Archive for the ‘military’ Category

August-8-08

Military recruitment based on truth

posted by JLRodgers

What would happen if the military recruiters had to be completely 100% honest (and not in a “car salesman” honesty) to all perspective applicants?

Would people really want to sign up if they were told:

  • You might lose a finger, leg, eye, arm, hand — and maybe your life
  • You might be squished by a bomb, accidently blown up, crushed by a forklift or burnt alive — and that’s in basic training
  • You’ll be sent to a war. You might even have to look a man, woman or child in the face when you kill them — and you’ll see them every night in your dreams after
  • People will want to kill you, beat you up, trash talk you, and insult your entire being — to say nothing about the enemies

It seems like every day you see people (whether true or not is hard to tell) that claim they joined the military for only one reason: to go to college. Most times they say it’s because they couldn’t afford to go otherwise. You rarely hear someone say they join to kill another person. Of course if you know someone just wants to kill another human…. Perhaps a psyc ward would be a better bet. I sure wouldn’t want some trigger happy “kill to see them die” person in the military if they’re only someplace in a non-violent way — well as non-violent of a way a shipload of people with guns, bombs, tanks and missiles showing up on your doorstep can be.

Kind of makes one wonder… if people were recruited with complete 100% honesty about everything (maybe even a demo day or two [not sure if it already exists] just to try out) — would we even have people joining the military? Would any country? And if the countries can’t get a military… would there be wars? Just makes a one wonder.