Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Debunking military myths

Boy on a Bike has an updated post about the Soldiers podcast on Counterpoint. In his post he discusses the continuing fallacy that the military is almost exclusively recruited from the working class. I agree with him on that point. In my decade and a half of experience, most soldiers are from middle class families. Most are educated to at least Year 10, and a significant proportion to Year 12. There are also quite a number with tertiary qualifications, and not just in the commissioned ranks either. It is not unusual for an officer to have fewer academic qualifications than some of his subordinates. Whilst there is some acceptance in the wider community that this is true of the ADF, there persists the perception that the US Army is made up of the poorest of America’s citizens who view the military as a way out of squalor and poverty. This is true in some cases. Information is publicly available from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in the US, that refutes the belief that the US Army is primarily recruited from lower income brackets. This graph shows a breakdown of the neighbourhoods that US soldiers are recruited from. It clearly shows that the lowest income bracket neighbourhoods contribute 11%, whereas 25% come from the wealthiest. The graph also shows a progressive rise in the number of recruits as the income bracket goes up.

But what does that information mean? It fairly comprehensively refutes the myth that military service is a last resort for people unable to forge a career in other areas, as well as the myth that it is primarily made up of people who see it as their only avenue of escape from abject poverty. It means that there is something else that draws young people of all backgrounds to service. Are they just too stupid, despite their family’s wealth, to have any other career? This graph would suggest otherwise. It shows enlisted recruits outperforming their civilian counterparts in the qualifying testing than their civilian counterparts in all but the highest and lowest brackets. It should be noted that 20% of the civilians tested scored in the lowest bracket, but the military representation is exactly 0%, although it probably indicates a recruiting standard more than anything else. Is the US military exploiting minority groups to attain recruiting targets? Quite simply no, this graph breaks down the percentage of recruits by identified racial group as a proportion of the whole US population. Variances between the two figures are minor, with the exception of Native American/Alaskan, which is nearly three times the general population. That is an interesting statistic.

All this ties in with an argument I’ve been having with a former Australian National Serviceman, about motivations for soldiers in combat. The data indicates that a vast majority of military personnel have alternatives to military service. This means that they have chosen the military, not out of desperation, but out of a sense of duty, or pride, or morality, or honour, or all of the above. It means that soldiers are not the tools of exploitative governments, but willing volunteers who see service as a reward unto itself. They will serve their country, be separated from their families and loved ones, and even sustain wounds or die in combat because they see it as the right thing to do.

There are those whose ability to separate soldiers from the decisions of their political masters rests on the premise that they are somehow pawns, that they were too poor to do anything else, or they were coerced into service. This negates their moral responsibility for their participation in a controversial conflict. That is not the case. Soldiers are responsible for their own decision to enlist, in the full knowledge that they may be required to do violence on Her Majesty’s behalf. They are the servants of the Australian people. They fully understand their role. They will conduct operations, violent and deadly if necessary and mandated, against Australia’s enemies as dictated by her elected government. Whilst the government are the elected representative of the Australian people, soldiers will do what the government tells them to. This is not a surrender of their own conscience or intellect, but the acceptance of their role as servants of the people.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listen several years back I knew a guy who did a Diploma of Education for Primary school teaching and was a former sergeant with many decades in the forces.

He turned out to be the best teacher in the year, the Dept sent him out to some of the worst schools (not ethnic ones) places where they had severe learning and behaviour problems, and he had them performing Shakespeare within a couple of weeks (and it wasn't even in the curriculum)! It was like Blackboard Jungle, by the end of term the mothers would all be saying he'd earned the kid's respect and worked a miracle. Women also loved him, sensing strength and reliability. And the Dept, which only hired the cream, snapped him up fast - you may hear all this type of anti-military talk, but when it comes to the crunch they know 'who you gonna call'.

Boy on a bike said...

You put it so much better than I could.

In my regiment, which was a University regiment, almost all the OR's were better qualified (academically) than the officers.

They were smart people (even if some were studying Arts). They knew what they were doing. And when Gulf War I broke out, they were keen to go.

Some went to Kuwait after the liberation to work as private contractors, and some were so disheartened at the idea they'd never see action as a Reservist that they went Regular. Two of my compadres even went as far as doing SAS selection (and I know one made it).

You might say they were keen.

1735099 said...

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." (Benjamin Disraeli)
Given the source of your data, the findings are predictable.
Take a look at these figures -
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/table1militaryrecruiting2007
They show that in 2006, the proportion of new recruits with a regular high school diploma dropped for every US state, with the exception of North Dakota. The proportion was also the lowest in more than 25 years.
Perhaps the study you quoted should have looked past the surface data and examined the trends.
Having said that, I'm an Australian, and am more interested in the situation on this side of the Pacific.
A sobering read on this topic is "Recruitment and Retention of ADF
Personnel", a senate report commissioned by the Howard government in 2001 -
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/FADT_CTTE/completed_inquiries/1999-02/adf_personnel/report/report.pdf
It shows a major ongoing problem with recruitment and retention in the ADF.
Put simply, the ADF hasn't met its recruiting targets during my lifetime.
If the youth of Australia believed that military service was a great and glorious undertaking, this would not be the case. You may wish to suggest the reasons. Again, I have no difficulty understanding the phenomenon given my own experience.
Can I suggest two solutions?
One would be compulsory service (not necessarily military) for all young Australians of both genders in their twentieth year, and that the deployment of any Reserve capacity created by this be confined to territorial Australia. This would leave room for an elite volunteer force, and with the principle of " one in - all in", the volunteer component might be more attractive.
Again, I object strongly to conscription to fight someone else's war (a notion rejected by Australian voters in referenda during the Great War) but am comfortable with compulsory service at home.

