Post Iraq US Military

[Havoc345]

What do any of the serving or previously serving veterans think of what effect Iraq will have on the Military after it is over ?




I would like to know because I plan on enrolling in ROTC after graduation and wonder what the enviroment in the Military will be like.

[el borracho]

Hopefully it will weed out the fairweather recruits, the ones who join just for the college money and want to treat the military like a 9-5 job. That's unlikely to change unless the branches (mostly the Army) tightens it's enlistment criteria and toughens up it's basic training to pre-OIF standards.

[zonk]

Hopefully it will weed out the fairweather recruits, the ones who join just for the college money and want to treat the military like a 9-5 job. That's unlikely to change unless the branches (mostly the Army) tightens it's enlistment criteria and toughens up it's basic training to pre-OIF standards.

dude i second that, i have been in for close to 9 years and steadily have gotten more and more annoyed with the new soldiers coming in, they have loads of problems and it seems all the grief is being pushed down to the soldiers first unit for example we have a soldier who has 5 kids, how do they expect a private to pay for 5 kids...its ridiculous, we are running him back and forth to wic and food stamps office repeatedly. the army has lowered its standards way to far right now, but it has gotten better by allowing soldiers from the "old" army (80's and early 90's) to return to the fight and bring some hard nosed discipline back with them.

as for the people coming into the army for college money, i have seen a fairly large drop in college soldiers, smaller amounts of soldiers coming in just expect to do their three stateside then get out to go to college, we basically all know at one point or another we are going to have a long beach vacation. I have maybe 3 or 4 people in my shop who plan on getting out to go to college but all of them have served overseas and joined for a change of life for the most part. hopefully after we get a little more control in iraq we can get some serious changes made in the armed forces to try and better equip and train our soldiers


the main thing i see as far as adverse side effects from oif is our equipment is suffering, we have a load of light armored vehicles, but a shortage of armored vehicles, alot of stuff in iraq has been there a hot minute, we drew trucks that had been through 3 different units since being brought to iraq and they were ****e, spent the whole year trying to fix them, which eventually we did, but then they would break down again. parts are hard to come by and take too long to get there also, i see us having a hard time getting these trucks up to 10/20 standards. as far as gear/kit, i cant say even though i know the problems we are having due to opsec.

alli can say is that we are still doing alright, re-enlistments are up and i personally am pretty satisfied with my career in the service right now. i just think they need to quit accepting alot of folks with serious home issues or personal issues. we can only take care of so much

[BrianT]

After it's over? **** lots of downsizing, that's for damn sure. No more bonuses. Smaller budgets. Probably a bunch of pansies joining up and their asses getting chewed by someone with a combat patch/cib/cab/whatever.

[oregongrunt]

Hopefully it will weed out the fairweather recruits, the ones who join just for the college money and want to treat the military like a 9-5 job. That's unlikely to change unless the branches (mostly the Army) tightens it's enlistment criteria and toughens up it's basic training to pre-OIF standards.

The bulk of our military enlistees are there for the college money. What's the problem with that? They serve their initial enlistments honorably, then move on with their lives. I think it's much better than a draft military that would otherwise be required in order to obtain our operational manpower levels. Can you imagine combat units filled out with a whole bunch of guys that don't want to be there in the first place? To answer your question, I think that the military would be greatly downsized and underfunded until our next war starts.

[el borracho]

The bulk of our military enlistees are there for the college money. What's the problem with that? They serve their initial enlistments honorably, then move on with their lives. I think it's much better than a draft military that would otherwise be required in order to obtain our operational manpower levels. Can you imagine combat units filled out with a whole bunch of guys that don't want to be there in the first place? To answer your question, I think that the military would be greatly downsized and underfunded until our next war starts.

Nothing is wrong with the statement in bold. The problem is too many join that aren't willing to put in the extra effort required of being in the military. They have no pride in serving, no real respect for others around them. They show up and do a half assed job, then want to punch their time card out early. I'm probably not gonna be a lifer myself, but that doesn't mean I get free reign to slack at the expense of others.

[Wiseman]

The reason they are not proud is because there is no prestige in serving anymore. I mean being a COL used to have some clout in the 50s and 60s but nowadays it just means more responsibility, and this comes from a conversation from a retired SF COL I talked to. The civilian sector will not care about your service in Afghanistan or Iraq mainly because for them it means nothing. The reason it means nothing for them is because the HR guys have not served themselves so they won't understand the leadership experience you gained. I think the Soldiers you've seen are aware of that fact. The only thing the Army experience can give you is an additional soft/diversity factor on your university application.

[oregongrunt]

Nothing is wrong with the statement in bold. The problem is too many join that aren't willing to put in the extra effort required of being in the military. They have no pride in serving, no real respect for others around them. They show up and do a half assed job, then want to punch their time card out early. I'm probably not gonna be a lifer myself, but that doesn't mean I get free reign to slack at the expense of others.
I'm not quite sure what difference it makes about a person's reasons for joining, be it college, patriotism, getting out of a bad situation, getting a paycheck, etc. The people I've known have always been great assets and we don't go around asking why others joined, it's what they do when they're there. The ones who've stated that they want to go to college afterwards afterwards have been intelligent and hardworking. Why slam people who want to better their positions in their lives? Many of them come back in the service, both in the reserves and the active component. Are you saying that people without college degrees make better soldiers or something? I don't believe this to being a major factor in a person's abilites.