Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

by chrisseaton • 4 years ago

485 576 4 years ago

jleyank2• 4 years ago

A fair number of people in the US, probably in other countries with similar programs, use the military as a means of funding their education at the uni or post-uni level. The govt pays for them, and in return there is a multi-year commitment in some form of the military. It's a good deal for both sides, although the risks were pointed out big-time back when Desert Shield became Desert Storm and a whole lot of EMT...MD's disappeared from neighbourhoods and reappeared in the Middle East. Something about the King's Shilling.

chrisseaton11• 4 years ago

In the UK you typically go to college (university in our terminology) before you join the Army, rather than after, but we do have bursaries to support some technical specialities if they commit to joining after they graduate. You can also do in-service degrees, up to PhD I believe.

zip1234• 4 years ago

In the US, all officers must be university grads. The enlisted ranks do not need a university degree to join. I would assume the same is true of enlisted ranks in the UK.

namelessoracle2• 4 years ago

The American military is a social welfare program in many parts yes.

hunterb1235• 4 years ago

It's not welfare, you put work in, it's a great route for many people. It set my entire family along their career paths.

I wouldn't really recommend it while warhawks are in charge, but generally it's a nice route to take.

h2odragon• 4 years ago

we emphasise explaining the context two levels up. I may tell my soldiers to raid a compound, but I would also tell them that the reason for this is to create a distraction so that the Colonel can divert the enemy away from a bridge, and that the reason the Brigadier wants the Colonel to divert the enemy is so that the bridge is easier to cross.

many organizations could benefit from more of that.

salawat• 4 years ago

That's how I do things with my group. How do you expect people to learn to see the bigger picture if you never admit or make them aware there is one in the first place?

matwood2• 4 years ago

The term is communicating the "Commanders Intent". It's exactly I how work with my teams. Giving the people doing the work as much information as possible, lets them make better decisions as all the little decisions pop up.

I wasn't in the military, and have always led this way because it seemed more effective and tbh, less work for me. Ideally I don't need to micro-manage anyone when they have all the same information that I do. If a big issue comes up, I trust my team to surface it me.

I've watched other managers deal in information (only sharing bits and pieces to certain people), and it just never made sense to me IMO. Everyone was always a little confused and things were never done quite right.

belfalas• 4 years ago

The term is communicating the "Commanders Intent".

There is a classic presentation from Mary Poppendieck on this, highly recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEMdjslEOI

ZanyProgrammer2• 4 years ago

I spend about a hundred days a year of my spare-time in evenings, weekends, and holidays, training my Squadron.

From an American perspective, as someone who was in our Army Reserve, that's an insane amount of time if you aren't a full time AGR. I guess he like's his big time Major pay and status, but if you're really dedicated to being a part time soldier, the higher you rise in rank the more you'll be expected to contribute in your own personal time.

HL33tibCe72• 4 years ago

I guess he like's his big time Major pay

I doubt pay is a factor for the author at all. A quick look (https://apply.army.mod.uk/what-we-offer/army-reserve/army-re...) reveals Majors in the reserves make £135/day, which is frankly nothing compared to what the author would earn in his job at Shopify.

ZanyProgrammer2• 4 years ago

Well presumably he gets paid at the normal active duty rate when he’s called up, or whatever the UK equivalent is.

advisedwang2• 4 years ago

The author glosses over my biggest question "Who might you have to fight?" with a informative "Queen’s enemies."

Might his squadron be called in to quash civil disturbance? Sent to the next Iraq? Is it reserved for defending the UK from invasion?

watwut9• 4 years ago

Afaik, soldiers don't get to choose. The queens enemies is pretty much good description, because his guess is as good as yours.

giraffe_lady2• 4 years ago

I don't think they were literally looking for an answer for this specific question, but pointing out how unsettling, at the very least, the lack of concrete answers is.

Anyway if they won't say it I will: signing up to fight without knowing who or why you'll be fighting is morally compromised at the extreme very best.

Modern economic powers like the UK do not use their militaries for self-defense. Someone able to write with his sophistication about the military knows what they use them for. In serving, and even in writing this piece of pro-military propaganda, he's supporting imperial violence.

ethbr08• 4 years ago

+1. Part of being part of a national military is subordinating your desires to the chain of command, which in a democracy usually flows to the highest elected official.

If one wants to pick and choose "right" conflicts, one shouldn't serve.

And ultimately... while I know HN has a pretty anti-authority bend... if you don't trust your government to deploy military power, what do you trust them for?