Richard Sharpe said...

Given the source of your data, the findings are predictable

Your information comes from an organisation linked to Move-On.org, and you’re questioning the bias of my stats?

Put simply, the ADF hasn't met its recruiting targets during my lifetime.

No, it hasn’t. Recruiting in Australia has always been problematic. Not that there aren’t young Australians willing to volunteer, but that they are never in the numbers needed. There are a number of reasons for that. Mostly, as I’ve discussed earlier, there are other options for young people. At present, the ADF competes against highly paid jobs in the mining industry and elsewhere. This affects both recruiting and retention. The current operational tempo also impacts on retention. It gets hard, especially for some key skill sets, to keep going back overseas with perhaps only 12 months between trips. Having “done their bit”, they are quite happy to move on and take up higher paying jobs. There’s nothing wrong with that, they’ve served their country and have every right to pursue their own career elsewhere. It creates a vacancy that needs to be filled though.

Negative news coverage of minor or beat up isolated incidents doesn’t help either. The first thing a news item will identify about any serviceman who gets into strife is his/her occupation, regardless of any relevance to the situation. There was a theme of a suicide problem in the ADF a few years ago. A number of soldiers had indeed committed suicide. It became big news. The truth of the matter is though; that the military is made up largely of men aged 17-35. The highest suicide rate in the country is in that demographic. The rate in the ADF is actually significantly lower than the national average, but because any suicide by a serviceman is newsworthy, the myth is created.

The problem that the ADF currently has in attracting Gen Y is compounded by a number of factors. The stereotype says that they are self-indulgent and not team players, not a good personality profile for military service. It is almost by definition a demanding lifestyle involving many sacrifices. I have seen examples of both the truth and the myth of the stereotype. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are also factors in recruiting. There are quite a number of young people joining up because they expect that they will get the opportunity to serve overseas. At the same time, the prospect of actually having to deploy overseas is discouraging for some people. That’s fine. They are probably not the sort of people that the ADF needs anyway.

All in all, Australia’s recruiting and retention problems are really just the demands of service life competing with a higher paying civilian job market that doesn’t make the same demands on individuals and families. It just means that servicemen do join up and stay in for a number of reasons, not really related to the standard supply/demand nature of the job market outside. It just adds more weight to the concept of service I outlined in the original post.

Boy on a bike said...

As far as joining for adventure goes, here are two of the verses from our favourite drinking song:

When I was just a spotty youth,
And tired of being ignored.
I suddenly said to myself,
Why are you so bored???
I wanted some adventure,
Some muscles, and some power.
So I went to my local ARES regiment,
And joined W-A-U-R.

I am a Weekend Soldier
And the world is scared of me
I’ve fought a million Battles, and
I’m always home in time for tea
Oh Yes, I am a Weekend Soldier
And the world is scared of me
I’ve fought a million Battles, and
I’m always home in time for tea

Richard Sharpe said...

Here's one from my early days.

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
Called for his pipe
In the middle of the night
And he called for his privates three

"Beer, beer, beer", said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
Called for his pipe
In the middle of the night
And he called for his corporals three

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left said the corporals
Beer, beer, beer said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
Called for his pipe
In the middle of the night
And he called for his sergeants three

Form three ranks by the left said the sergeants
Left, Right, Left, Right, Left said the corporals
Beer, beer, beer said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
Called for his pipe
In the middle of the night
And he called for his CSMs three

Charge that man said the Sergeant Major
Form three ranks by the left said the sergeants
Left, Right, Left, Right, Left said the corporals
Beer, beer, beer said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
Called for his pipe
In the middle of the night
And he called for his Subalterns three
Where the fuck are we said the Subbies
Charge that man said the Sergeant Major
Form three ranks by the left said the sergeants
Left, Right, Left, Right, Left said the corporals
Beer, beer, beer said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

You get the drift by now, the finale is:

Who’s been fucking my wife? yelled the Major
Me!, Me! ,Me! Said the Captain
Where the fuck are we? said the Subbies
Charge that man! said the Sergeant Major
Form three ranks by the left! said the sergeants
Left, Right, Left, Right, Left! said the corporals
Beer, beer, beer! said the privates
Merry old men are we
There’s none so fine in the firing line
As the Royal Aust Infantry

1735099 said...

In an attempt to lift the tone -

Locstat

Each man eases
Pack down, webbing loose
Flares his rationed smoke.
Each man watches
Steel point bamboo stabs
Avoids all other eyes.

Radio hisses
Skipper checks the map
Flicks his compass open
Squints at the scrub
Stink of sweat and fear
Our shared reality

Move now!
The signal curses down the line.
I heave my pack again.

17.03.70

And

VIET 1

I remember an Ektachrome daylight
In the Binh Ba rubber.
She sat, ochred feet resting.
That old, old woman who showed me
How to wear a headband.

She was unafraid of our scout
And his outlandish burst of Armalite;
It was more important to be comfortable.

She disregarded us, our costly armour
(All mud-green high-tech camouflaged nonsense),
Smiled and smoked a grudged cigarette,
Turned away and thought on soldiers and children.

Her eyes were as wise as Lao Tzu
And she quietly waited for our departure.

04.07.70