Mandatory Military Service

[Colorado Cowboy]

I believe you have missed my point entirely. I don't think when you or I were born has anything to do with it. I also see that you seem to think age alone lends some credence to your whatever point you are trying to make. It does not.

My point was if you were not an adult in 1965 you have no idea what the financial situation was like. I bought my first house in 1966 for $14,000. 40 thousand was a lot of money in 1965.

 

[RS3579]

So there is an ongoing thread about drug addicts living in the street in tents, wherever they please (AKa homeless) and current situation here in the US. Is not working. There are a number of things that could turn the corner on the current drug epidemic, but I seriously would be in favor of mandatory military service being discussed by the powers to be.

After HS you want to go to college? Great, upon completion those graduates could enlist as officers. College isn’t in your future? Then you simply fulfill your obligations as an enlisted member. There are a number of reasons this would be a net positive. Men looking like men for one.

Edit…… this is for all US citizens and legal residents.

Thoughts?

Did you serve in the armed forces? If not sign YOURSELF up. This ain’t North Korea, yet.

 

[Dave_S]

My point was if you were not an adult in 1965 you have no idea what the financial situation was like. I bought my first house in 1966 for $14,000. 40 thousand was a lot of money in 1965.

You've lost me. Either I completely misunderstood your post or you misunderstood mine. I'm not looking to derail the thread any further. Cheers.

 

[Coveyleader]

Did you serve in the armed forces? If not sign YOURSELF up. This ain’t North Korea, yet.

Not that it matters, but to answer your question, yes.

 

[Andrew12gauge]

As posted above

“but I also find that veterans fall into one of 2 categories, the homeless drug addicts that were mentioned at the beginning of this thread, or the thankfully majority who seem to have their stuff together, likely learned a skill in the military that they were able to put to work afterward and aren’t as deeply in debt as the average American because they likely didn’t rack up the student debt and also were able to hopefully save and invest while having a lot of their needs provided for in the first few years of their adult lives.”

Pretty shallow perspective of people that have served in uniform imo

Are there not a non zero quantity of homeless drug addicted veterans?


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[Mtns2hunt]

I have not read every post on here. But we tried conscription once. Ask any Vietnam vet. Conscription was a disaster. Many used drugs, were unruly, resisted all team work. Some even fraged fellow soldiers and especially officers. Conscription should be a last resort.

 

[Son657]

Solid alternative to forced conscription regimented, military style PE classes could build discipline, teamwork, and fitness nationwide without trampling freedoms, especially since kids aren't farming anymore and obesity mental health issues are rampant.
Uniform standards via DoE even if it's flawed could enforce real PT runs, calisthenics, team drills over lame dodgeball, and embedding service members as trainers sounds badass but pricey new training programs billions, plus vet burnout risk.
Massive backlash parents suing over "militarization," teacher unions fighting, uneven enforcement in rural vs urban schools, and local control fans like you would hate the fed overreach.
Worth debating, but start small: Pilot in willing states, tie to incentives extra funding for compliant schools. Could toughen up the next gen without drafts I'm in if it's voluntary opt in first.

 

[Speaks]

Any thought pattern that resembles "I would like X therefore I will force it upon others" is inherently un-American and goes against anything the military should be protecting anyway.

 

[WoolOverAll]

We should give our youth a reason to want to volunteer. I'm not sure how many of you have been around an actual teenager lately, but their cohort is doing very poorly due to circumstances out of their control. Instead of thrusting a gun into the hands of the kids we failed, we should look at how to help them get to where we were at their age.

 

[PARA1977]

As someone who served and retired I beg everyone
To consider conscription as a horrible idea. Now in the event of a Hot War I could see numbers needed in certain MOS fields that it could be beneficial just not Combat Arms MOS. We spend so much as a taxpayer for training soldiers a two year conscription would not be worth the spend.
Now If you say it’s character building I would agree but the same can be done through ROTC being mandatory is High Schools I can get on board with that for sure.

 

[dballsmithda3rd]

Agreed.

