oh good, by dint of presidential fiat my country's military is being gutted today

[Panther Al]

Not only a problem in the US.
When he was leader of the Liberal Democrats , Paddy Ashdown (former SBS) used to say he was the only trained killer to be a party leader. Then he would add:
"Mrs Thatcher was entirely self-taught."

You know, for all the reasons that I liked the Iron Lady, her willingness to take anyone and everyone to task has always been the tops. And that quote is spot on!

[Raellus]

Hmmmm, intresting question...does Mr. Moore have any children who serve their country? If you can't walk the walk...then shut the f**k up!!!

I don't think he has kids period. But he didn't vote to go to war, so it's apples and oranges regardless.

[Legbreaker]

...does Mr. Moore have any children who serve their country? If you can't walk the walk...then shut the f**k up!!!

I doubt it matters if he has children or not since he's only asking those in power you are making the decisions whether or not THEY have children in the military who THEY would be willing to put in harms way along with everyone elses kids....Mr Moore's opinion and personal position isn't the issue - the Congressmens is.

[Webstral]

Instead of military service being a prerequisite for voting rights, make it any public service job- a year in the peace corps, teaching in public schools, working for a free clinic, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly. I might quibble about how long a non-hazardous commitment might have to be, but like you, Rae, I see hazards in having a society run exclusively by veterans. National service ought to be a genuine act of self-sacrifice or deprivation that causes folks from all walks of life and income levels to rub elbows as they serve the interests of the State for their term of service. Doctors working for a free clinic for a period of time certainly would end up paying their dues.

[Adm.Lee]

[QUOTE=Raellus;43244
There was a really interesting article in TIME magazine a couple of months ago about the U.S. military becoming more insular over the past decade or so. Real wages for members of the military have risen faster than the national average. The proportion of Republicans vs. Democrats currently serving in the U.S. military has been skewing further and further right. The military is currently not a representative cross section of the rest of the country. More military men and women hail from the south and midwest than from other regions. The military is, in effect, one very large red state.

I guess I'm just afraid that Heinlein's political ideal would in fact lead to a martial society and/or fascist or feudalistic state. Any civilization/state in history that has based citizenship/voting rights and office-holding on military service has gone that route, except maybe for Athens.

Instead of military service being a prerequisite for voting rights, make it any public service job- a year in the peace corps, teaching in public schools, working for a free clinic, etc. [/QUOTE]

From my readings, the rightward (and evangelical Christian) shift among the services has been a slow increase since the '70s (i.e. the shift from conscription). I don't know that it is correctable, or needs correcting, but it should preclude something like military service before voting rights. Now, if conscription had remained in place, my opinion might have been different.

Either way, I prefer the idea of national service of some kind before voting rights* . I would prefer it not to be purely military service, not least because my own medical history prevented me from serving. Teachers' Corps, service jobs, big infrastructure projects, doctors to rural or urban clinics, whatever.

*Perhaps just before Federal voting rights? A high-school diploma/GED gets you the right to vote in local and state elections, but service is required before rights to vote in Federal elections? Just thinking out loud.

[dragoon500ly]

I doubt it matters if he has children or not since he's only asking those in power you are making the decisions whether or not THEY have children in the military who THEY would be willing to put in harms way along with everyone elses kids....Mr Moore's opinion and personal position isn't the issue - the Congressmens is.

Last time I checked, the Congressional Record (2009), some 41% of the members of both houses had served in the military or had children who were currently or had served in the military. IMHO, when some one shoves a microphone into the face of a Congressman and bellows "do you have children who serve..." kinda ignores the fact that some members of both houses really do have full knowledge of what they are asking their fellow countrymen to do when they make the decision to send our troops into harm's way.

Michael Moore generates a lot of heat with his actions, to be fair, he does have some valid points, but, again, IMHO his primary purpose is not to make a difference, but to rake in money. All power to him! He has every right to earn a living at whatever makes him happy and I respect him for that. I am also of the opinion that Mr. Moore either ignores or completely disregards the facts when they may happen to interfere with the story that he is spinning.

Sorry, but when I see someone trying to score points for their agenda by pulling, for example, some of Mr. Moore's stunts, I do tend to see red and start asking, "and when did you last serve your country sir?"

[ShadoWarrior]

IMHO, when some one shoves a microphone into the face of a Congressman and bellows "do you have children who serve..." kinda ignores the fact that some members of both houses really do have full knowledge of what they are asking their fellow countrymen to do when they make the decision to send our troops into harm's way.

OTOH, most of the leadership of both parties, especially most (if not all) of the committee chairpersons, have not served. Nor do their privileged children. Yet they are the ones that set agendas and ram them down the throats of everyone else. Usually to the detriment of the nation.

