Report: Americans don't want to fight for their country anymore (reserve, Marine)
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A majority of American adults would not be willing to serve in the military were the U.S. to enter into a major war, recent polling has found, while public confidence in the armed forces appears to be waning.
Quote:
A poll by the research institute Echelon Insights of 1,029 likely voters, conducted between October 23-26, found that 72 percent of those asked would not be willing to volunteer to serve in the armed forces were America to enter a major conflict, compared with 21 percent who would. The remainder were unsure. The poll was conducted after Hamas led an unprecedented militant attack on Israel on October 7.
I'm not really surprised. You can't really convince anyone to serve, they either want to or not. Everyone perceives the military as "Full Metal Jacket" or "Saving Private Ryan" so it's no wonder most Americans would prefer to avoid that.
Something has fractured within American society, and I’m not sure you can actually point to one event and definitively say that was what did it.
When I first joined in 1990, not only was I willing to put my life on the line, I was also very proud to be an American and felt incredibly blessed to even be included in the profession of arms. Just some average, run of the mill dude, allowed to be a part of the greatest fighting force in the history of mankind. This is the best thing that ever happened to me.
It had nothing to do with politics either, Clinton, Bush, whoever, we were all still very proud to be American, still honored to serve.
But after 2008, things changed. This is the point in time where I don’t know how it changed, but it definitely did. As far as Obama, I respect the guy. He was a very articulate and charismatic speaker when I seen him speak at Osan Air Base twice during his 8 years. So it can’t be Obama, the man, as the sole reason why it started going bad. It must be the policies that his administration set in motion that started the downward spiral. There is likely blame on both sides of the political aisle, too. Bush II was far from perfect, to say the least.
It could be Balakanization. We aren’t a melting pot anymore. We now have serious differences in culture and even religion that we didn’t have before.
I dislike the current administration quite a bit, in ways much more pronounced than when Clinton, and even Obama, were in office. This shouldn’t be like this, but it is. Conversely, Democratic supporters dislike the other side with equal disdain to match my own.
The military has become sort of a “family business”, and many veteran families, for the first time in our history, are now advising their young relatives not to join up due to this fractured society.
Regardless if you have different ideas on how we became fractured, the bottom line here is that we are broken. There is no doubt.
But how do we go about repairing and mitigating the damage of people refusing to serve?
I think the only fix here is that we are going to have to move to some sort of conscription, or some sort of incentive based service. Perhaps American companies will start to see the serious dangers of the erosion within the military, and then maybe tie preferential employment offers to prior service for the country? I know this sounds outrageous now, but the corruption and greed of American society will trump all. If companies, especially the so called Military Industrial Complex, determine that this house of cards might fall without a strong global military, they just might make military service a must in order to secure a good job in the future. Obviously, the elite’s offspring would be exempt from this because we are after all, corrupt to the core. Perhaps offer them a way out, like they do with a carbon offset payment. They take private jets, but they paid a carbon offset fee, so it’s all good. See how that works? Their children would be exempt from mandatory military service, but they paid the exemption fee, so it’s all good.
I seen a commercial on AFN recently which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the All Volunteer Force. I think it’s just a matter of time before we bring some sort of draft, or conscription, or whatever you want to call it, back. They won’t call it a Draft because of the negative connotations that word has. They will come up with some sort of mild word so that it doesn’t sound as bad as forcing people against their will to join the military.
When people know that their "leaders" are crooked grifters there is little desire to risk life and limb in a manufactured conflict that benefits said grifters and their families and friends.
Not willing to serve? A little bit of not so recent history. During Vietnam, probably the most unpopular war in US history, people got drafted. Beware of what the government can do. People who actually failed their initial Selective Service examinations were reprocessed and inducted into the military.
They were derisively called McNamara’s Morons. IQ levels were lowered to 80. Many were functionally illiterate. They could not pass rifle qualifications. Almost all of them went into the infantry. As a group they incurred the highest casualty rate of any combat group serving in Vietnam.
Hmmmm, in my family, Dad said he would pay for our college education but we had to take, at least, the 1st 2 years of ROTC and accept a reserve contract if offered. We didn't have to make the military a career but we had to be ready to answer if the country called.......if we wanted him to pay for college for us.
Regardless of what I think of this current world (my old Captain asked me at the time if I had stayed in and been at Abu Ghraib when told "The Gloves Come Off", what would I have done), blood and family and how I was raised come first.
My Country, for better or worse, is still My Country.
It certainly doesn't surprise me, after twenty years of failed wars in the Middle East. I mean, we started off the GWOT with people going overseas without body armor and no armor for the vehicles. It was clear from the very beginning that the government that was sending people off to fight didn't actually care about the people they were sending. Massive lies were told at the highest levels about reasons we were fighting. Then we've got two decades of wasted time, lives, and money. People getting stop-lossed, people coming back with PTSD, the VA not taking care of people, etc, and then it didn't even lead to any big "win" or success? It makes total sense why people who grew up during the GWOT would not want to serve.
That's not even factoring in stories about toxic mold in dorms, sexual assaults being covered up, suicides on bases, and more And to some extent politics are supposed to matter to some people (I still don't believe who the president is or if the LGBT are allowed in matters at a level that it is a serious issue; I mean hell... I joined when GW Bush was still calling the shots!).
I also consider wanting to "serve in the military" and "fight for your country" to be kind of divorced from each other as well, but not everyone does. I can totally understand someone thinking they want to serve in the military, to do a job and get paid and learn a trade, but not really wanting to go fight, especially to go fight in some of the likely conflicts that we could find ourselves in at this current moment. I guess the question posed to the people polled was about "serving" but some people equate that to "fighting" too much for them to respond positively. For all of the money the DoD spends on ads featuring dudes on a dark ops floor tracking satellites, there are still a lot of people who ignorantly think that being in the military means you're carrying a gun and training to go shoot people.
I'm actually glad I am older now. I can't imagine how bad the world will get in the next 60-70 years. The stuff I read about recruits these days is frustrating sometimes to me.
We have open borders and our Government promoting an ILLEGAL INVASION. We are no longer a country, but a territory with stuff to be taken by those whom have neither earned it nor deserve it. Our stuff.
Why fight for something we neither respect nor want any longer? It's a joke.
We have open borders and our Government promoting an ILLEGAL INVASION. We are no longer a country, but a territory with stuff to be taken by those whom have neither earned it nor deserve it. Our stuff.
Why fight for something we neither respect nor want any longer? It's a joke.
It may be a joke but the reality of it is........where are you going to go? Ie, if one does not want to speaking Mandarian instead of English, well...........it's as simple as that.
Now, this is the military forum and I would hope we are talking militarily and not idealogy. I would hope it comes down to why we fight which may be as simple as.....if you like the other guy's way of life, go join him. If you want to keep your way of life, fight him.
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 11-15-2023 at 05:40 AM..
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