As has been widely reported, the military is having trouble meeting its recruitment and retention goals since launching offensive action in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is to be expected in our media-savvy and highly educated society. As people gain access to more information and a resistance to marketing-speak it becomes tougher to sell what amounts to, in the simplest of terms, an opportunity to get yourself killed. The message is that joining the military is an act of service to your country and that it’s the most patriotic thing you could do, but if you look around you realize it is much more complicated than that. When the most influential people in this country (even the past two presidents) avoid military service the impression is formed that it is far from desirable or wise.
I’m sure many people have joined the military thinking of all the fantastic opportunities available, yet the reality of Iraq and Afghanistan filters through our media presenting a very different picture. There is a reason the military appeals to the most vulnerable groups of society: the poor, those with limited options, and those seeking the fast-lane to US citizenship. The reason is that for most everyone else, joining the military ranks as the option of last resort, right above selling drugs for a living. I can think of few other careers that require you to be as powerless as the military. People used to refer to it simply as ‘the service’, for good reason. Consider the negatives:
- Much of your life is dictated to you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- You can be deployed for up to 18 months or more away from your family. Your life is on hold for all intents and purposes.
- You are committed to four years. What if you joined at 18 and decided you want to do something different with your life?
- You could get killed. You could kill. You could be forced to do things you would not normally do.
- You cannot quit. If you do, you will go to jail.
I don’t mean to disparage anyone’s decision to join the military. It’s clearly not for everyone, and some people derive a great deal of pride from their service to our military. On the other hand, how could you ever trust the motives of the people who make the decisions to go to war when they are at a greatly diminished amount of personal risk? The people who make the decisions are not the ones to carry out the orders, and that does not seem logical.
The point is, the military is now trying to cater to their market. They’re trying to answer the negatives with more options that people will find attractive. In this article, U.S. Army offers shorter enlistment to recruits, they outline a few of the changes they’re making as part of a pilot program to increase recruitment and retention rates including offering an enlistment period of 15 months of active-duty service. That doesn’t sound bad, however you’d better read the fine print when dealing with Uncle Sam. It turns out that this 15 month period does not include “training time”, which could easily be stretched to include combat training, etc. Also, by accepting the 15 month enlistment you’re committed to two years in the Army Reserve or National Guard. You will also be committed to seven additional years in the Individual Ready Reserve! The president can activate up to 200,000 people in the IRR without declaring a national emergency. At this point, most of your life will be owned by the military. You have limited freedom to quit even when your time is up due to things like Stop Loss, which can keep you in the military when your enlistment period is over.