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The military should add several new divisions. We are going to be involved in manpower intense police actions for quite a while. Bush should have done it but was trying to fight the war on the cheap.
It is and has been cruelly unfair to the military families that already carry a disproportionate share of the burden.
And yet where is the outrage about the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq?
#1, It’s been a little more unfair to the over one million Iraqis who have died. What’s the word for that? Oh yeah, genocide.
I blame the people who forced them to join up. Oh, wait a minute. . . .
@3, there is a difference between mass murder and genocide and you can either without the other.
Not to be harsh, but What were these women thinking? You don’t marry connon fodder and then complain that your husband is being regarded as cannon fodder.
23
If the Iraqis had overthrown Saddam themselves and not waged war on Iran and Kuwait then the world would not have had to come in (twice). If the Iraqis would restrain themselves from slaughtering each other a million of them wouldn’t be dead. We have given them an opportunity to make a peaceful society, the rest is up to them.
@6 is supposed to be @3
Yes, but endless wars have made us safer from terrorist attacks. Just like this rock I have that wards off tigers. It must be true. Bush said so.
I know first hand how much strain deployments have on military families and spouses. Some of my friends are still in the military, husbands going on their 5th tour to the middle east. It’s crazy. The Army does so little to keep spouses informed, or even help them emotionally during deployments.
And if you even barely voice a disagreement, your husband will get in trouble for not “controlling his wife”. That means skipped for promotion or getting smoked every day after work.
I think one of the times that stick with me is when the Commander’s wife of my ex’s unit spoke to the wives, and said “This deployment is breaking me, and I have been with my husband in the military for 18 years. This is the hardest time of my life (breaking into tears)”.
So many military couples I know, including me and my ex-husband, couldn’t make the change back to a couple after he came back from Iraq. And if there is one thing the all-volunteer army doesn’t need more of, it’s single soldiers.
@5 Marry cannon fodder? Wow.
My husband was deployed to Iraq where he did logistics work that he knows saved lives–both Iraqi and American. I struggled at home with 2 small girls and a newborn and it was difficult–sometimes made more so by the army, not less.
He’s being deployed again this fall to train Iraqis in engineering tasks so they can run their own base. I was not in favor of this war, but my husband is exactly the kind of intelligent, thoughtful person you would want trying to help in this situation. He is not cannon fodder. He is not committing genocide.
I am still angry that Bush misused our military, but to have no compassion for families of the troops disheartening to say the least.
@8
Obama seems to be buying it
One time I was in a smoking cessation class — I was one of only a couple of active duty there. The other dozen or so were all dependent military wives. So you know, there we were, all these frustrated, unhappy dependents, talking about all the problems in life, how powerless they were, the how much we could all really use just one fucking cigarette. Just one. It was… tense.
12
tense.
really tense.
I have friends who have spouses in the military and what makes it so hard is that there isn’t really anything done to help a family transition into things after a deployment. A lot of people come back with a lot of emotional issues. You have spouses who have to play single parent for each deployment (some lasting more than a year) and then the deployed spouse comes back and it throws the dynamics out of whack. The children of deployed soldiers suffer quite a bit as well. So many have anger issues, the fear of a parent not coming back is always present. War essentially provides trauma for an entire family unit. It is one nasty mess.
One friend who has a spouse who has done two tours overseas has said, “They should make it mandatory that all returning soldiers to do some in patient therapy for a few weeks. Bare minimum.”
I meant no disrespect by “cannon fodder” but that’s what you sign up for when you sign up. The job of a soldier is to kill and be killed, or perhaps to support others in that killing and being killed until it’s your turn.
And we all know that when war comes, and it always does come, things get really ugly for everybody. And if you think it’s ugly for the people at home it’s far worse for the people over there and especially the citizens.
I’m suddenly reminded of a Start Trek episode, forgive me. Two planets at war have found a way to make it palatable and civilized so that they never get around to ending it. No, I won’t say that we need more single soldiers but we could certainly do with fewer married ones.
#9 Monique, as a former soldier and current single guy, I think that you, and the US Army, have it exactly backwards on what the Army doesn’t need more of (Single Soldiers).
I know that the current situation is much harder on soldiers and dependents than the one I dealt with in the Clinton years, but even in good times, military marriages are probably the least stable of all in America. The stress of basic training and regular field exercises instills a strong desire not to be alone and all normal human cravings are magnified. And I’m talking about the stress level before you’ve been deployed. This, on it’s own would lead to lots of ill-advised marriages, but then you add the fact that there are gold diggers out there who dig gold in the junior enlisted ranks (books could and should be written on how pathetic that is). Every platoon has at least one guy who has fallen for one of them. Then, on top of that, you have neanderthal religious conservatism, which a majority of officers subscribe to. And, on top of that, the Army pays you extra to be married and have kids.
