Should we raise the military enlistment age ????

Amigo wrote:

The age for the military enlistment will never go up we can't afford it. Were already short on cannon fodder. Your not as nieve when your 18 as when your 21. We may loose them between that time.

There will be no draft. War is fought by the poor. The rich and fortunate don't have to fight.

Others will come and dispute this but others, liberal and conservative, know I am right. ALL my quotes are relevant. We are the empire and we will act as an empire. It is the history and nature of man. Are we to think we are the worlds first politically correct empire?????? This is our war within a war. The war against ourselves

P.S. I'll take those degrees off your hands.

The notion that today's all-volunteer US military draws from the disadvantaged underbelly of society has no basis in fact and is refuted by objective statistical analysis. Demographically, the US Military is quite representative of overall US Society, and in many case, Military norms exceed those of the populace at large. For instance, today's enlistee is more likely not only to have a highschool diploma but also to have at least some formal post-secondary education than the typical 18-24-year-old civilian counterpart. Those in the military tend also to derive from socio-economic backgrounds trending above the middle-class median, with recent trending actually showing a marked decline of enlistments from those among the lower strata and an increase in enlistments by those of more well-to-do backgrounds. Recruits from backgrounds near or below the poverty line actually are under-represented as compared to that demographic in the overall population. Recruits from rural and suburban areas outnumber those from urban areas, as well, with urban area recruits actually numbering fewer than recruits from small towns and communities. Link: About.com - U.S. Military Recruiting Demographics

Also of note is that despite ongoing war and attendant long-term overseas deployment potential, recuriting and retention goals for the US military are well within acceptable parameters. The people in the US military of today have other options, choose the Military, and choose to remain with the military.

As for The US as Empire canard, the only foreign soil the US has retained after liberation from an opressor has been that in which are buried the US military members who gave their lives in the effort. Our foreign bases not only are bought and paid for, but are vital components of the economies in which they reside.

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Amigo,

1. Degrees, to be worth anything at all, must be earned. When you've studied as long and as hard as I have, you can have your own wall filled with "punched tickets".

2. Our soldiers are NOT cannon fodder. We equip and train them as best we can, and provide them with professional leadership dedicated to bringing everyone of their charges home safe and sound. This nation has gone way out to protect each soldier from harm, and to minimize casualties. The sophisticated military technology we utilize is expensive, but worth every penny in the lives it protects. If memory serves, Timber is a retired USMC Gunny. Ask him how many of his marines he sent into harms way without regard to their danger. Little is more upsetting to the professional officer than to lose even one of the troops he is responsible for. Shame on you for even suggesting that our military has no regard from the welfare of our young soldiers.

3. Choices are made everyday by young people, and then they have usually have to live the rest of their lives with the consequences of those youthful decisions. I think you will find that the U.S. Military is NOT overwhelmingly young. It is true that low ranking enlisted personnel tend to be much younger than cadre that have been in service for 20 years, ain't that surprising? I'm just guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the median age in our military is something like 28 or 29 years of age. The Officer Corps, overall, is far younger than in the military prior to 1955, but these younger officers are also far better trained than their predecessors.

4. The military has always been the refuge for those who otherwise would have few opportunities. Many more young people have benefited from their military service than were ever injured in any way. The military rewards those who have ability and a sense of responsibility without regard to their status in the world.

5. You are right, there is not likely to be a draft. Experience is that a standing army of professionals is more effective, lethal, and reliable than any army made up of conscripts. Our proposal here, though highly unlikely to ever be adopted, would actually serve to spread the "cost" of military service more widely and evenly across the population.

6. Perhaps your quotations are relevant, though I don't see how. Humans will behave as humans have done since before history was written down, alright. Is the United States an "Empire"? Certainly not in the same way that Rome was, or the Holy Roman Empire was, or the British Empire. Political Correctness is a constraint that we've adopted, whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen. I think PC is a crock. The only war against ourselves that I see, is being waged by the political radicals on the Left.