 

[roadrunner]

That's called "joining a fraternity"...

No, it's called socialism...

 

[roadrunner]

Controversial take here.

You sign up for the military and go to combat, you get a free ride.

Forever.

None of the fights for funding and care and all of this shit.

You sign the contract and go to Sandboxistan, you're cared for, for life. Food, lodging, medical care plus a living stipend commensurate with your status when in the service.

Maybe then, we can believe that this country loves our vets and maybe then, we'd try to make fewer of them.

So not only do the 2nd class citizens have to work to provide for themselves, their taxes get to go up to pay for someone else for life that doesn't put back into the economy?

Sorry, but when someone signs up on their own, they know the conditions and risks....

 

[amassi]

Not in favor of mandatory military service ever again.

What I would get behind would be a system of
48 months of Mandatory “federal” service for eligibility to vote or hold public office à la Starship troopers.
Military obviously, federal parks, federal land(forest/ blm)
For the peacenics we could kill the 1.8 million NGOs that currently receive funding and make federal branches to assist Americans with addiction, finances, mental health et el. So you could receive federal service credit in a non mil/ Leo capacity


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[displacedtexan]

That said - the single biggest problem in not having mandatory service, is that fewer people know anyone who served, and you get a bifurcated society of those who have had that objective contact with reality and not having their way, and those who have not. And, practically speaking, almost nobody living in urban centers will have had service time, which will in turn cause those populations to become even more detached from reality, and even more radicalized.

We're barely out of 2 decades of war... It's almost impossible to not know someone who served in the military.

Plenty of people in the urban areas join the military as well.

 

[RockAndSage]

We're barely out of 2 decades of war... It's almost impossible to not know someone who served in the military.

Plenty of people in the urban areas join the military as well.

This is older, but the essential trends and realities are the same:

The Military-Civilian Gap: Fewer Family Connections

Whether or not they have served, most Americans have family members who have been in the armed forces. But as the size of the military shrinks, those ties may be diminishing.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[Brandon_SPC]

Dumbest BS I've read all day. Ahh yeah, let's make it absolutely mandatory for every citizens to fight these BS proxy wars. There is a reason why the US is the best fighting force in the world, it's because it is 100% voluntary. I don't know about you but I personally would not want to be in the shit when I get IDF by 107mm or 240mm rockets or get in a TIC with someone that never wanted to be in the military in the first place. I'm also not for mandatory fed service either. Last I checked, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was supposd to grant the federal government limited powers......

 

[PARA1977]

So not only do the 2nd class citizens have to work to provide for themselves, their taxes get to go up to pay for someone else for life that doesn't put back into the economy?

Sorry, but when someone signs up on their own, they know the conditions and risks....

I think you should definitely educate yourself on geo politics, I think you would learn very fast that they probably have more to do with the economy then any other metric period. I do agree that they know the Risks and should live with that decision as most do.

 

[Jpsmith1]

So not only do the 2nd class citizens have to work to provide for themselves, their taxes get to go up to pay for someone else for life that doesn't put back into the economy?

Sorry, but when someone signs up on their own, they know the conditions and risks....

I agree with you for the most part.

My idea is largely structured as an attempt to get people to either "put up or shut up" about veterans. To stop lying and saying they support them and would do anything for them while the current support system for vets is a nightmare. This proposal is a hyperbolic idea of what it would look like if we truly supported vets to whom we owed everything as so many people say.

My other idea with this proposal is to at least try to get the government and "the powers that be" to stop sending waves of young men to random foreign countries to defend the interests of billionaires rather than our 'freedom" like so many are convinced that they do.

 

[Poser]

I think you should definitely educate yourself on geo politics, I think you would learn very fast that they probably have more to do with the economy then any other metric period.

My other idea with this proposal is to at least try to get the government and "the powers that be" to stop sending waves of young men to random foreign countries to defend the interests of billionaires rather than our 'freedom" like so many are convinced that they do.

Its interesting to note that many people would agree with both ideas presented here, yet the ideals of the 2nd stand in contrast to the observations of the first.