TOPICS:
NOV 22, 2004 10:10 PM
Stiles said:
Phoebus said:
dspsg said:
Are you crazy?! Do you know how difficult military recruitment would be if people were not economically pressured? If people could afford luxury items like food and health care, we would need a draft!
Yeah, there's no way people would volunteer for reasons other than financial well-being. 
C'mon now, Phoebus - his wording may have been a bit harsh, but the realities of recruiting (particularly for the Army) cannot be denied.
I'll have to find the numbers again, but I recently read a study in one of the JCS journals that was done on Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps recruiting. That study showed that the majority (and I use this term loosely) of individuals who cite financial or educational benefits for joining are also the same individuals who volunteer for non-high tech, non-combat arms specialties.
Obviously this isn't going to be a 100%, everyone-fits-a-certain-mold deal. And it's certainly not a knock on upstanding, decent individuals who decided they'd rather be in support specialties than controlling airstrikes, driving tanks, or with a parachute infantry regiment. As it is, more and more jobs on the support side of the house will start getting contracted out.
A more accurate statement on dspsg's part might have been that, if everyone had an easier time making money on the outside, the military would have trouble getting folks in combat/high-tech specialties to re-enlist.
NOV 22, 2004 10:13 PM
NOV 22, 2004 10:14 PM
SirPsychoSexy said:
I have a solution for both problems, instead of making abortion illegal, research an equally safe way to extract the already fertilized embryos and incubate them at a military base where their development can be monitored and enchanced from the womb to create an army of parentless supersoldiers.
[Edited on Nov 23, 2004 by SirPsychoSexy]
You're asking for a bad Kurt Russel movie? 
NOV 22, 2004 10:16 PM
Keith said:
...Massuhoweveryouspellit...
Make it easier to afford to be a family. Make it so that both people don't HAVE to work in order to raise their kids, and still BARELY get by, and you'd see the divorce rate plummet. Simple as that.
Keith I 
you. 
Well damn! If they make it easier to afford to have one parent stay home with the kids, that might impact the taxes the extort... umm collect form those same families.
NOV 24, 2004 01:13 PM
NOV 24, 2004 01:16 PM
NOV 24, 2004 02:08 PM
NOV 24, 2004 02:23 PM
lostarchitect said:
i keep reading the title of this thread as "deliberate childISHness".
which kinda describes me.
yeah i thought it said that at first too. Maybe because we so much of that around here? 
ferret
I'm lost
OLD SKOOL
NOV 24, 2004 11:53 PM
NOV 25, 2004 12:02 AM
SirPsychoSexy said:
I have a solution for both problems, instead of making abortion illegal, research an equally safe way to extract the already fertilized embryos and incubate them at a military base where their development can be monitored and enchanced from the womb to create an army of parentless supersoldiers.
Mommy can be the flag...
and daddy can be the gunny:
[Edited on Nov 23, 2004 by SirPsychoSexy]
Isn't this the next California Governator movie? (Or perhaps my next short story?)
NOV 25, 2004 07:57 AM
Phoebus said:
Stiles said:
Phoebus said:
dspsg said:
Are you crazy?! Do you know how difficult military recruitment would be if people were not economically pressured? If people could afford luxury items like food and health care, we would need a draft!
Yeah, there's no way people would volunteer for reasons other than financial well-being.
C'mon now, Phoebus - his wording may have been a bit harsh, but the realities of recruiting (particularly for the Army) cannot be denied.
I'll have to find the numbers again, but I recently read a study in one of the JCS journals that was done on Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps recruiting. That study showed that the majority (and I use this term loosely) of individuals who cite financial or educational benefits for joining are also the same individuals who volunteer for non-high tech, non-combat arms specialties.
Obviously this isn't going to be a 100%, everyone-fits-a-certain-mold deal. And it's certainly not a knock on upstanding, decent individuals who decided they'd rather be in support specialties than controlling airstrikes, driving tanks, or with a parachute infantry regiment. As it is, more and more jobs on the support side of the house will start getting contracted out.
A more accurate statement on dspsg's part might have been that, if everyone had an easier time making money on the outside, the military would have trouble getting folks in combat/high-tech specialties to re-enlist.
For both models, enlistment rates are much higher where income is lowest.
We find the presence of veterans under age 65 to be perhaps the single most important factor for explaining enlistment behavior.
I was NOT thinking about re-enlistment. That just adds to my argument.
There are many other reasons to join. But it would cripple recruitment to remove the economic pressure.
[Edit to add]
useful search google
and explain apparently conflicting quotes.
Being poor helps, but being poor and having veterans (a father, grandfather, brother) in your family is best (for recruiters).
[Edited on Nov 25, 2004 by dspsg]
[Edited on Nov 25, 2004 by dspsg]
cthav
USA
August 2004
NOV 22, 2004 10:08 PM