Equating military service with Heroism.

[clouseau]

Interesting take on the use of the word hero-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-j-astore/why-its-wrong-to-equate-m_b_655611.html

Edited July 28, 2014 by clouseau

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

It is an interesting and unpopular take on using the word hero. I used to buy into the standard "if you're in the military, you're a hero" line until I went on my 4th deployment and realized that there's not many heroes out there (there are, but not many). The military wants to sell and brand their product (war) as a heroic endeavor to get people to buy it (enlist or vote for war), in the same way that Apple brands their products as hip and minimalistic, or BMW brands their cars as luxury and icons of status. It's difficult to say the A1C who inprocesses you at an undisclosed location is a hero when there is a contractor doing the same job in the same room getting paid 4x as much. Or when there are privately flown ISR assets doing the same job as a military 4-man aircrew.

What makes the military aircrew more heroic than the private contractors? They're doing the exact same job. Is it because the military aircrew doesn't have a choice about deploying, and that they are doing the job for a fraction of the paycheck that the contractors are? Or is it because politicians have successfully branded anyone wearing a uniform as a "hero?" What's the difference between a C-5 doing a cargo run in Afghanistan and an Atlas 747 doing a cargo run in Afghanistan? Maybe there really is a difference, and I just don't know it.

The only time I really appreciated being called a hero was outside Shorebird's at 2:00AM by a Canadian soldier who insisted that I saved his life in Afghanistan (by refueling a pair of Warthogs that saved his ass). Aside from the nice ego boost, a lady in a red dress overheard him worshiping me ("Seriously man, you're a ######ing hero! You saved my life! Thank you so much, you're the best!"). When the Canadian left, the lady stepped up and asked, "Are you a pilot?"

That was way better than having some old guy pay for my coffee.

Edited July 28, 2014 by LumberjackAxe

[Buddy Spike]

It is an interesting and unpopular take on using the word hero. I used to buy into the standard "if you're in the military, you're a hero" line until I went on my 4th deployment and realized that there's not many heroes out there (there are, but not many). The military wants to sell and brand their product (war) as a heroic endeavor to get people to buy it (enlist or vote for war), in the same way that Apple brands their products as hip and minimalistic, or BMW brands their cars as luxury and icons of status. It's difficult to say the A1C who inprocesses you at an undisclosed location is a hero when there is a contractor doing the same job in the same room getting paid 4x as much. Or when there are privately flown ISR assets doing the same job as a military 4-man aircrew.

What makes the military aircrew more heroic than the private contractors? They're doing the exact same job. Is it because the military aircrew doesn't have a choice about deploying, and that they are doing the job for a fraction of the paycheck that the contractors are? Or is it because politicians have successfully branded anyone wearing a uniform as a "hero?" What's the difference between a C-5 doing a cargo run in Afghanistan and an Atlas 747 doing a cargo run in Afghanistan? Maybe there really is a difference, and I just don't know it.

The only time I really appreciated being called a hero was outside Shorebird's at 2:00AM by a Canadian soldier who insisted that I saved his life in Afghanistan (by refueling a pair of Warthogs that saved his ass). Aside from the nice ego boost, a lady in a red dress overheard him worshiping me ("Seriously man, you're a ######ing hero! You saved my life! Thank you so much, you're the best!"). When the Canadian left, the lady stepped up and asked, "Are you a pilot?"

That was way better than having some old guy pay for my coffee.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Kaman]

Heroes in most cases are unsung, unnamed and known only to God...I served, but was no hero. I just did what I was trained to do. Duty is really the more appropriate characterization for the average "Joe" like myself. Contractors? They can quit and go home anytime, and they have no obligation fulfill a duty.

[17D_guy]

Heroes in most cases are unsung, unnamed and known only to God...I served, but was no hero. I just did what I was trained to do. Duty is really the more appropriate characterization for the average "Joe" like myself. Contractors? They can quit and go home anytime, and they have no obligation fulfill a duty.

Exactly. Am I a hero? Nope. But I did my duty faithfully.