7. What branch did you serve in Amigo?

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Timber, I read your link.

Asherman, I have not been in the military.

I have no comment on the rest, only to say the more the status quo shifts to the right the more radical I get but I've never changed?

There is a place for liberals in America. Like there was a place for my grandfather when he crossed the border to feed five orphaned brothers and sisters before there was a border. the last memory of his father was him riding off to fight the revolution, his mom died shortly after.

He went back to visit relatives in Mexico. At the time there was a drought. They took my grandfather sight seeing and passed a large mansion were a large lavish garden was being watered liberally. My grand father began waiving his fist and yelling about the wast of water during a drought. His relitives said "Hey, you don't have to live here we do. Be quit." Thats when my granfather said he realized what it ment to be an American. Thats the kind of American I am. Except that my Mexican side of the family is conservative. My Irish side, there the liberals. There also the side that fought in the American revolution.

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Amigo wrote:

... My Irish side, there the liberals. There also the side that fought in the American revolution.

Interesting. Perhaps some of mine knew some of yours. The Irish tended to stick together. Which engagements, under what officers?

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I admit to ignorance of the present age limit, and am embarassed I don't know it.

My dad tried to enlist repeatedly back in early '42, kept getting rejected, and kept writing letters higher up (I have the letters, somewhere.) He was 35. I think the reason they rejected him initially was his eyes, not his age. As it happens, he got a job that fit him and it all worked out.

When one of the people he dealt with on some projects, a submarine commander, finished with the navy and or subsequent to the war navy projects, that one signed up for the Jesuits, a long haul of an education in itself, another seven years, and he would have been way older by the time he started, say, 45 or 46. So I'm not automatically against smart older guys enlisting, if they are utilized sensibly.

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Tember
I dont care wether you agree with me or not. As to wether Bush Lied and wether the majority of US citizens agree check the polls.

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Rabel, you just can't be serious. Bush either lied or he didn't. You're nor really presenting a poll as evidence of fact, right?

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Somehow, rog, I suspect your worst fears don't quite encompass the scope there.

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As far as polls go, it is important to remember that four out of five Americans is a statistically insignificant sample . . .

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roger wrote:

Rabel, you just can't be serious. Bush either lied or he didn't. You're nor really presenting a poll as evidence of fact, right?

roger, nice to see you again

I don't think rabel's point is that a public poll constitutes evidence that Bush has purposefully deceived (fibbed, borne false witness, forked-tongue speechified, lied through his pearlies). I think he is suggesting that, for some, the admission of such deceit just ain't ever gonna happen, such acknowledgement/perception either being too uncomfortable to hold in the noggin or else just simply not in the perceived interest the person's politics.

So what then becomes important is what the general electorate en masse considers to reflect the reality of this question. Let's remind ourselves at this junction as to how Rove and team play this reality game...

Quote:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

And now, Rove is losing this game.

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timberlandko wrote:

Amigo wrote:
... My Irish side, there the liberals. There also the side that fought in the American revolution.

Interesting. Perhaps some of mine knew some of yours. The Irish tended to stick together. Which engagements, under what officers?

I don't know? all I have are pictures and second hand stories. Williamson/ Claibourne ( Not the famous one)

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Amigo wrote:

timberlandko wrote:
Amigo wrote:
... My Irish side, there the liberals. There also the side that fought in the American revolution.

Interesting. Perhaps some of mine knew some of yours. The Irish tended to stick together. Which engagements, under what officers?
I don't know? all I have are pictures and second hand stories. Williamson/ Claibourne ( Not the famous one)

Hmmmm .... that might relate to the 1780 Catawba Valley actions of the Carolina Campaign, signal among which was the destruction of the British forces under Huck at the Williamson Plantation, effected by a mixed force of Continentals and South Carolina Militia under McLure and Bratton of Sumter's Brigade.

