There may not be an official military draft, but there seems to be a virtual one

[whereisjustice]

A few years ago I was walking between airport terminals and passed a women in fatigues, pack at her side, crying by a window. I turned around and asked if there was anything I could do. She was heading back to Afghanistan, distraught about another long and difficult deployment. We talked a while. She came from poor family with no chance to pay for college. The Army offered training, pay and a way out. So she signed up, hoping to learn IT skills to land a job after her tour. I listened carefully, some of it was heartbreaking. It was a story I had heard before, from others, and continue to hear to this day. I'm sure we've all heard similar stories as well.

Something is way out of balance.

Here are the facts of our economy for a non-rich American:

- Good paying jobs continue to hemorrhage to China, India, Mexico, Brazil, etc as a result of our never ending trade agreements to ship US jobs to low wage labor markets.

- Education costs continue to rise at 2X and 3X the rate of inflation as colleges fill up with wealthy students from China, India and Wall Street families, the sole beneficiaries of our trade agreements. Students from wealthy families of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, etc are crowding out non-rich students from college classrooms.

- The minimum wage, adjusted for inflation has decreased since 1968. It should be about $20 per hour.

- Middle class wages and wealth remains virtually unchanged since the late 1970s, while the top 10% have seen their incomes and wealth increase by 100 to 1000 of percent, after being adjusted for inflation.

- Employers are not hiring anyone with an arrest record, dismissed or not.

Kids are joining the military for economic opportunity. Shouldn't service be a shared sacrifice? Why should the rich prosper by the sacrifices of the poor who serve?

Some days I think the draft is the right thing to do. But then I'm reminded that Dick Cheney and GW Bush and a battalions worth of right-wing Chickenhawks in Congress weaseled their way out of service.

Maybe the answer is mandatory service without exception, I don't know.

But I do know deliberately depriving people of the economic opportunity to build a life on their own is keeping our military flush with recruits who provide the necessary fodder for our misadventures in the Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

It almost seems by design.

As we reflect on the sacrifices of those who serve, let's acknowledge that the sacrifices must be shared more fairly between rich and poor.

[libdem4life]

1. It's subtle, but in reality it is "free" job training. A trade school could cost upwards of $40,000

and a 4-year BA...upwards of 6 figures in some cases.

Problem is, when they get home and are sufficiently well-trained and have experience. the Repukes refuse to fund job-funding. So guess what the alternative is, that is unless one is maimed or has PTSD or ????...back to fighting in the Sand Box in the ME.

[whereisjustice]

3. 32,000 wounded (official) 100,000 wounded (unofficial) and I'm not sure either

figure takes into consideration civilian casualties.

http://antiwar.com/casualties/

It's a hell of a price to pay for a free education.

[libdem4life]

5. Yes it is, but many in the rural red states, that's the choice. Certainly others, especially the

poor and minorites. Thus, there is little racism there any more...lots of strong, minority male role models for minority kids...something they may have never experienced.

I'm just making a sociological observation BTW...I certainly hope you were not questioning my anti-war views held since 1969. If so, please read my signature line.

[pangaia]

7. That might BE the choice, but it certainly shouldn't be.

Why don't we use the $$ spent on them in the military to train them OUTSIDE the military?

[libdem4life]

12. We can't even get jobs for them when they get back...trained and all. It's a travesty.

I'd be willing to bet that Bernie will come up with some kind of a WPA for returning veterans. So often, they go into civilian police departments where their war training is not compatible with the "others" over here, may have undiagnosed PSTD, but specifically toward the minority/poor groups...even if they are, themselves of that same minority. It's more about Power much less than Racial.

[awoke_in_2003]

21. With more and more

being outsourced to private industry, very little vocational training is available in the military.

[libdem4life]

22. Then what do they do when they are there? Just learn to fight? Don't tell me, please, that

the one decent reason I could think of was job training.

[awoke_in_2003]

24. They aren't totally there yet

But that is the direction the military has been moving toward since the first Bush. The army doesn't even feed itself anymore- the mess halls in Iraq were privately run, at $27 a plate if I remember correctly.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. $27 a plate?

Man, someone was making out like a bandit

[awoke_in_2003]

28. Yep...

and if they took the food back their tents, and requested a plate to put on top to keep blowing sand out, the meal became a $54 dollar meal. They track meals served by plates used. Quite a racket.

[libdem4life]

40. Good lord almighty...Do we have our Dear Leader Cheney/Halliburton, or just some other DOD

Teat-sucker? This sounds puny, but I hope it was decent food. I'm really angry. What to say? While stateside the folk are waving flags, their kids are being rick-rolled by the military.

[awoke_in_2003]

46. Cheney spearheaded it

When he was SecDec, that is why he was amply rewarded when the elder Bush left office

[libdem4life]

48. Yeah, well screw him and those who rode in with him.

[jwirr]

2. Very well said. And it is by design. Years ago it was common knowledge that the number of

unemployed kept the wages down. Supply and demand.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons Bernie is talking about free education?