[Champ Kind]

Bullshit. I am a Herc guy. We take warriors to work and then bring them home when they are finished with the real work.

Amen brother.

[Lawman]

You guys can all start buying drinks. I shot Bin Laden!

[SurelySerious]

The US military is borderline mercenary at this point... look at all the threads on BODN about QOL/pay/bitching/separating. Sure, we're patriotic, but for 90% of the military, it's all about the economics of the situation.

You mean the same discussions that happened during the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc, just in an electronic format? Tough to use something as evidence for your baseless and highly generalized claim when it isn't unique to even the last century of US military members.

[Lord Ratner]

Bingo. Words words words...

My god, you're such a bitter-pants. Who hurt you?

[M2]

Maybe not in the same sense as Audie Murphy, but anyone who serves and sacrifices for the benefit of our nation is a hero to me...

[ForgotPassword]

You guys can all start buying drinks. I shot Bin Laden!

As a side note....I've met a handful of the guys who did shoot bin laden (a handful of MANY who did) and they wont let anyone buy them drinks.

[Lord Ratner]

Not tracking. What did I write that was bitter? If you disagree with part or all, then use your literacy to explain yourself.

So, so many words... Are they heroes?

Most everything you are taking issue with is a result of the all volunteer force. I don't care nearly enough to spend the next hour typing for a bunch of anonymous forum browsers, but you can use your Google-foo and look up the research yourself.

At some point America decided it was easier to have the military operated and staffed by people who actually wanted to do it. Free agents are always more expensive than forced labor. I love my job, I am not wanting for money, and I don't think military members in the all volunteer force are entitled to anything. But I am not over paid.

[SurelySerious]

Good point, but wrong.

Mmmmm, except I'm not. You are. Your statements was simply:

The US military is borderline mercenary at this point. ... look at all the threads on BODN about QOL/pay/bitching/separating.

Soldiers have bitched about QOL/pay/separating/sport-bitching for a long time, as a documented issue.

As for your blabber about how much everyone is compensated: everyone world-wide, especially in the United States, has a much higher standard of living than they did 50 years ago, and the 50 years before that. There are a lot of BMWs out there in normal society, look around.

[hispeed7721]

all these freebies (are) absolutely terrible for society.

FYSA, the military freebies aren't the ones that are pulling our society into the gutter...

a lot is often asked of us, but nonetheless we are extremely well compensated.

Good compensation for being away from families, deployments, etc...not seeing an issue (although I'm not ignorant that everyone doesn't have that experience in the military)

Today, an officer who is smart about his finances, lives below his means, can definitely become a millionaire (let's save the inflation discussion for another thread).

Um...today anyone, in any job, who is smart about finances and lives below their means can make a ton of money. That's the point of being smart about finances and living below your means...

Today, an officer can get a degree from Embry ridiculous and within 5-10 years be making...more money than people who TEACH at Harvard.

Teachers, regardless of where, have super low salary (IMO underpaid, but that's an entirely different discussion). Not a good example to compare military pay to teacher pay when a manager at the Golden Arches can make more than many teachers

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

Yeah, so a good book about this topic is Breach of Trust (http://amzn.com/0805082964). Basically, you had a country that had millions of men to fight when called upon thanks to the draft. Think about how much we accomplished in our relatively short duration of World War 2--now compare that to how much we have accomplished in the 13 years we've been in Afghanistan. But then Vietnam happened, and the politicians who ran for president realized they could get more votes if they promised to eliminate the draft. So, Richard Nixon eliminated the draft when he was elected.

But now they needed to entice people to join, which is when a lot of the benefits ballooned--base housing, BAH, free this, free that, etc... and part of that was to really drive home the point that if you serve, you become a member of this elite heroic team of selfless warriors defending your friends and family from the bad guys. That makes enlisting much more appealing than showing the finance officer processing retirement pay for the rest of his career.

So I think the critical shift that makes today's military different than the one a hundred years ago happened post-Vietnam when they eliminated the draft and had to rebrand the military in order to get recruits.

