Some Key points about why no one wants to join the military

[727Sky]

I also think all the multiple deployments to the sand box pissed many off who told their friends and families; not to mention who would want to fight or die for China Joe ?

[Brotherman]

I stopped the video at the PTSD part, lol are they saying kids don't want to have the same issues their daddies did from the Iraq Afghanistan era? All the shit they probably went through with mommy daddy problems? 

I still suffer but HAHA to the point there because smart children learned a long time ago shit is real and the gov don't give a fuck.

[Snarl]

I stopped the video at the PTSD part

I had a building almost shot out from under me (that was the harriest), got blown up by artillery (ours or theirs ... who knows) and spent 6 months in treatment for concussive lung damage, and rode around boxed-up in an APC in the middle of a very fierce tank battle (scariest ... might have shit myself a little).

Traumatic Stress: I guess maybe some people are permanently affected. The only things I have nightmares about are being recalled to Active Duty and missing formations. Have woke in a cold-sweat after those on many occasions, not so much the last ten years, but enough to never forget what that's like.  Closest thing I have to PTSD.  Am I weird?

[Ninurta]

I've got my doubts that the chance of PTSD is dissuading recruits. It's been with us probably since war has been with us, and has never dissuaded folks before. In the Civil War it was diagnosed as "the soldier's heart". in WWI it was "shell shock", "battle fatigue" in WWII, and transitioned from "the thousand meter stare" to "PTSD" in Vietnam, and that's been the name since then. It has always been with us, and always will be, but it's never stopped anyone from enlisting before.

Maybe in a few cases, where direct contact was involved. For example, my son was in ROTC, and gung-ho to sign up at his earliest opportunity. All his role models had been fighters at one time or another, so he was all about it. One evening, we were watching a war movie together, and I got blindsided. One of the characters got shot in the throat and bled out while the rest of his team was frantically trying to keep him from bleeding out. That cut a little close to the bone, and I started crying. Not big 'ol "ugly crying", just some tears running down my face and an inability to speak for a minute. So I got up and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, to buy time to pull my shit back together. When I came back, he was staring at me like I'd grown a second head. He'd never seen me cry before, but had enough presence of mind not to mention it then. It just shocked him. About 3 days later, he announced to me that he was abandoning his military plans, and when I asked why, he just said "I saw what it did to you" and left it at that.

But in most cases, I don't think the danger of PTSD is a big factor.

Ditto the job market - I don't think that has much bearing on it. Unemployment is "low" because folks have exhausted their unemployment benefits, which are what that number is calculated on. There are not more people working, there are just fewer people eligible for benefits now, artificially deflating the numbers.

I personally think the main problem is the military "going woke". Kids do dumb things - that's how we learn - but they are not stupid. They know that the job of the military is to kill folks and blow shit up, and that it is not meant to be a social club where feelz matter. Who the hell wants to join a military that might get orders any day to engage the enemy by poking flowers into their gun muzzles so that they get good feelz and lose? They know the enemy ain't buying that shit and that the current military "doctrine" is a one-way ticket to Valhalla without a sword, fighting the enemy with bouquets while they use bullets coming your way.

Furthermore, many are starting to get the idea that the military "going woke" is meant to grow a more pliable military that will eventually be turned against it's own citizens after sufficient woke indoctrination. No one wants to shoot granny just because she's bitching about the good>>bad old days, so why volunteer for an organization slowly being geared up for that very thing?

Who wants to join a military where the upper echelons (BidenHarris, /"General" Milley, Lloyd Austin, etc.) can be SEEN to be snuggling and cuddling with the enemy while simultaneously demonizing half of their own citizens?

Who wants to be a forced lab rat for Pfizer?

Who wants to go fight for a Commander in Chief and various other "leaders"who won't fight for them?

Recruiters have a lot of problems to surmount, and none of those problems are being addressed. They are instead being exacerbated. Until they fix the woke-broke military and determine which direction is "FRONT-TOWARDS ENEMY", they will continue experiencing the same problems. It's not a lack of patriotism in our youth, it's a lack pf patriotism in our leadership. Who wants to work for dumbasses who blow the enemy rather than cutting his throat?

