• Bye@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Can we do mandatory civil service instead

    Like that would actually help people, building infrastructure, national parks, gaining skills and trades, maybe helping reduce obesity

    • AllYourSmurf@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      This is a great idea. How about this: After high school, you do 2 years of civil service. Then you go to college for free. After that, you do 2-4 more years of civil service, depending on how much school you do.

      In the first 2 years, you grow up a bit, experience the real world, and earn a paycheck.

      Next you go to college. Get a good liberal arts core and a major in your area of interest. Then spend a couple of years putting that learning to use and developing your skills.

      • FlaminGoku@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        Well thought out and makes a ton of sense. It would also instill empathetic patriotism where you love your country because you helped make it.

    • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      For real. Could make it either. Give people buy in so they care aboutour country and communities. Be proud of our currently decrepit infrastructure.

      And for the love of… country, do not allow religious exceptions.

    • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I always said this is the answer for offering free education. Get a job after you’re done with school and then get a few years of real world experience. Then companies get people with training and experience right out the gate

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    5 months ago

    I joined the army for no reason other than I didn’t know what the fuck to do with myself. Hell I could’ve had a free ride to college if I’d known what I wanted to do.

    So it is from the perspective of experience that I will tell you, the quality of our military will plummet when absolutely no one gives a fuck about being there. There were gung ho motherfuckers who really wanted to be in the army and they were good soldiers. Then there were those of us who were just there to fuck off. You don’t want 100x as many of those. The military would just be absolute garbage.

    • SolidGrue@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I think this is the point, as much as it is indoctrination.

      It will have two effects, one of which is to water down the efficacy of the US military with a bunch of disaffected conscripts and the other to attempt a capture of the “activist” years for what will be the dominant post-Boomer voting block. It is to stamp out some of the more extreme progressive tendencies, like “let’s try not suck hot shit on everything from climate to racial equality to gender equality to economic inequality.”

  • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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    5 months ago

    The ONLY way I’d accept this is if it applied across the board to the rich and political elites. It won’t, so I’m definitely not going to vote for Trump.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Also women, I am glad the removed the selective service requirement for males to apply for FAFSA but equal rights means equal requirements for those rights.

      • ArtieShaw@fedia.io
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        5 months ago

        I’d be !00% on board with including women in the draft. Fair is fair.

        Personally - like I told the recruiter from Annapolis 30 years ago, “trust me when I say that you don’t want me anywhere near your military.” If I were drafted I think I could fail out of basic on my own lack of merit.

        If there were other service options, I could happily do other work. For example: Math, science, or language tutoring for teens. I could have helped out a kid who actually wanted to get into Annapolis but didn’t have strong enough academics.

  • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Trump fails logistics once again. Mandatory military service makes sense in smaller countries because you need a minimum number of people to make a military function. In larger countries like America, we wouldn’t even know what to do with that many soldiers. On average 4 million Americans turn 18 each year. Let’s assume we’re only taking men, and that generously half of them find a way out of service. That’s still 1 million new recruits each year. America has the third largest military in terms of manpower in the world and we have 1.4 million active duty troops. In one year we’d double the number of active troops. Now you need to pay, feed, house, arm, and train them, which all takes… more personnel!

    After seeing his absolutely bungled exit from Afghanistan, I have full faith in that administration to handle that transition

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Time to buy stock in ozempic and metformin manufacturers I guess. IIRC the average enlistment age American needs something like 6-12wk of pre-bootcamp to be in shape enough to handle bootcamp, and the military is handing metformin out like candy.

    • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Seriously. I finished OSUT for 11B school and half the company didn’t pass the tape test and that was in 2002. There’s no fucking way its not so much worse now.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Stories like this reinforce my suspicion that the US deserves to be declining the way we are.