The military business is absolutely the least favorable for family stability. What the Army (and the other branches) need is to recognize this fact, deal with it, and stop pushing troops into marriage. We need to recognize that soldiers are going to seek romance, sex, and happiness in whatever ways they can, and that marriage is one of many options. We need to legalize prostitution, remove the taliban-like anti-adultery and anti-sodomy provisions from the UCMJ. We need less married soldiers getting non-deployable status because of family members.
I respect those who keep a marriage together while pursuing a military career. I respect those who try that, and fail. I also respect those who, like myself, look at the marriages and relationships they’ve seen their friends in, and look at their own capabilities, and go for one-night affairs and hookers instead. The military needs to get out of the troops crotches in their off time.
Sorry to belabor this, but some will claim that the chain of command has a right to a say in troops’ crochital choices to further the mission, and they do have that right, but tell me how many people have you seen non-deployable because of a hooker, or a casual fuck-buddy, versus a wife and/or kids? If anything, the chain of command should be promoting hookers and fuck-buddies and utility-grade disposable relationships as the preferred military lifestyle.
@Luke:
The problem is that the Army is a volunteer force, which means that in order to work properly it has to have people have a career there. They NEED people there for 20 years, and as nice as it would be to just throw hookers and blow at the situation, that would not work. People want to get married and have kids. They do, and they will. On top of that, people with families are more stable, and honestly when they are stuck with kids and a wife they are more likely to re-enlist because they need the stable income and stable house.
I actually know plenty of single soldiers that were non-deployable because of hookers or fighting at bars, or sleeping with married women, or getting hooked on drugs, or selling drugs, or stealing at the PX. Sure, there are the married soliders that suffer family hardships that make them unable to deploy, but single soldiers are way more likely to act out, since they don’t have anyone to support. They also have no support system to come back to after coming back from a deployment. They are prone to isolation and depression with very few people to check up on them.
Even though I am no longer married to my ex, I can take solace in the fact that my divorce forced him into the therapy that he so desperately needed.
So the the Army has a choice:
-Go back to the draft (which I am in favor of during war times)
-Give support for families so that the all volunteer force can retain good, solid soldiers. Which right now it is losing at rapid rate.
Wait–serving in the Armed Forces is sort of shitty? Who could have guessed.
@16,17 – Sounds like we need an All-Homo Army.
@19,
Not a bad idea… after all, it worked for the Navy.
@19&20: Nope, cause the gays wanna get married too, which is against what Luke wants for the military. I say add the gays and get them hitched, just like straight soldiers, fund the family readiness groups so that married people will stay in. Then we’ll have a great military with smart people actually wanting to serve instead of single criminals and drug addicts who can’t hack it in the real world.
@15 I appreciate that you meant no disrespect by ‘cannon fodder’, but reducing anyone in a dangerous job to a term that makes them seem inhuman or expendable is unfortunate.
As a fellow Star Trek fan, I believe the point of the episode you referenced was that by sanitizing war to a degree where suffering goes unnoticed we lose our humanity and forget the value of life. This war has had relatively no impact on the average person here, and I’m surprised that those of us who have been affected are expected to be quiet. People on the right don’t want us to shatter the illusion that we are doing fine, and people on the left think our struggles don’t count because other people have suffered more.
Soldiers may volunteer but families are drafted. Some may argue I have dug my own grave by marrying the person I love, and still others may by extension blame me for my children’s suffering. I think as a nation we can aspire to be more compassionate than that. If we expect to have a volunteer military it’s not unreasonable to find ways to support the families that make that possible.
@21 – I assume that when gay marriage becomes legal, gays will continue to stay single and childless at a much higher rate than straights. Consider also the age group. Soldiers tend to be in the under 30 crowd, and gays who want to get hitched tend to be older (correct me if I’m wrong on that).
Also, gay soldiers could get their sex on with other gay soldiers, which would be good for morale and would solve all sorts of existing logistics problems, like trying to keep spouses/significant-others happy at home and trying to get hookers into war zones.
BTW, I don’t think this scenario is actually realistic for many reasons, but I’m just sayin …
Mahtli69 @ 23,
That’s the plot for a porno like Iron Discipline, not a workable strategy for integration.
