A big part of conservative rhetoric is appealing to their own self loathing and encouraging them to externalize it. Redpill content is 50% and misogyny and 50% just berating their audience as lump dicked beta losers who better hand over their money to become a Chad or else
Have you seen the videos of people gullible enough to pay to go to "alpha" camp? I'm like if you want to be yelled at while exercising you know the military will pay you for that.
77% of all current applicants to the military are unsuitable for one reason or another. Obesity's huge, pardon the phrase, but they also won't take applicants who can't read at a certain grade level, have mental illness issues, drug problems, criminal records, and the like.
Militaries worldwide are also becoming more automated with each passing year. Why have grunts calling in airstrikes when someone can pilot a drone from a cubicle that's literally on the other side of the world to bomb whatever to Kingdom Come?
That works when we are dealing with third world countries. We need highly trained boots on the ground if we end up in a war with a near peer. Comms denied environments are real, and your drone can't call in a precision air strike if the bomb can't tell where it was. But an SF team on the ground can always IR target a strike and the drone just has to release the weapon. Also, relying on pilots on the other side of the world relies on the communications network not being taken out, say with a nuclear detonation targeting the satellites.
It still doesn't change the fact the people we need are mainly highly trained engineers and mechanics. Enlisted grunts who have the capacity to develop those skills are highly prized by all branches, including the Coast Guard who are more glorified law enforcement than soldiers.
Still, even knowing all this, they still can't take the illiterate dude from the Montana backwoods. Those persons are liabilities to their platoons and the military as a whole. There are paths up the chain of command if people are willing to apply themselves both before and after enlistment.
It's sad when around three quarters of applicants can't make the cut. I'd say the problem is not with the military, but with society. How do we fix it? Uhh..lemme get back to you on that.
They do have to be smarter than a bag of rocks, but there are still plenty of opportunities for average or slightly below average intelligence people that are in decent shape (they will get you to actually in shape). The US Army is largely a logistics organization with some combat elements. But the biggest thing they bring is the ability to keep the cogs in the system turning so the combat elements of all of the branches are able to function. That requires people to pick things up, and put them down, in addition to the intelligent ones, and ones capable of receiving high level training.
The difference between the US Military and every other military on the planet is we have the logistics apparatus to project power around the entire globe. Plus some really cool toys.
Also, don't knock the Coast Guard, I'd put them up against most other countries' navies.
Not knocking the CG, just pointing out that their functions are different than the Air Force or Navy. Submarine crews don't do drug interdictions, aircraft carriers can't save a couple civvies out on a Sunday cruise in an old tourist boat that's taking on water, and the like. Those are all mainly LE functions and not military ones. Hell, I'd put the Border Patrol up against a few other countries' armies. They'd kick the foreigners' asses. In some ways, BP is the reverse of the CG. BP busts illegals, confiscates drugs, and the like, but their chain of command looks more military than LLE.
My ex's father was a retired USAF colonel. The running joke was that the high school swim teams joined the Navy, the wannabe cops went into the Coast Guard, smart kids who didn't like authority wound up in the Marines and also sometimes the Navy, the Army was the ex-jocks, and the USAF is where all the Asperger's/autistic geniuses popped up. I can't say he was entirely wrong, either.
Oh yeah, our Border Patrol is quite impressive. I've done a lot of work with BORTAC and some other elements in BP, I wouldn't fuck around with those guys.
No, because like I said, they're becoming more and more automated with each passing year. What the military NEEDS are trained engineers and mechanics, basically, and it's a lot easier and more cost effective to get them straight out of college than it is to train them from scratch. Some illiterate land whale from Bumfuck, Louisiana isn't going to even pass the entrance exams, let alone the physical tests. If a miracle occurs and they do, the chances they'll wash out of basic training are incredibly high.
This isn't Vietnam, Korea, or any previous war. The rules have changed and the proverbial boots on the ground are usually the cleanup crews. Why send humans in to fight and die when robots can do the initial fighting and heavy lifting?
Willing and able are two completely different things. The military has strict minimum requirements as to who can join and who cannot. The requirement to have at least a GED or high school diploma alone weeds out a lot of kids from the sticks. That's not a pejorative, that's reality. The military needs more people, but if the applicants can't pass the tests to get in, that's it. End of story.
No it's nothing like that but we're on Reddit where everyone is an expert on everything without actually trying to understand anyone with opposing viewpoints
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u/Special-Garlic1203 Aug 21 '24
A big part of conservative rhetoric is appealing to their own self loathing and encouraging them to externalize it. Redpill content is 50% and misogyny and 50% just berating their audience as lump dicked beta losers who better hand over their money to become a Chad or else