grades--and the second time, gave me a copie of the movie "Firebirds" to get an idea of what life was like as a helicopter pilot (still have the disk, by the way, because that movie was fucking awesome) were both lying through their teeth. Had I TAKEN the ASVAB to attempt that career track, I would have been, simply, shit out of luck.
In my case, the one thing I had going for me was three generations of army veterans and a fair number of officer friends who were quick to tell me what bullshit that claim was. I know a lot of people and have known alot of people who weren't that lucky, almost as many as I've known people who didn't need to be lied to in order to become recruits. They are not the same kinds of people, and they do not join the military the same way or for the same reasons.
Put that another way: the kinds of people who know exactly what they're getting into when they sign up are usually the ones who go on to have relatively gainful military careers (I believe I mentioned this earlier, didn't I)? Since this group of people comprises the MINORITY of applicants, recruiters can and do resort to misrepresentation, exaggeration, or just outright lies to keep their numbers up, thus not all soldiers DO know what they're getting into, and not all recruiters actually care. There's a name for this kind of soldier: they're called "cannon fodder."
I don't need to claim anything, I'm living proof
Of course that then brings into question why they didn't do their own research before hand
My goal isnt to convince you of anything, my goal is to call you on your BS
What do you mean?
Ummm, you can apply to flight school with your high school grades. thats not to say that's ALL you need, but its entirely possible to apply straight from high school. Its called the high school to flight school program. The ASVAB isnt even the determing test in that case, but the AFAST
If what you say is true, then why do vast amount of soldiers re-enlist? Were they all lied to a second time? And no, there is no such thing as "cannon fodder" If that was the case, then the recovery of a wounded soldier wouldn't be considered a top priority. Again, ignorance over how things work yet again.
Clint,
Don't argue with people who believe every bit of rumor and conjecture they encounter. It's like wrestling with a pig, in the mud. The dirtier one gets, the more the pig likes it. These guys know more about the military than you ever will "just because".
They just expect you to acknowledge their superior knowledge
Don't argue with people who believe every bit of rumor and conjecture they encounter. It's like wrestling with a pig, in the mud. The dirtier one gets, the more the pig likes it. These guys know more about the military than you ever will "just because".
They just expect you to acknowledge their superior knowledge
Newtype Alpha,
That is possible, but it all depends on how expensive these implants will be and as technology improves, they will get cheaper, and the military gets enormous amounts of money...
That is possible, but it all depends on how expensive these implants will be and as technology improves, they will get cheaper, and the military gets enormous amounts of money...
Since what you're accusing me of is not actually seeing and experienced what I did see and experience, your going to have to convince me to believe you instead of my lying eyes.
Sure, just like you can apply to Harvard with a C average.
In point of fact, it's not even close to "all you need," despite that I (and a few others) was told explicitly that it was at two different recruiting offices.
As far as I know, the majority don't (which, actually, was part of the reason for the whole Stop-Loss fiasco, remember?). The ones who do are the ones who either a) knew ahead of time what they were getting into or b) found something upon enlisting that they considered worth keeping.
The proportion of lifers to cannon fodder is always going to be high in an all-volunteer army. But a recruit who makes a career out of it probably won't be joining the military just because some high school recruiter told him he could get money for college if he served a tour in Iraq. Nor, for that matter, will gang bangers who only joined so they could learn how to shoot.
Even the recovery of CORPSES is a priority for the U.S. military. It's actually a bit more revealing that treating the wounded after their tour isn't always that high on the to-do list.
I don't expect the "cheap" ones will become mandatory for soldiers before they (or a lower-quality civilian version) also become marketable to consumers. This might just be an artifact of Pentagon procurement practices, but you never know...
Take, for example, the Land Warrior system. Most of the components of the system are basically derived from consumer electronics repurposed for military applications (and the system isn't even that widespread yet). It's actually more likely that soldiers will develop network-centered warfare strategies by developing iPhone apps than waiting for the Pentagon to procure a working BOS with all the trimmings. In a way, I half expect that by the time cybernetic enhancement becomes mandatory for enlisted soldiers and/or conscripts, it'll probably be offered as a signing bonus.
Bullshit. I was in the USAF from 1985-1995 and members had rights. No way they could turn you into a cyborg without your permission. I refused annual dental X-rays when I was in. They bitched like hell but had no recourse to force me.
I've been noticing more and more that alot of people get really bent out of shape when I point this out, but it definitely seems--when it comes to the military--that all men are NOT created equal. Officers and some noncoms can often bend or break rules and protocols that would land an enlisted man in the stockade. And this is not even including the curiously fast-growing tendency of officers to assign responsibility for unit misconduct primarily on their subordinates.
It's true, not all men ARE created equally. It's actually the other way around than you describe though. The enlisted get away with things that an officer can never get away with, and that's how it should be. Try getting a DWI as an enlisted. Then get one as an officer. Yes, the enlisted will get in a shit load of trouble but the officer will be torn to pieces. Even minor things such as being picked up by the police for being drunk. The enlisted guy will have to deal with a very pissed off First Sergeant. The officer would have to go before his commanding general (known as a General Officer Memo of Reprimand, or GOMOR for short) and runs the risk of losing a years worth of time in grade, which translates to a massive loss in pay.
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