I know several people who have recently retired from the military, and every one of them says the military is becoming something they didn't sign up for, so they got away while the getting was good. And that is over and above the masses of soldiers who got the boot for refusing to be guinea pigs for Pfizer and Moderna.

Starting to conscript again will not fix it, either. all that will do is swell the ranks with masses of malcontents who can see through their bullshit. The wokesters would be shooting themselves in the foot by conscripting in this day and age.

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[Snarl]

Starting to conscript again will not fix it, either. all that will do is swell the ranks with masses of malcontents who can see through their bullshit. The wokesters would be shooting themselves in the foot by conscripting in this day and age.

Funny that.

I got my taxes done on-post. The OIC was female and she was wearing one of those new high-speed t-shirts and a frikkin' ponytail. I'm sorry, but that look was sexy as Hell. Even my wife said it.

Why do you think they made the call to NOT include females in any future compulsive service? My jaw dropped a little when I saw that.

My personal guess as to why there are fewer potential recruits is: There's more to lose joining the service than there is to gain.  You get paid $11.25/hr (and we both know there's no 8 hour day in uniform). It's just not worth it.

[ABNARTY]

I know this is sliding off the subject a bit but...

My half baked opinion is it's not the "trauma" of combat that is the problem. It's what they come back to. 

Current American culture is so mushy and unhinged, how is someone who has seen something different supposed to relate and fit back in? 

Flame away.

[Snarl]

My half baked opinion is it's not the "trauma" of combat that is the problem. It's what they come back to.

I've seen what returning to the drudgery of the daily military grind does to vets too. Nobody wants to put up with a REMF telling 'em what to do after they've killed some bad guys.

[Ninurta]

My half baked opinion is it's not the "trauma" of combat that is the problem. It's what they come back to.

I've seen what returning to the drudgery of the daily military grind does to vets too. Nobody wants to put up with a REMF telling 'em what to do after they've killed some bad guys.

That, too, has probably been with us since war began and humans were human. The "Wild West" was wild in large part because of all the Civil War vets heading west to escape the drudgery of staid life back on the farm. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, there was a glut of Americans on the mercenary market that fueled all the little brushfire wars around the world due to returning vets with a single sellable skill set.

I think, personally, it has in part to do with the adrenaline rush of a firefight, and guys missing it. Adrenaline can be as addictive as heroin. There is one solution that solves both of the problems of pogues pushing a guy around and the missing adrenaline.

There were a lot of guys from Desert Storm who found their way to contracts in Bosnia just a few years later. some were active as late as 2008 or 2009. I have a friend who was in Desert Storm who found his way onto a CIA contract in Northern Iraq around that time.

I was approached by Dyncorp in May 2004 for a PSD contract at the shiny new embassy in Baghdad, but by then my passport was dead and I couldn't get all my paperwork in order in time to work it. Besides that, I figured I was getting a little long in the tooth for that kind of work any more anyhow, so I didn't go. Turns out just as well, as all the guys I knew who did go quit the contract about two months in and came home, said it was a shit-show, and the honcho at the embassy wouldn't let them use up-armored SUV's for the security details, and the SUV's just sat there in the compound gathering dust while everyone was out dodging bullets.

That's the main difference between mercenary work and national service soldiering - contractors can just quit and go home if the honchos get too stupid, or they can just say NO to a contract that sounds too hinky and not go to begin with. Soldiers don't have those options.

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[727Sky]

[727Sky]

Just one of 1000s of stories.

[727Sky]

Can you watch without shedding a tear ?

[Snarl]

Can you watch without shedding a tear ?

Those always tear me up. You don't feel the same emotions when it's you on the receiving end of those hugs. But, man does it make a difference when it's your kid coming back from his first, second and third tour 'over there'.

[SimeonJ]

[727Sky]

That is a sick sad story

[727Sky]

Not crazy about this format as you can not see what is active or current however I saw this and thought just how messed up everything seems to be anymore about the active military and even the National Guard. People's lives ruined by a flawed corrupt system managed by the lazy and stupid.