Smaller lower class = Weaker military?

[BerettaCougar]

As we all may know (don't fight the truth) the majority of people who enlist, do so because of financial reason.

Listen to any recruiter, when listing the good, the first thing they will list off is the help with education. $$$$ or lack of it is what powers our war machine.

The question of this thread is...if the lower class were to go away....either by making more money or....let's just say they went away..to another magical land..and the nation was middleclass and up...would our nations military be as powerful as it is now? Would the free citizens be forced to enlist into the military for a few years?

 

[cajun47]

remote controlled(by humans) bots are the future foot solider and street cop. the military already has early models equipped with shotguns to belt feed weapons. we already use remote planes that can shoot missiles.

watch future weapons on the military channel.

 

[gc70]

Nope, the US military hardly needs the true "lower class." Our high-tech military needs sharp, smart young people to manage the sophisticated weapons systems in use today and in the future. Sure, there will always be a need for some menial workers, but that number has been declining for decades.

 

[BerettaCougar]

Funny, it's probably the lack of sleep.... I think you just called the lowerclass stupid?

Anyway... I'd like to see a study of how many of the over 3,000 troops who lost their lives in this conflict were part of the lower class.

 

[JuanCarlos]

Nope, the US military hardly needs the true "lower class." Our high-tech military needs sharp, smart young people to manage the sophisticated weapons systems in use today and in the future. Sure, there will always be a need for some menial workers, but that number has been declining for decades.

Completely and utterly wrong. We still need a strong backbone of combat arms soldiers, many of whom rarely operate equipment more complicated than an M16 or a radio. Maybe a GPS if they're really going wild.

The idea that soldiers are just there to man the fancy gadget and fight the war by remote control is what left us with too few boots to put on the ground in Iraq.

Also most of the flashier gadgets that combat soldiers do work with (the BFT comes to mind) are designed to be simple enough to use, particularly for the basic functionality they'll be expected to utilize. Think of it as the electronic version of the Claymore's "Front - Toward Enemy."


EDIT: Also, as to the OP, we've already covered this in other threads...the lower quintile doesn't really contribute a disproportionate number of soldiers to the military...if anything, they contribute a bit less (my off-the-cuff theory being than a lack of diplomas and disproportionate number with criminal records may have a bit to do with it...as in, people in the lower quintile are more likely to be disqualified from service).

I do, however, think that a nontrivial number of soldiers do join for economic reasons (even if they come from the second or third quintiles)...and that without the portion of our military that does join because they have no other viable economic options we'd not even be able to maintain the optempo we have now, which is already insufficient for our purposes.

 

[gc70]

BerettaCougar

I didn't call the lower class stupid, but many in the lower class either do not receive, or fail to take advantage of, educational opportunities. As JuanCarlos correctly observed, that often precludes participation in the military.

JuanCarlos

My experience with the military is three decades old, but even then the military wasn't looking for dummies. Some may think that average soldiers in combat arms don't need to be very smart, but I do not subscribe to that concept.

 

[cuate]

A modern military man/woman likely will be called upon to operate sophisticated equipment that is far beyond the capability of semi literate persons. And they are trained to function as a team, not as an individual which means immediate obedience and loyalty which may be lacking in your so called lower class. Which brings us to finances, many folks are a bit short of finances but big on good morals.

So how are you defining low class? By race? Religion? Social position? Disrespect of social norms or the laws and statutes guiding us?

Semper Fi

 

[JuanCarlos]

My experience with the military is three decades old, but even then the military wasn't looking for dummies. Some may think that average soldiers in combat arms don't need to be very smart, but I do not subscribe to that concept.

They don't need to be very smart. No, they cannot be slack-jawed retards...but seriously, most combat-arms MOS's can be performed by somebody of below-average to well-below-average intelligence. I'm not talking completely out of my third point of contact here...my first few years were spent in a combat-arms line company (armor, M1 crewman), and the rest has been spent in an infantry battalion (as a signal specialist).

The Army takes people with ASVAB scores of what, like 32? Maybe lower, with a waiver. I'm sorry, but you do not need to be very smart to score a 32.

A majority of Army MOS's can be performed by somebody of below-average intelligence with training...which they will receive. There's a reason CTT manuals, field manuals, battle drills, etc. are written at what often appears to be a 5th grade level in an extremely step-by-step fashion. Don't buy into the recruiting commercials; a vast majority of soldiers will never be sitting at the panel with all the screens, buttons, and blinking lights doing lord-knows-what.

 

[JuanCarlos]

So how are you defining low class? By race? Religion? Social position? Disrespect of social norms or the laws and statutes guiding us?