[dragoon500ly]

OTOH, most of the leadership of both parties, especially most (if not all) of the committee chairpersons, have not served. Nor do their privileged children. Yet they are the ones that set agendas and ram them down the throats of everyone else. Usually to the detriment of the nation.

No argument here!

That's the most important part of the problem that is currently infesting our capital. We have elected individuals who have kissed the right bums, sold their souls to their local PACs and have utterly forgotten, if they ever understood, that they are there to represent the citizens of the United States.

But is that the fault of the elected (mis)representatives?

Or is it, instead, the fault of the voters who no longer bother to look at the qualifications of the candiates?

[Legbreaker]

Or is it simply the fault of a deeply flawed system that allows such travesty?

[Webstral]

In a representative form of government, the people elect folks like themselves. The citizenry of the US largely has avoided military service, so they elect representatives who have avoided service. The last fighting leader was Bush the elder. Perhaps not coincidentally, he was wise enough to lay out strategic objectives for the military and leave the operational aspects to the men in uniform. He also was not interested in winning on the cheap, which the US tried to make work in Iraq until we hand the mess off to the locals, and which we have been trying to make work in Afghanistan.

Interestingly enough, Bush the elder was willing to accept the possibility of tens of thousands of casualties in Operation Desert Storm. He went with the Vietnam-born philosophy that if you need one division, bring three. He listened to his generals and admirals. His son, on the other hand, went with the philosophy that the lowest bidder among his advisors must be the guy with the best plan. He got rid of generals who told him he'd need to put some skin into the game to win the right way. It may be a coincidence that one of these men fought in WW2, while the other managed to duck out of the National Guard before it sucked him into something uncomfortable. It may not be a coincidence, though.

[pmulcahy11b]

I also agree with Bill Maher: "Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter."

[ArmySGT.]

After thinking about your defense of automatic dismissal of all single parents, Army Sgt, the most important question is this: what is the mission statement for your policy? What are we trying to accomplish? The obvious answer is that you want to improve the quality of the force, and you seem to believe that a blanket policy of dismissal is going to achieve that end with the greatest efficacy and the least cost to the force. Let's go beyond that and restate the problems you want to address as specifically as possible.

By the way, I did read that you agree that a board of review is a good idea. I note as well that you want meeting the minimums to count against the SPS in terms of retention. From a management standpoint, this idea doesn't stand. The minimum is the minimum because that's a passing grade for the force. If you don't like the minimums where they are, advocate moving them. I certainly don't believe that 60/100, which was the minimum in 2005, is acceptable as a fitness standard. I don't believe that 24/40 is an acceptable standard for marksmanship when only 3 of the targets are 300 meters from the firing position. Regardless of my beliefs, though, the Big Army says those standards are sufficient for retention. We can't set up separate standards for soldiers who happen to be single parents by saying that the minimum is good enough to retain a married soldier or a soldier with no children but not good enough to retain a soldier who is a single parent. Either the soldier meets the established standards or she doesn't.

What you can do is prevent favorable actions being taken on behalf of the soldier who hits the minimum consistently. No PLDC, no other schools, etc. until the soldier meets some other standard that applies to everyone in the force or at least everyone in the specific command. We also can advocate for raising the minimum. We can and should raise establish minimums by MOS, such that the combat arms have to get 80/100 or some such. Of course, this action is likely to affect a lot of people beyond the single parents. But then, we're not conducting a witch hunt here, are we? We're not attempting to create policies that target a whole group we don't like; we're looking at specific and measurable performance criteria that improve the ability of the force to take to the battlefield.



I respect your service. I respect your obvious commitment to the good of the Army and the sacrifices you have made for the good of the nation. Your ideas are worth taking seriously, if only because you've paid the price. Within that context, this is a terrible idea. Worse, you seem to know it but advocate it anyway. This is why I use the term "witch hunt": you want these young ladies gone so badly that you defend a policy you know has a seriously negative outcome for the force.

Let's think this one through for a moment. The Army invests real money in getting a recruit through her IET (or whatever Initial Entry Training is called these days). Let's look at a linguist or an electronics specialist who has a lengthy IET and therefore costs more than the average new soldier. If the Army establishes a policy of getting rid of SPS automatically, then we're setting ourselves up to be taken to the cleaners financially and in terms of readiness. Sally Jones, who has reasoned this all through, joins the force and gets the good training, plus a paycheck besides. She stays in long enough to qualify for the GI Bill, then gets herself pregnant. Once she gives birth, the Army gives her a severance and puts her out. She gets the GI Bill to attend the college of her choice, she goes home without serving, she gets to have that good Army training in a technical field, and the Army is now back to square one in terms of filling the need for a junior enlisted specialist in whatever field Jones was trained in. The Army is now out the cost of training Jones, the GI Bill, Jones' severance, and Jones' monthly pay up to the point she was put out for having a child out of wedlock. Worse, Jones tells all her friends how she did it. How long does it take before the recruiters are deluged with young women willing to put up with 12-18 months of BS to get the GI Bill, the pay, the marketable skills etc.? How much money does the Army throw down that hole before the bean counters demand a change of policy?

