What is the state of mind of your soldiers ?

[arnoldclab]

Unfortunately I cant join. I already have a great shot. I have had many teachers who taught me how to shoot and fight, they were all military trained. You guys dont get it...she did exactly what the Army asked her to do. It fell through, not her fault. She then got an extension and the Army pulled that away to. They left this woman with no options and I think it was done purposely. The needed to make an example of someone and she was the perfect target.

[VetLegion]

That's the reason for the thread - a number of danish soldiers jumped off, but now we have more volounteers than needed even when thrillseekers are weeded out (it's actually a bit difficult to become a soldier here).

Errr... how is anyone left if you weed out thrill seekers? What possible motive
could a man have to join an army other than to seek adventure?

[BlackCat]

Errr... how is anyone left if you weed out thrill seekers? What possible motive
could a man have to join an army other than to seek adventure?

Thrill seekers endanger themself and worse, the rest of the team. Experience seekers does the opposite.

[Elok]

Beats me, I'm not a soldier.

[ZEE]

what a surprise

[Ecofarm]

If someone wants to avoid direct combat and just collect a paycheck, just join the navy or airforce, or take a non-combat-arms MOS. Your so-called "thrill seekers" have always gone to the front and the REMFs stay in the back*.

It's not like one must wait for peacetime to get a cush job doing laundry.

Although, I should mention, it being peacetime was a big reason for my ETS to college. I should also note that my unit prayed for war - noone was looking to eat crap in the barracks. We absolutely positively wanted to be in a fight; peacetime sucked.

(3/505th PIR)

1, 2, 3, 4...
Somebody, anybody start a war...

What possible motive could a man have to join an army other than to seek adventure?

Serve country
Serve fellow man
Serve freedom
Learn discipline
Learn survival
Learn teamwork
Learn leadership
Shoot guns and missiles
Jump out of airplanes
"Camping"
Comraderie
Great pay and benefits

That's just off the top. There are a hundred good reasons to join the US military. Other militaries... meh... I can't say.


*I should note, on CFCOT, Pat went in after my body and took some ban-stick too; that was pretty non-REMFy.

[Patroklos]

Mobby does make a good point, namely that most of them are not looking for a fight.

That does not mean they are not prepared to engage in one if needed.

Additionally, most peoples motivations are not so simple as to be readily boiled down to one thing. There are lots of things I want to accomplish and participate in during my lifetime, the military has allowed me to accomplish several of them.

I will couch that in the observation that like most people who like their jobs or take it seriously it is natural to take pride or pleasure in actually doing it regardless of the circumstances that are dictating that it must be done. I don't like deploying to the Gulf for the better part of a year at a time, but I do enjoy doing all the random stuff that has to be accomplished while I am there to a certain extent. Its fullfilling.

It was more than a small portion in the UK, the US army also had serious recruitment problems for a long time into the Iraq campaign. Anecdotal evidence at the beginning of active duty would seem to have supported my argument.

No we didn't. If I remember correctly the "serious recruitment problems" amounted to being off our goal by little more than a couple percentage points, and this was AFTER we were increasing the number of recruits sought in order to boost the size of the Army overall which means our recruitment raw numbers wise probably didn't drop at all but rather increased, but I will look for proof of that.

[Patroklos]

If someone wants to avoid direct combat and just collect a paycheck, just join the navy or airforce, or take a non-combat-arms MOS. Your so-called "thrill seekers" have always gone to the front and the REMFs stay in the back*.

It's not like one must wait for peacetime to get a cush job doing laundry.

*I should note, on CFCOT, Pat went in after my body and took some ban-stick too; that was pretty non-REMFy.

1.) There are no REMFs in the Navy, if a ship takes a missile the cooks and yeomen are just as likely to buy it as a fire controlmen or a gunners mate. In fact they are more likely to buy it, becasue cooks and yeomen make up the damage control parties.

2.) One day the USA will be as dominate in their warfare area as the USAF and USN and then nobody will consider it an option to fight you either

[DaShi]

Most people join the Navy for the anal sex.

[Pekka]

I don't know anything except that we're sending more troops to Afghanistan. It's not much, but in our scale it's a lot, as it's not an ordinary peacekeeping mission.

They've been in some fire fights, few close calls, I think someone got wounded as well but nothing too tragic has happened. They're obviously in areas that aren't so hostile. I guess it's more hearts and minds type of a thing and rebuilding and all that stuff. There has been some officers who suddenly didn't want to go as the opportunity came about, but I think it's mostly about low salary/high risk than anything else. They just don't get paid. Makes more sense to stay at familiar forests, freezing your nuts off than going into sand dunes and get shot.

[VetLegion]

Thrill seekers endanger themself and worse, the rest of the team. Experience seekers does the opposite.

What? That's like saying some people have sex for the pleasure of it and other
people for the experience of it.

I call BS.

[Kitschum]

Morale is good as ever and don't you wily foreigners get any adventurous ideas into your heads too because I'm watching you.