Help UK army recruit shortages?

[child of Thor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4093720.stm

Ok in light of this not new news i thought i'd run a fun poll.

Should we send societies undesirables to join the military?

Burberry cap wearers, criminal types etc? I think they(the military) have to do a difficult job as it is, if they are stretched in manpower we need some kind of answers.

[Zulu Elephant]

The real question is why we still have 22,500 men stationed in Germany with nothing to do

[child of Thor]

what! we have to keep an eye on the germans! you cant have forgotten those two world wars already

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by child of Thor
what! we have to keep an eye on the germans! you cant have forgotten those two world wars already

Yep, if you take your eye off those craft krauts for one minute, they start building weapons and looking for more 'living space' (why they can't just build a conservatory like everyone else, I'll never know)

[Slaughtermeyer]

When I visited the US Army online recruitment chatroom, one of the visitors interested in joining the army was a convicted drug offender who still had probation time left to serve. He was told he had to finish serving his probation time before the army would accept him.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Yep, if you take your eye off those craft krauts for one minute, they start building weapons and looking for more 'living space' (why they can't just build a conservatory like everyone else, I'll never know)

May be true, but this time I promise we'll looking for it exclusively in France. Deal?

[DerSchwarzfalke]

An Army made up of the dregs of society. That's brilliant!

[child of Thor]

cue the faulty towers sketch(John Cleese) insulting the german guests

Still i was talking about this with my dentist the other day, we're both moderate/slightly left i guess, and we decided it could be a good idea to introduce a national service layer to army recruitment, made up of persistant young offenders.

As we've seen on those 'boot camp' type tv programs, with that kind of regime even the most desperate cases and terribly behaved kids sort themselves out, and seem kind of glad for the experience.

@DerSchwarzfalke, just part of the recruiting program - so they wouldn't become the bulk, it would help mould them into being/doing something useful imho?

I'll put it to my MP and see what the response is

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by child of Thor

As we've seen on those 'boot camp' type tv programs, with that kind of regime even the most desperate cases and terribly behaved kids sort themselves out, and seem kind of glad for the experience.

My mates nephew (right little sh1t!) is in the next series that will bve showing in September. He's currently half way through the traiing, he hasn't quit yet.

[Bosh]

it could be a good idea to introduce a national service layer to army recruitment, made up of persistant young offenders

Great, give people who have the least respect for others large guns. What could possibly go wrong!

[Maquiladora]

Nothing would ever get done, theyd be too busy sniffing poppers and talking about their crossers.

[child of Thor]

What? has no-one any faith left in the power of endless drill and shouting to resolve personality issues or bad attitude?

Where are the military bods? They could tell us a thing or two about guys who refuse to get with the program in training and how it usualy gets worked out.

@Bosh, ref your last post - if your ever over here in the UK, take a trip to Catterick in yorkshire(its an army base town) and you'll sadly realise the truth that already the most dangerous/dubious people get to be soldiers

[reds4ever]

The way I've see it done is not to punish the offender, punish the entire group (platoon, whatever). Very effective!

[Patroklos]

Sure it would work,

But we have to do that sort of drill even with the volunteers who have no problems. The effort isn't put in to straighten people out, is is done that way because you can learn twice as much in half the time that way.

It has been my experiance that the military can fix anyone, however it takes alot of time and effort that you could be using to kill bad guys, and in this day and age the bleeding hearts get in the way.

We normally just kick them out. The proffesion in so techinical and responsibility intesive these days that losers like those being discussed simple can't and never will be able to do the job.

However, if we brought back labor battalions....

[Traianvs]

drilling them with military doctrine doesn't change their attitudes, it just prevents them from roaming the streets.
but it's better to have them die for us yes