No One in America Wants to Join the Military Anymore

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Yes but looking at the younger generation, it's not as if we really want them on the front lines...

People who want the power to lord it over others with a weapon can just get a good paying job as a prison guard and go sleep at home. They get a gun a uniform a fat pay check. Prison industry is always hiring too.

It might be because young Americans are NOT interested in imperialism. They can see the inherent problems.

FF OP for linking to a right wing magazine

The military really fucked up when they released the Internet onto the world. Real consequences for everyone including them.

Years ago people would join to be able to go to college. But now college degrees don't lead to high paying jobs anymore.

It's not worth possibly going to war and risking your life just to get a degree that will enable you to get the same exact job you could have gotten without a degree.

My friend works for USAA insurance. They hire lots of ex-military. She says almost half of them have college degrees, but no one needs a college degree to become an insurance adjuster. And the pay is the same with or without a degree

I hire a few people a year for my manufacturing business and I find ex military people to be terrible workers. Most just go straight to crazy money so they don't look for work at all.

R5 likes to live in a bubble.

[quote] Most just go straight to crazy money

What do you mean?

R8, please explain crazy money.

Is it any surprise when we have a generation of young men who just want to preen on social media and figure they can just start an Onlyfans?

[quote] preen

We're a nation of preeners rather than gun-bearers.

Just wait 18 years, all these new babies a ‘comin will be ready to sign up …

Um…duh… Only the poor and the desperate and attempting to be masculine ever did. What’s good for the country is t necessarily good for the Army. And Russia knows that. War is supposedly over - but it’s not.

Shit, everybody wants to be tik tok celebrities now. The US military is not fun.

I read that 65% of enlistees had parents who had also served. Military communities strongly pressure their kids to join.

Think of people born from '98 through '05. They have only known the U.S. in a perpetual state of war, two decades worth, and one domestic or global crisis after the other. Back when I grew up in the '70 s and '80s and even '90s, you didn't feel a constant state of threat. Even the Soviets didn't turn out to be the bogeyman they were made out to be and imploded on their own. And as far as they're concerned, all of those military interventions and nothing's changed except some people getting wealthier.

Can we stop saying "Thank you for your service?"

I was surprised when they got enough poor devils to sign up for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

[QUOTE]Can we stop saying "Thank you for your service?"

No, this means you have to say it even more.

R19 Even after they wreck your holes?

My brother signed up in 1998. He spent most of his time in North Korea. The biggest threat were the little kids who'd run out to flip the bird at the military vehicles riding past. Then 9/11 happened. My brother remained in Korea and returned home in 2003 after his four years of active duty came to an end.

When you sign up for the military, the small print says that you're committing for 8 years. So after you do your four years of active duty, then even after you go home, you're a member of the inactive ready reserve (IRR) for the next four years, and they can call you back to active duty. That's what happened to my brother after 9/11. When we got home from Korea in 2003, we thought he was safe. But, in 2007, with just 6 months left before his IRR period ended, he got papers ordering him to get ready for deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then, after about 6 months, his 8-year-mark rolled around, and he had fulfilled his commitment. Nope. Not when you're in the middle of a deployment. He was "extended". So when you sign up for 8 years, they can make you do more if there's a conflict. So after he came home, he wasn't off the hook because of the extension. Well, a few months before the extension ended, he got orders to deploy for Operation Enduring Freedom (also in Iraq). He couldn't believe he had to go back.

[quote] He couldn't believe he had to go back

He obviously didn't read the contract before signing it.

We can solve two problems at once by making military service mandatory for all 18 year olds, especially the loser males that seem to make up about 90% of the 18-24 demographic.

What are the two problems that would solve, R25?

^They should make military service mandatory for all GOP congressmen and congresswomen instead.

It should only be mandatory for white males only. Minorities are not treated well enough in America to go and die for this shithole country.

Fuck that.

Joining the military is the job of the last resort. Most people have better prospects now, so of course they aren't going to enlist. Only the few with no other options and the guts 'n glory delusionals join up.

R26,

Problem 1 - the lack of people in the military

Problem 2 - this loser young male generation that seems to be unable to cope with reality or deal with the world in any productive way and instead joins gangs and goes on shooting sprees when they actually leave their bedrooms or stop trying to rape or harass girls because about half of them are also incels. (I only included them including girls in the mandatory service out of fairness but it's the males who need it.)