The South Carolina Militia was chiefly composed of Carolina farmers, merchants, and tradesmen, Ulstermen by heritage, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and the Catawba Valley actions are known also as The Presbyterian Rebellion. The senior Continental General Officer in that theater at the time was 3rd-generation native Virginian Light Horse Harry Lee (of actual Irish heritage, not an Ulsterman), who is among my ancestors. The father of Robert E. Lee, Harry is the source of "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen", which is from his eulogy for Washington.

Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot is loosely and imaginatively based on the 1780-1781 Carolina Campaign, which arguably set the stage for the defeat of Cornwallis the following year in Virginia, at Yorktown, bringing about the British abandonment of their military endeavor to suppress The Rebellion.

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The Big Bird wrote:

. . . loosely and imaginatively . . .

An extremely charitable construction on the circumstance . . . funny how the field at Guilford Courthouse looked just like southern California . . .

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Noticed that, didjya? Laughing

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timberlandko wrote:

Amigo wrote:
timberlandko wrote:
Amigo wrote:
... My Irish side, there the liberals. There also the side that fought in the American revolution.

Interesting. Perhaps some of mine knew some of yours. The Irish tended to stick together. Which engagements, under what officers?
I don't know? all I have are pictures and second hand stories. Williamson/ Claibourne ( Not the famous one)

Hmmmm .... that might relate to the 1780 Catawba Valley actions of the Carolina Campaign, signal among which was the destruction of the British forces under Huck at the Williamson Plantation, effected by a mixed force of Continentals and South Carolina Militia under McLure and Bratton of Sumter's Brigade.

The South Carolina Militia was chiefly composed of Carolina farmers, merchants, and tradesmen, Ulstermen by heritage, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and the Catawba Valley actions are known also as The Presbyterian Rebellion. The senior Continental General Officer in that theater at the time was 3rd-generation native Virginian Light Horse Harry Lee (of actual Irish heritage, not an Ulsterman), who is among my ancestors. The father of Robert E. Lee, Harry is the source of "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen", which is from his eulogy for Washington.

Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot is loosely and imaginatively based on the 1780-1781 Carolina Campaign, which arguably set the stage for the defeat of Cornwallis the following year in Virginia, at Yorktown, bringing about the British abandonment of their military endeavor to suppress The Rebellion.

I have to be honest with you timber. The details are shakey. I have yet to confirm it and made a mistake to mention it. ( The counterfeiting and bootlegging, That I can confirm). But you have rekindled my interest If I find more information on it worth P.M.ing you I will. My family settled in illinois

I have surpassed my share of off topic post. Sorry all.

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NP, Amigo - I'm as much to blame - if not moreso - than anyone for the digression. In case you haven't noticed, engaging my interest in history can have unintended consequences. Of course, its far riskier in that respect to get Set going down that path Razz

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I heard that . . .

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You can't deny there's considerable local history here on these boards to support it Laughing

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I refuse to answer on the grounds that this question may tend to recrimblinate me . . .

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Nahh, I'm interested too. I always read both Set and Timber when I run across their background posts, and don't give a hoot if they are digressive.

If John Creasy doesn't mind, it is interesting to me, and I don't care if you can't substantiate a lot, Amigo.

I'm of irish descent. A friend probably knows more about it than I do, as she dug around in geneology archives, always liking a problem to solve, and I have all those papers in a nice stack. (In my case, it was the hop farm near Santa Rosa... and we/she still didn't solve it). Anyway, I'm from later arrivees, as far as I know, although I think one part of one side is from Sen. McCormack's family (probably black sheep). And so what. I haven't mentioned that to my delving friend, I'd never hear the end of it.

I only use it as a hat hook for my interest in history after not paying attention for a long time.

So, specific or nonspecific, I'm interested in digression observations.

Ok, I'll be quiet now.

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Should we raise the military enlistment age ????

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