Just guessing, but I'm guessing that the OP was defining it by general socioeconomic status. Which (for the average 18-21 year old enlistee) includes income (particularly parental income), level of education (both theirs and their parents'), level of educational achievement (how well they did in the level they did complete), etc. Other socioeconomic factors that the DOD tracks are race, one or two parent home, parental occupation (not just income), etc.

A modern military man/woman likely will be called upon to operate sophisticated equipment that is far beyond the capability of semi literate persons.

No, they will not likely be called upon to do so. If they are, they will likely be provided with a manual that is indeed written for semi-literate persons. I'm speaking from experience.

EDIT: And not the experience of being semi-literate, since I just realized I stepped right into that one.

EDIT: To clarify again, the most complicated equipment the average soldier will be called upon to operate would probably be an M16 (maybe an M249, M240, or M2...not much more difficult), a radio (SINCGARS, possibly a satellite model), a GPS (PLGR), and possibly a touch-screen computer (BFT). All of which are designed to be used by people with limited skill, have manuals (for basic operations) written for 5th graders, and which (aside from the weapons) while possibly mystifying to a 50-year-old are slightly more intuitive to anybody who grew up playing a Nintendo...which includes most 18 to 22 year old recruits, even those that aren't particularly bright.

 

[gc70]

JuanCarlos

Even granting your ideas about the Army's combat arms (which I do not subscribe to), the combat arms are a decreasing percentage of the total. The military also includes the Navy and Air Force, both of which have increasing levels of technical sophistication.

 

[deadin]

Funny, it's probably the lack of sleep.... I think you just called the lowerclass stupid?

I got that feeling from your original post, or at least knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathers that aren't good for anything but cannon-fodder.

 

[Boats]

Yeah, no one in the middle class needs tuition help.

I guess not being lower class means making up stereotypes and calling them the truth because that is pretty sophisticated and no lower class peon would be capable of such mental gymnastics.

Personally speaking, I joined the Navy out of high school because I was bored and burnt out on the academic scene, not because I couldn't afford to attend the state university I was thinking about.

I am sure some of my colleagues that went directly to college still think that only the lower class folk join the military, but that would only be because they squandered an educational opportunity whilst actually attending.

One can be surrounded by world class instruction and libraries, etcetera and not profit by it at all. A penchant for stereotyping proves to be a reliable indicator.

 

[JuanCarlos]

Yeah, no one in the middle class needs tuition help.

Yes, rolleyes indeed. I'd say kids in the middle class are more likely to need tuition help. Kids in the lower quintile, assuming their high school performance was strong enough to get accepted into college, should have no problem whatsoever paying for it with the financial aid system that's in place. Most of the people I've known who have trouble paying for college are the middle class kids, whose parents often make too much and thus qualify them for much less in financial aid but who did not save enough to offset this. Basically the financial aid system assumes that your parents will help you pay for school, which unfortunately is not as often the case nowadays.

No, kids in the lower quintile may take advantage of the college money someday but they're more likely joining (assuming they're joining for financial reasons) for the signing bonus as well as the guaranteed place to live and food to eat for the next few years.

Even granting your ideas about the Army's combat arms (which I do not subscribe to), the combat arms are a decreasing percentage of the total. The military also includes the Navy and Air Force, both of which have increasing levels of technical sophistication.

One might suggest that this is part of the problem we've had for the last few years. Too much emphasis on whiz-bang toys for the Navy and Air Force, and not enough Joes with rifles to put on the ground where we need them.

Of course, none of this is relevant to the OP anyway since it's not as if low socioeconomic status is actually indicative of low intelligence. It can be indicative of a poor education in many cases, but part of my point is that the military is more than willing to train you for whatever they want you to do, whether it's carrying a rifle, driving a tank, tearing apart a radio, or messing with whatever those big complicated looking pieces of electronics are that they show in the commercials. So it's aptitude, not education, that matters.

And there are still plenty of jobs, from cooks to combat arms, where the only aptitude really necessary would be following orders and teamwork...neither of which require much intelligence.


But yeah, back to the OP...fails off the bat because it seems to make the assumption that only lower-class kids are choosing to join the military for financial reasons. Which is entirely untrue. It also assumes that a majority join for financial reasons...also untrue.

 

[Dust Monkey]

Used to be any service would take anyone, regardless of education. Try to join now without a High School Education. Some jobs require college.

Hey, its an all vol. service. No one points a gun to your head to make you join. If you are dumb enough not to research the service and dumb enough to believe all the BS the recruiter tells you, then you deserve what you get.