So what could the military do to make things easier on stateside families?
@24 “So what could the military do to make things easier on stateside families?”
The military should end their ridiculous state of denial about personnel needs. The policy of soldiers being deployed, re-deployed, and re-deployed again ad nauseum is the problem.
In Vietnam, once your tour was up, then you were done unless you volunteered to go again.
I think this country would be better off with a draft for a couple of reasons: 1) the military would be fully-staffed, as needed, 2) everyday citizens would pay more attention to what the fuck is going on and how and where our military is being deployed, and 3) the time commitment for a draftee wouldn’t destroy families (draft ’em before they turn 20 and most of them wouldn’t even have families to destroy).
So many of these points are valid. I think someone hit the nail on the head when they said there are not enough resources to support and/or assist families of combat troops returning from Iraq & Afghanistan. There is a huge stigma attached to obtaining counseling or mental health services when you are still active duty which serves as an enormous barrier to receiving care for families in need. Thankfully there are some organizations that provide confidential counseling for both the military member and family that are not affiliated to DOD. I would encourage any family or military mrmber to contact The Soldier’s Project, Military One Source, or their local Vet Center. Vet Center’s provide readjustment counseling for the veteran and their family. They specifically deal with readjustment issues and treat not only the vet but spouses, significant others, and children. I share the concern for the growing number of returning veterans and families. Don’t be fearful of reaching out and asking for help.
@Monique
I know we need some people for 20 years, but an Army made entirely of lifers would quickly get fatally top-heavy, unless some were willing to stay at a very low rank for 20 years, which current Army policy forbids.
Nobody took me seriously when I asked the Army for an allowance for hookers equal to the bump in pay I would get for getting married. (I didn’t really ask that, but thought it would be funny). I don’t advocate “throwing” hookers at the situation. I advocate paying single and married soldiers the same and letting them do their own cost/benefit math when it comes to lifestyle.
I also agree that the vast majority of successful people will always want a traditional marriage with kids, and that the army needs officers and NCO’s, a big chunk of whom will fit that stable career-minded profile. But those career military leaders need troops to lead, those troops will always be young and largely single, and largely in it for 2 to 4 year enlistments. Offering those troops a cash bonus for getting married is stupid. No other business does that.
And if the ratio of single to married in the higher ranks were to skew more toward the single because we as a society took marriage off of the pedestal we’ve put it on, this would make the military more efficient.
The situation with high numbers of tours in Iraq is not something we should accept as a permanent state of affairs and provide more troops for. It is an symptom of the fact that we don’t have a clear policy on what we do with defeated enemies. Extracting our troops from Iraq, and Europe, and South Korea is the move to make next, not expanding the Army for a permanent occupation of places all over the globe.
Mandatory service is better than the draft. Nobody gets out of it, everyone serves a set number of years. If a person wants to make a career in the armed forces, they can. Also, it discourages war mongering because everyone (or a relative) has a chance to get shipped off to combat. If we’d had mandatory service, do you thin Duh Shrub would have been so hot to invade Iraq? Since his daughters had just turned 18 years old, I don’t think so. Some of Dick Cheney’s grandchildren also would have been the appropriate age for cannon fodder, do you think he would’ve been so hot for Iraq’s oil if his grand-kids had to die for it? Ditto for high profile Democrats: Chelsea Clinton would have been 20 years old, a good age to serve her country. I bet you Bill and Hill wouldn’t have been so hot to ship her off to Iraq, either.
Oh, my biggest point was that military marriages in the easiest of times will break down much more than the rest of society. One spouse in uniform and one out puts a barrier between them unlike the ones between other couples. Both spouses in uniform can be even more of a problem. The best thing we can do to support military families is not subsidize the ill-advised creation of more of them. It’s very much like giving a big tax incentive for home ownership. It inflates the value of homes, and promotes the building of rows and rows of ass-ugly ones that lose their value quickly and then we have a housing bubble. We should also quit over-selling the benefits of marriage relative to single life.
Mahtli69 @ 25,
Ultimately, the biggest problem is that the military sees no benefit in addressing any of these issues in a large scale way. If they’ve already gotten two or three tours outta a guy and then he gets divorced and/or eats a bullet, then why would they care since they’ve already gotten what they want from him?
This is especially true now that we’ve got a severe recession going on, and they’ve more recruits willing to sign up.
I completely agree about some kind of mandatory national service, btw. Though I do think people should have the choice of the military or a peaceful domestic program like Americorps.