Again, I agree that the SPS presents a problem. Just as we need a more sophisticated philosophy for dealing with hajji than "shoot 'em all", we need a more nuanced philosophy than "kick 'em all out" or even "set 'em up to do the wrong thing, punish 'em, and then kick 'em out".

I consider this with one short term and one long term goal.

The short term goal is to break the "Single Mom is ok in the Army" Culture of acceptance. Leadership has been running away from the issue. Otherwise hard ass Sergeant Majors haul ass at the sight of a Private with a pregnant belly. We know from experience that the hint of impropriety is as good as conviction when it comes to Boards and Awards. An accusation of Misogyny is a career killer in Combat Service Support (CSS) units.

I want to break that cultural shift. This is called the Service. Programs to aid Single Moms are called Welfare. This is not a third world army with 500,000 on the payroll to keep the unemployment numbers down.

The second is the long term. That female terp or tech is costly. No doubt. What is 80,000 to the US Army that bulldozed the four year old Bob Hope Chow hall? This cost 8 million to build?

That 80,000 is going to balloon way up over time. Look at all the facilities, the incentive pays, the housing, the education. The Army could lose 80 to 100k discharging the single mom, and retain many, many, many times that amount in not having to build and staff day care centers, salaries for pediatricians, child development workers, child psychiatrists, and all the other support structures and facilities.

I think a consistent record for hitting the minimum should be a bar to service. That prior to the E5 board you have to have maxed the correspondence course points. There is no excuse it is free, and only requires time. That PT tests and Marksmanship are an average of qualifications on the primary weapon system (or the M16A2 if the primary is something like the M1A2 Abrams)not a one time score.

The Army just announced today (2/6/2012) there are plans in the works to further reduce the Army to pre-9/11 strengths of 480,000.

If .01% of that force is an undeployable single parent; that is 4,800 Soldiers re-assigned to Stateside desk jobs and programs. A Brigade equivalent.

Can we really afford that?

[Legbreaker]

That PT tests and Marksmanship are an average of qualifications on the primary weapon system (or the M16A2 if the primary is something like the M1A2 Abrams)not a one time score.

The one adjustment to that I'd make is the average should be over the last say 24 months, not a soldiers entire career. Skill levels change over time and so does fitness - somebody who was an olympic level athlete when they joined up 10 years previously could have fitness results that skew them a decade later when they're a 300 lb tub of lard. Marksmanship skills could likewise be skewed by having been woeful on day one but improved to sniper skill levels later.

Less than 24 months runs the risk of aberant results ruining (or making) a career, greater than 24 and past screwups/heroic performances have too great an impact.

Naturally some allowance would need to be made for unusual circumstances such as an injury effecting performance or a two year deployment to the arctic reducing the soldiers opportunity to practise for a swim test....

[ArmySGT.]

The one adjustment to that I'd make is the average should be over the last say 24 months, not a soldiers entire career. Skill levels change over time and so does fitness - somebody who was an olympic level athlete when they joined up 10 years previously could have fitness results that skew them a decade later when they're a 300 lb tub of lard. Marksmanship skills could likewise be skewed by having been woeful on day one but improved to sniper skill levels later.

Less than 24 months runs the risk of aberant results ruining (or making) a career, greater than 24 and past screwups/heroic performances have too great an impact.

Naturally some allowance would need to be made for unusual circumstances such as an injury effecting performance or a two year deployment to the arctic reducing the soldiers opportunity to practise for a swim test....

Yes, obviously and for those reasons.

With that I would propose to new Specialties for the Army. A Physical Fitness Corps and a Marksmanship Instruction Corps.

I have scene far to much pencil whipped score cards. Having these instructed upon, tested, and evaluated by NCOs outside of a Units Chain would be a vast improvement for the US Army especially in CSS units.

If you need an example the British Army has had a PF Corps for something like 100 years.

[Legbreaker]

Here in Australia PTI's (Physical Training Instructors) are part of the Medical Corps, a minimum rank of Corporal and fully trained as medics (to resuscitate their victims). Universally loathed for the torture they inflict on the average soldier (and dreaded by those below average) they are the embodiment of physical prowess - they put civilian gym instructors and body builders to shame in both fitness and sadism. PTI's off duty are usually found running marathons or triathalons just for fun.

Marksmanship is handled "in house" by the individual unit. Usually instructors are at least Corporals (equivalent to US Sergeants) but occasionally a talented Lance Corporal or even senior Private might get the job (more common in the infantry, less in other Corps).