[whereisjustice]

4. thanks, it's a touchy subject, but one that bugs the hell out of me when the chickenhawks

in Congress pound their drums.

[newthinking]

10. Avsolutely: The "volunteer" army has allowed the government to conduct unlimited

war actions by disengaging the public with the reality.

It also divides the public and marginalizes war resistance.

I am completely in favor of a draft, not because I like the idea overall, but because I now realize that not having one is catastrophic and results in far more death and destruction both here and abroad.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Sometimes the choice is the military or the coal mine.

[1939]

15. Back in 1962, I asked a Staff Sgt with about 12 years service why he stayed in.

"Sir, it beats mining coal"

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I wonder if he still thought that a few years later

when the Vietnam War was getting into high gear.

[1939]

33. He had enlisted during the Korean War NT

[libdem4life]

41. That's why the Red States and minorities so heavily populate the military. But I'm

shocked by what I'm learning...somewhere else on this thread. Chattel and Cannon Fodder...our youngest and best hope for the future.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

47. Republicans consider them to be moochers....

There are conservatives in the brass.

Not surprising at all that they would have contempt for poor people who enlisted to get into college and buy a home. I can picture their thinking going something like this, "They do a few years in uniform and are set for life with VA loans, free health care for LIFE and college all on the taxpayers dime."

[Enthusiast]

8. It is the fault of elected representatives that jobs continue to hemorrhage to overseas.

This includes the SCOTUS that decided Citizens United even though they are not elected.

All three branches of government are complicit.

We need to say it loud and clear, "We are clear done with your betrayal." It should start with this horrible TPP. Then Americans would have choices besides the military.

[LWolf]

9. Yes, and I've thought for some time that

it's deliberate.

Keep us in a perpetual state of war. Slash social programs, make sure that poor working kids can't afford college, use the standards and accountability movement's high-stakes testing/privatization reform movement to limit students in public education and eventually prevent many from graduating with high-stakes "college ready" demands, and too many end up looking for an open door when so many are closed.

All these reforms keep a pool of desperate cheap labor and cannon fodder at the ready of the corporate world and MIC.

[oldandhappy]

11. I have thought about this also.

The attraction being 1) a leg up 2) a job 3) potential status 4) benefits.

And then so many of our military people end up with physical and/or emotional wounds that may or may not be treatable.

The poor/under educated/minority kids are being used in horrific ways.

[libdem4life]

49. or dead.

[woo me with science]

13. To the Greatest Page.

"Almost."

[NobodyHere]

14. You do know that poor families are less likely to have their kids join the military right?

[1939]

16. Many of the poorest

Have criminal records, didn't finish high school, are obese, flunk the drug tests, or can't pass a physical. My granddaughter is an Air Force recruiter. She says it takes finding a lot of interested prospects to get one valid entrant.

[whereisjustice]

18. Less than 1 percent of today's graduates from Ivy League schools go on to serve in the military.

In all, about 1 percent of U.S. representatives and senators have a child in uniform. And the Capitol building is no different from other places where the leadership class in this country gathers -- no different from the boardrooms, newsrooms, ivory towers and penthouses of our nation.

Less than 1 percent of today's graduates from Ivy League schools go on to serve in the military.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2270473


Across the nation, small towns are quietly bearing a disproportionate burden of war. Nearly half of the more than 3,100 U.S. military casualties in Iraq have come from towns like McKeesport, where fewer than 25,000 people live, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. One in five hailed from hometowns of less than 5,000.

Many of the hometowns of the war dead aren't just small, they're poor. The AP analysis found that nearly three quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/small-towns-hit-hard-by-war/

[Recursion]

36. If you're talking about college graduates, they aren't "enlisting"; they're getting commissions

The officer corps is still based on the service academies, the "faux" service academies (Citadel, VMI, etc.), and ROTCers/mustangers from land grant schools. But the officer corps is going to be much richer and better educated than the country as a whole to begin with, because they all have college degrees.

[Recursion]

39. Thank you. Here's a study from Syracuse

http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=soc

TL;DR:

A servicemember is more likely to come from a well-off neighborhood than an average American
A servicemember is more likely to be Hispanic than an average American
A servicemember is less likely to be African-American than an average American but African-Americans are overrepresented in the standing military (not actually a paradox: AA servicemembers have on average much longer military careers than others)
There are significant socioeconomic correlations in enlistment rates, with the poorest and richest Americans much less likely to serve in the military than Americans in the economic middle

[Exilednight]

17. I served 8 years in the late 80s to early 90s. I came from a well off

Family, but many of my cohorts were not. Many were from inner-cities, low incomes and areas of failed education systems.

These are the people that the 1% exploit to fight their wars, yet the only people they parade out are the Tillman's of the world who give up million dollar contracts.

I won't hold my breath for the day that the military puts up honest recruiting posters.