[SurelySerious]

Think about how much we accomplished in our relatively short duration of World War 2--now compare that to how much we have accomplished in the 13 years we've been in Afghanistan.

This is a total non sequitur to the discussion. Lack of progress in Afghanistan has pretty much everything to do with asking an Army to be a police force in order to try building a federal government in a society that doesn't have any interest in nationalism or democracy versus asking an Army to fight an Army, and not with the efforts of the people we asked to fight. Or are you saying it would be successful if we put 2M soldiers in AFG?

But now they needed to entice people to join, which is when a lot of the benefits ballooned--base housing, BAH, free this, free that, etc... and part of that was to really drive home the point that if you serve, you become a member of this elite heroic team of selfless warriors defending your friends and family from the bad guys. That makes enlisting much more appealing than showing the finance officer processing retirement pay for the rest of his career.

So I think the critical shift that makes today's military different than the one a hundred years ago happened post-Vietnam when they eliminated the draft and had to rebrand the military in order to get recruits.

Recruiting is recruiting, it always pitches the glorious aspects and/or benefits. No one advertises about the finance/logistics, they rope you in and then you get stuck.

[Guest LumberjackAxe]

This is a total non sequitur to the discussion. Lack of progress in Afghanistan has pretty much everything to do with asking an Army to be a police force in order to try building a federal government in a society that doesn't have any interest in nationalism or democracy versus asking an Army to fight an Army, and not with the efforts of the people we asked to fight. Or are you saying it would be successful if we put 2M soldiers in AFG?

Recruiting is recruiting, it always pitches the glorious aspects and/or benefits. No one advertises about the finance/logistics, they rope you in and then you get stuck.

They just don't make recruiting posters like they used to... I bet it would be more effective for the AF to go retro with their posters instead of Transformers.

This is a total non sequitur to the discussion. Lack of progress in Afghanistan has pretty much everything to do with asking an Army to be a police force in order to try building a federal government in a society that doesn't have any interest in nationalism or democracy versus asking an Army to fight an Army, and not with the efforts of the people we asked to fight. Or are you saying it would be successful if we put 2M soldiers in AFG?

You're right about why there has been a lack of progress... but as far as your last sentence goes, I actually do think that. But not because we would have George W. Bush with a Mission Accomplished poster with 2M soldiers behind him, but because George W. Bush's daughter would have been drafted (as well as every other politician's) and they'd actually have something to lose by continuing the war for more than a few years. If all the politicians and leaders of the military industrial complex had a son or a daughter drafted to fight in Afghanistan, we sure as shit would have left at least ten years ago.

This year, Iraq fell to ISIS. I bet if we had a draft from the beginning, we could have gotten the exact same result, only it would have cost us 1000 casualties instead of 4486, and OIF would have lasted 4 years instead of 9. Or hell, we probably wouldn't have even gone in the first place. And the result probably would have still been the same.

I don't have a problem serving, flying around with the American flag stamped on my tail is fun as shit and I'd definitely do it again. But I also don't buy into the "All Volunteer Force is better because your soldiers want to serve" line because if we didn't have an AVF and had a draft instead, then everyone in the country would have to pay the price (as in, they had family lives on the line). And then we wouldn't spend decades in a war that most Americans don't even know we're in. If we had a draft, Congress would only vote to go to war (when was the last time that happened, anyway?) if they really felt like it was worth it to put their kids' lives on the line. And even if we did go to war with a draft (I'm sure we still would have gone to Afghanistan in 2001), we sure as shit wouldn't have a President declaring that we're gonna stay at war until the end of his term (15 years later!) because it's a good political move. We would have left Afghanistan a loooooooong time ago, and I bet the end result is going to be the same whether we spent 4 years or 15 years there. If there were a draft, we could have achieved that same result by only losing a fraction of American lives and spending a quarter of the money we have.

That's a long rant... but like I said, I'm proud to serve, and I automatically have respect for someone who volunteers for service. Without a doubt. But yes, I do think we would have been more successful if put 2M soldiers in Afghanistan--not because we would have had more bodies to do more work (like you said, it isn't an Army vs. Army war). But because the American people would not have tolerated the war to go on for so long--both civilians and politicians.

