About 75% of Americans eligible as military recruits couldn't serve if they wanted to: they're too obese, intellectually challenged, diseased, or they're stoners. [Wired Danger Room]
Most potential recruits for US military too fat, dumb, or drugged out
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My first Quadfecta!
But remember folks, none of that is enough of a problem for us to change rule #1 of US Military service: "No homos."
Isn't it great how we're convinced that our military being undermanned and overextended is nothing to morale compared to the devastation that morale would undergo if our soldiers realized that they were serving and living alongside patriotic gay people?
Hahahaourcountryscompletelyscrewedup.
this should be tagged NSFW..ugh gross picture
but... we let more felons in. so it all evens out in the end.
"Percentage change from 2004 to 2007 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite having been charged with a felony: +295"
from : http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319
Gah, that picture is now filtered forever from my browser.
The military is psychologically and physically challenging. Thats why they say 'the few, the proud'. I'd be extremely proud to be a marine. Fortunately for them I'm certifiably wacko and everybody knows it. But hell, most of the combat troops are probably on more mood altering drugs than I've ever had to take.
So who knows?
Did anyone else find the arithmetic here a little strange? If you go to the Army Times link from the Wired article, you will read that "only 4.7 million of the 31.2 million 17- to 24-year-olds in a 2007 survey are eligible to enlist." This means that 100-100*4.7/31.2 = 85% of youth are ineligible, not 75% as the Army Times articles states in the previous paragraph.
> 85% of youth are ineligible, not 75%
I guess ArmyTimes journos aren't required to enlist? Math is hard when you're one of the 85% not eligible. Stoned, or dumb? Dibs on stoned.
"Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?" Somebody always had to go over the top.
I wonder how they're going to resolve this...
Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?
to quote bill hicks, "another dead hero," re gays but relevant across the board...
"you wanna know my stance on gays in the military? anyone...DUMB ENOUGH to want to be in the military...should be allowed in."
i also call dibs on stoned.
> 85% of youth are ineligible, not 75%
I'm going to arbitrarily assert they got the population numbers wrong and not the percentages.
I will also assume that
"Mental Category V (the lowest 10 percent of the population), 9 percent."
is due to overlap with the other categories.
Be all you can be!
I may be trolling but recruit have to be dumb, dumb president, irak war.....
ok irak war ended and obama isnt dumb nor fanatic but military career choice are more frequents for right wingers, wisdom and inteligence aren't valued among them,
and they want war for america "greatness"
This isn't a problem - it's what humankind has been in search of - a way to end war once and for all!
Good old weed: keeping people safe from being cannonfodder in Uncle Sam's dirty little colonial wars since the 60s.
Too dumb for the military? How dumb is that?
Wired's umbrella term of "all potential recruits" is misleading, since I'm pretty sure you can enlist in the Army well past the age of 24.
My wife and I watched part of a documentary on protesting the military's ban on gay enlistment. A dozen or so protesters would show up, declare their intent to enlist, then notify the recruiter they were gay. Well done by the protesters and politely handled by the recruiter.
I turned to my wife and said "It sure would be funny if the recruiter said 'Hey, that's great! Congress repealed the ban this morning!' I'm sure most of the protesters were sincere, but I can't image a few folks going "Oh Shit!"
thats to say nothing of tattoo's that i heard could make you ineligible if vulgar and/or visible.
And to think of all the trouble kids went through in the 60's to avoid the draft. You don't need to go to Canada, just go to Jack-In-The-Box and eat one of those fried sourdough burgers several times a day for a few months, by the time your physical is scheduled you'll at least have a heart condition.
(Actually, that reminds me of the Ted Nugent draft-dodging story.)
Doesn't anyone in the military even think about the possible repercussions of an army full of felons? Do they think the military will "cure" them? More likely it will harden them into even better criminals.
Another sad example of the headless fatty phenom. Shame on you, Wired.
this should be tagged NSFW..ugh gross picture
If that had been a photo of an equally heavyset woman you'd be getting an earful of vitriol from the feminist crowd for saying that.
Is this bad news of good news? Remember the slogan 'what if they threw a war and nobody showed up?' It's the generals who push soldiers around like pawns, so what will they do when they run out of plastic to mold pawns with?
Just the feminist crowd? I'd hope it'd be anyone with manners or at least some sense of restraint.
I would hope so too, but nobody else seemed to mind when irco made the comment about a dude.
Yes, you can. They upped the age to 42 a few years ago in hopes that a shitty economy (that maybe GW knew would get worse?) and poor recruitment numbers would improve by increasing the age. Need to find that citation...http://www.army.com/news/item/2211 will have to do for now.
I suspect they like the younger recruits for their pliability. Freshly removed from your parents set of rules, swiftly ushered into the military's set of rules.
On a broader note: am I the only person in the US who saw youth obesity as an inevitable, foreseeable outcome of public schools cutting gym class out of the curriculum?
You didn't seem to object much either.
I actually didn't notice the comment until you mentioned it. I'm usually pretty good about reading most comments, but I was busy skimming for numbers to figure out who got the weird perception that the study looked at all Americans rather than a subset.
Then again, I don't know why I'd need to excuse myself ... I'm not an official spokesperson for "The Feminists." And I'm not sure anyone's ever really held that post ... I don't imagine it'd be terribly rewarding :P
Of course I objected, otherwise I wouldn't have called attention to the original comment. I used the example of an overweight woman to illustrate the ugly double standard often applied to criticizing different body types.
I know there is no official spokesperson for "the Feminists," but something tells me someone would have showed up to rip irco a new one if he'd described a photo of a heavyset lady as "gross."
No. You not only didn't directly address how inappropriate irco's comment directly, but you used it as a springboard to completely out of the blue backhand a group of people who, for *whatever reason*, didn't catch irco's faux pas. Maybe they skimmed over it accidentally (like me), maybe they didn't click on the article at all (!), or maybe they're busy out there stamping on men's testicles, who knows.
A simple "not cool" would have sufficed, but you brought some weird baggage along.
Why didn't you call out the people who actually read this and commented after irco but didn't mention it? That would have been the logical, feminist-or-not-feminist thing to do.
Fine, let me clarify the intent of my original comment.
irco (and toxonix, who seconded the sentiment): It's not cool to call overweight people "gross." Furthermore, I suspect you would have had the taste and good sense not to make similar comments about a heavyset woman because such comments are known to start flame wars about what constitutes a "healthy body image."
Its not only overweight or drugged up. I naturally dont weigh much, 95 lbs. As such I have been informed by a recruiter I am ineligible for service. Yep, you can be to light to serve your country, not to mention give blood or find pants that fit.... Screw big and tall stores, i have to get everything tailored.
that's wonderful! Weed is doing it's job!
There's hardly a verbal landmine I can't resist poking.
I'm not the most handsome devil in the world, so I understand the importance of accepting yourself for who you are.
But at what point does it stop becoming a self-acceptance issue, and when does it start becoming a Jesus-Christ-you're-going-to-die-horribly-if-you-don't-shed-some-pounds-pronto issue? It sounds like some people would say, "Never!" and I just can't accept that.
If we're all uptight about smoking being a national health issue, why not this? We'd never dream of allowing our kids to smoke, but we keep serving chocolate donut cereal for their breakfast like it's no problem?
I do not know if they allow felons to enter the Military. I've heard that you can get an exemption depending on the specific crime.
But the article you've quoted and linked doesn't say anything about felons.
You seem to have confused the words "charged" and "convicted".