[hfojvt]

19. well there is another way too

activated guard and reserve units.

Who goes into the guard looking for some extra cash? Probably not the well off.

Since Gulf War I a whole bunch of guard units were activated to provide the necessary troops.

If they had tried to draft people for those wars, they'd have been killed at the polls, but since they just activated guard units, the standard response is "Well, they were told they might be activated when they signed up."

[libdem4life]

42. One minor juvenile ticket kept my son from joining. They look back into their minor records.

[awoke_in_2003]

20. I'd wager

over half of the enlisted because they have no other choice economically

[whereisjustice]

23. That agrees with the limited studies on the subject. And the dead and wounded

overwhelmingly represent the impoverished and rural areas of the country.

[Recursion]

37. I'd take that wager, because the military doesn't let the nation's poorest enlist

You have to have a high school diploma (that's 25% excluded right there) and you have to have a reasonably clean police record. Everybody in my unit was pretty solidly middle class, personally...

[SheilaT]

27. Some employers do hire those with an arrest record, or even a jail record.

A friend of mine worked for a state job placement bureau in an Eastern state, so I know this through him. He also works with convicts, and has told me about this.

One convict friend of his now works as a cook in a restaurant. Others get jobs with some of the cross-country trucking firms. While being a convict isn't very conducive to getting a good job, it's not impossible.

Sort of like the myth that is constantly promulgated here that absolutely no one over the age of 60, or maybe 55, or maybe 50, is ever hired. Not true. I got hired three different times after age 60.

Yeah, jobs have been outsourced and that totally sucks, but to keep on saying the job situation is even worse than it is doesn't help.

[whereisjustice]

29. I apppreciate your comment, but I am stating the facts of the market as it applies

to the vast majority of individuals with a criminal record - and this includes any record of arrest whether dismissed or not.

Note there is a difference between part time jobs and a career with a living wage to support a family. Nearly every company now runs criminal background checks.

Out of Trouble, but Criminal Records Keep Men Out of Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/business/out-of-trouble-but-criminal-records-keep-men-out-of-work.html

Life After Prison: Ex-Felons Often Struggle to Find a Job
https://www.wbhm.org/News/2014/JobsAfterPrison

Convicted And Unemployed: How Local Action Is Changing Criminal Job Access
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/03/03/ban-the-box-convicts-unemployment-nj-ga-ma

Likewise, it is not a myth to say there is age discrimination keeping millions from meaningful career work. The data backs me up on this, as well as my own considerable experience working in large and small companies. But defending this assertion is beyond the scope of my original post.

[Recursion]

38. It's harder to enlist with a criminal record than it is to get a civilian job

Maybe in 2005 or so the recruiters were going crazy and bending the rules, but it's really hard to enlist now if you have a criminal record, particularly involving drugs.

[MADem]

30. Obama asked Congress at SOTU to provide free community college/voke training after high school.

Congress told him to go eff himself. Orange Man and Turtle Boy just aren't interested in that sort of thing.

Obama: Community college should be ‘as free and universal in America as high school’

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/community-college-tuition-top-theme-state-union-speech/

[reddread]

31. the answer is not frittering lives on impossible illegal maneuvers

just to make some fat cats fatter.
is that so hard?

[still_one]

32. It actually is a choice. I was around when there was a draft, and the only choice was serving,

going to prison, or going to Canada.

Also, as you pointed out, even if there was a draft, those with influence and money, would still be able to avoid it

[Exilednight]

34. It is true that those with influence would still avoid it, but those just

On the fringe of upper-middle class, true middle-class and lower middle-class would not, or at least not enough of them to not complain.

Put enough white people together to complain, no matter what their socioeconomic status, and politicians pay attention.

[libdem4life]

44. We can't even get the GrOPer Party to help them get jobs, those that return, that is.

Veterans of all of our nifty little Empire wars get abysmal health care. Once I had a job where we had to take people's income for qualifying. The highest income I came across was a VA Psychiatrist who was making $250,000 a year.

Who's going to complain? to whom? Those on the gravy train don't give a f## about any race and that includes the white race, increasingly. It's about money and power...that 1%. You're either in it...like Hillary, or not in it...like Bernie. JMHO

I may be exiled to a Red State right now, but I'm going to find or start a local #FeelTheBern ... love that pun.

[libdem4life]

43. That was my era, too. Gut-wrenching time. Nixon was busy selling us to China.

[still_one]

45. Yes it was

[Recursion]

35. Not really. The military is on average richer and better educated than the general population

The poorest quintile is the least likely to serve in the military, followed by the top quintile. The three middle quintiles are the bulk of servicemembers.

The biggest indicator for military service is being from the South, which is greatly overrepresented. Urban recruiting is very low.

90% of military enlistees have a high school diploma (it's very difficult to enlist without one) as opposed to 75% of the population age 18-20 (the most common age group for enlistment). And military enlistees have higher average standardized test scores than the general population (side note: the highest average entering ASVAB score is the Marines...)