EDIT: I should also say that the best solution isn't a draft. I think the best solution is mandatory service for young adults, something along the lines of:

- At least 2 years (bigger bonuses/pay if you agree for more) between the ages of 18 and 26

- Not just military service, but other ways to serve your country (i.e. Americorp, Forestry Service, VA Hospital, Elderly Home, etc..., just some sort of public service)

- You'd rack and stack what you want to do, and you'd get it based on your GPA/ASVAB/Whatever, similar to Assignment Night

If I were President for a day...

Edited July 31, 2014 by LumberjackAxe

[guineapigfury]

I've never understood the above line of argument. We had a draft and it neither prevented the Vietnam War nor kept it short. Children of the connected managed to avoid it. By the way, what the fuck are we going to do with someone on a 2 year enlistment? As soon as they're any good at whatever job they're trained in, they'll be out the door. My guess is they'd end up sweeping parking lots while the volunteers did the real work with the additional burden of writing EPRs for a bunch of disgruntled borderline-useless guys. No thanks.

[hispeed7721]

EDIT: I should also say that the best solution isn't a draft. I think the best solution is mandatory service for young adults

Totally agree with this. I really think there should be mandatory service for everyone (aka exactly what Israel does, it's worked pretty darn well for them).

[Homestar]

Totally agree with this. I really think there should be mandatory service for everyone (aka exactly what Israel does, it's worked pretty darn well for them).

I also 100% agree. With no skin on the line Americans won't hold their politicians to account. This is why there's such an outcry if someone mentions cutting social security or Medicaid. But only the die hard liberals spoke up against Iraq in 2003. I'm for mandatory service, but the memory of Vietnam has soured the public against it forever unfortunately.

[hispeed7721]

I honestly think if there were "mandatory service" vs a "draft" people's opinions wouldn't be so negative on the whole. While the draft had the possibility of tagging anyone, not everyone had to go. With mandatory service, everyone would be involved. Obviously at first there would be severe backlash from those who want nothing to do with the military, but on the whole I think our national pride, cohesiveness, and the like would increase greatly. Again, Israel is a great example

[HU&W]

I've always been a fan of a "national service corps". Mandatory two years of civil service once you decide your education is complete. This could be after high school, bachelor's, or even professional education (med, law, etc). Job and pay are commensurate with education and can be assigned according to a dream sheet, similar to the military. Although many people would (and should in time of war) be assigned to the military, you get assigned wherever in government you're needed. There would be a 4-6 week "basic training" at the beginning to impart life skills and up to six months of trade specific training afterwards. This gives a minimum of 18 months of contributing work time. Once the two year term is concluded, you can volunteer to continue in military service, or elsewhere in government if you want to make it a career.

Everyone starts their adult life with some amount of education or trade skills, two years of work experience, and two years of independent life experience. It's the best way I see to dig us out of the adultalescent hole we've found ourselves in and get young Americans back to work.

[Learjetter]

Completely disagree. Mandatory, required, compulsory "service" in the government, of any duration or task, by free citizens, should never exist in the land of the free...

And I'm surprised to see support for such ideas from us -- dedicated to preserving Liberty.

[hispeed7721]

And I'm surprised to see support for such ideas from us -- dedicated to preserving Liberty.

IMHO if everyone (obviously there are going to be exemptions and such) served in some capacity in the military, then everyone would have a much more vested interest in preserving the liberty and identity of our nation...as it stands now it's all about handouts and entitlements. I know I'm beating the example to death but I think Israel is a shining example of what I'm talking about Edited July 31, 2014 by hispeed7721

[Learjetter]

Sorry, I don't care how "good for the country" it theoretically is.

It's not Liberty to force anyone in a free society into mandatory compulsory service for anything.

Ever.

Yes, that includes the abominable draft.

I cannot think of ANY reason, at any time, for a free citizen to be compelled to perform service in the name of government, under threat of punishment or imprisonment.