Why fight for a country that hates you?

It's cute that some of you think the military fights for the country. Quaint.

R30, why would forcing them to join the military stop them from being losers after they get out?

They let too many White Nationalists crazies in. No one with any other options in life --including Onlyfans and outright panhandling-- want to be around those cracked out wackjobs. Very few decent people want to spend the better part of a decade around the likes of a Bugaloo or Proud "Boi" who thinks he's "infiltrating" the Armed Forces to spread the word for the propagation of the white race.

R4 FINALLY on this website I'm reading an intelligent American! Only on the DL they are totally on denial about American imperialism everywhere on this planet, destroying the world. It’s been so long since I’ve read someone with some sense around here,

r26 Those that desire student loan payback and whine that "adulting" is hard.

the same bitches that bemoan America is an imperialist nation then cry why aren't they intervening against the atrocities of the world, why aren't they helping with that disaster, why didn't they stop those pirates that stole my Che sex doll.... waaaaaaaaah.

r35 Hi Piers Corbyn, how you enjoying the site?

R35 Hi American imperialist who think he owes the entire planet, enjoying america being in war since 1945, how you feel when not everyone is imperialist and supremacist like you?

R20 yep, those were horrible optics. I don’t blame the youth for giving the army a hard pass, there’s no glory or good in it.

I think I’d have liked the Coast Guard. And isn’t the Air Force (AKA Chair Force) a pretty chill branch of the military?

The last admirable war was WW2. Every other war was based in being evil assholes destroying country after country after country.

R9 Crazy money is the money you get when you return to civilian life and you convince the Military social services, AKA the V.A. That the military has made you dysfunctional. Some really are too. One will often receive social security money and medical bennies from then on. It is often quite well paid. My theory through noticing who the military recruits is that they like to hire people that are a bit dysfunctional in the first place. When they come back from service all trained in weapons usage they present a threat to society so they are paid to remain non disruptive to the rest of us. Using our tax dollars of course. Generous to give away other peoples money isn't it.

R24, true. But when you agree to definitely 4 years, but maybe up to 8 years, you don't expect to be forced to serve 9 and a half years. Especially when you're there because someone (who wasn't the 9/11 perpetrator) tried to kill W's dad (who was still alive) 15 years earlier, and your main responsibility is to drive convoys to protect the contractors who are making much more money than you are.

Regarding problem #2, r30, people like that are drawn to each other and feed into each other's nihilism and grievances, get hooked up with white nationalists, or fellow gang members in the different branches (yes, unsavory groups are in the military). Worse they're taught to shoot proficiently and gain all sorts of other skills that can be put to bad use. And the incels? Jeez, they'd probably be a drag on group cohesion and morale. A lot probably couldn't deal with the physical requirements of basic.

It costs a lot of money to train soldiers. The military can't afford to take on losers who are a drag to the unit or who are totally unsuited for military life. The military isn't there to babysit, undo bad parenting or a poor genetic endowment, or teach the most basic life skills.

We need a draft.

I'm not mentally equipped to serve in the military. Perhaps the only thing I could do would be to serve in the communications office writing news releases and serving as spokesperson. But bunking together or going off to war...NO. Sorry, but I would be on my way to Canada.

I might agree we need a mandatory service of some sort but not one like Israel were your required to police the Palestinians or wield weapons. Maybe the option to teach kids or get some important skill medical training or something.

As others have said, the only people joining the military now are the people with no other options

Is life as an officer so bad?

R46, I think that most adults in the US aren’t mentally equipped to fight. Look at the threads around here. Everyone has anxiety. They can’t even handle self checkout at the grocery store. They have no friends. Some of them even want to eat entire pies!

[quote]NO. Sorry, but I would be on my way to Canada.

Stereotype.

Meanwhile, in Russia....

Meanwhile in Russia they only join up if they have limited options too.

R52, aren't quite a few Russian soldiers abandoning their missions as well? Not that anyone could blame them for not wanting to die for Putin..

[quote] It’s almost like the last 20 years of failed wars and thousands of wounded warriors has made potential recruits reconsider their life choices.

[quote]Some of them even want to eat entire pies!

This makes me think of a rather harmless incel I know who’s always talking about how the Marines want him but he just needs to lose 25 lbs first. He’s been saying that for 3 years.