Which isn't saying that uses of military power in reality are always right or justified, but is saying that effectively every other government power rests on top of its having the authority to use force to enforce compliance. And a military is a major component of that.

voakbasda• 4 years ago

Every soldier has the choice whether to follow or disobey an order of dubious legal/moral consequence. If you are asked to kill babies, you sure as shit had better say "no". As a species, there is broad agreement that "just following orders" is not a defense for committing crimes against humanity.

amanaplanacanal• 4 years ago

I'ts likely whatever wild hair the politicians dream up. Which has always made that a "hell no" for me. Not willing to go murder people because some politician thinks it's a good idea.

scandox• 4 years ago

At RubyConf 2014 someone in the lunch queue asked what I did before I was in tech and asked me if I enjoyed killing babies when I explained.

To some extent your question is in the same category as the above. It decontextualizes the situation entirely. He lives in a democracy. He obviously believes that society is less worse than some visible alternatives. He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on what the democratic leadership determine. It's obviously possible for him to morally re-evaluate that at a later point: it might even cost him his life to do so. But his actions are morally considered whereas I think the question is morally thoughtless.

giaour2• 4 years ago

I don't know if this was your intention, but your comment comes off as extremely dismissive. If you are joining a fighting force, you absolutely should consider where and how you might be deployed should your unit get mobilized. There is a tremendous difference between doing an active tour of duty in a foreign country and being called up domestically, and it is fine to use your own moral calculus when weighing the two.

In the US, for example, part time opportunities are either in the reserves or the national guard, with the former having a foreign focus and the latter having a domestic focus. Plenty of guardsmen ended up doing tours in Iraq, but more recently, guardsmen helped staff overwhelmed medical facilities during the height of the pandemic.

pphysch3• 4 years ago

He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on what the democratic leadership determine.

This is, at best, a naive portrayal of how London and Washington start wars.

See the infamous Downing Street Memo [1].

In Washington, which often leads the rest of the West in military adventurism, Congress hasn't approved a military operation since 2002, despite a US-led coalition destroying sovereign Libya in 2011 and occupying Northern Syria since 2015.

Indeed, the 2002 AUMF authorized by Congress for the Iraq War is still in effect 20 years later [2], and used by the executive branch to dictate any military operation, bypassing Congressional approval.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...

AdrianB15• 4 years ago

You are mostly right, except the democracy part: that does not mean anything. Greeks had democracy 25000 years ago and it did not go so well, a certain very famous dictator was elected to power and a present day Russian president as well. On paper they are all democracies, in practice there are degrees of bad or fake democracies all over.

monocasa7• 4 years ago

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/98018...

The royalty is still very much in charge in the UK, actively using their constitutionally protected veto power over new laws.

It's only in the vaguest sense a democracy.

Edit: At least read the article. There's documentation that all new law including simple amendments gets passed by the royal family before being voted on, and the royal family asks for major changes of both removals and additions to these laws. Having a monarch who has to sign off on all law and actively participates in the writing of that law is not a democracy, full stop. As a british subject, you are only allowed the laws that the queen thinks you should have, demonstrably, by the uk government's own documentation on the matter.

jnwatson• 4 years ago

You can simultaneously believe in democracy and believe that ceding one’s moral agency to the whims of the populace is immoral.

We’ve had several recent examples of absolutely tragic uses of our military might. Voluntarily putting oneself in a situation where you have to “kill babies” or face serious consequences is itself immoral.

everforward• 4 years ago

But his actions are morally considered whereas I think the question is morally thoughtless.

I would disagree with this. Agreeing to fight an as-of-yet undefined enemy is abdicating any moral decisions based on who the enemy is, or how the war is fought. It is delegating personal moral decisions to the masses.

He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on what the democratic leadership determine.

This is basically exactly my point. The soldier doesn't get to decide that it's immoral to carpet bomb El Salvador; they've already agreed to kill whoever their leadership tells them to.

I find it unpalatable under my personal morals, because I believe there is no act with more gravitas than intentionally killing another human. No amount of societal cohesion or democracy can absolve a person of their personal responsibility for that death.

The basis of the question is "How can you morally justify outsourcing your decision of whether it justifiable to kill a person or not?", because many of us simply can't imagine that. Democracies have done a lot of morally unbearable things, from slavery to the rise of Hitler, so they're clearly not infallible.

This is basically just the Nuremburg defense with a veneer of democracy.

Gadiguibou• 4 years ago

I was wondering exactly this. I see the author is still here in the comments and I'm curious to know how he feels about this.

Does he get to choose whether he fights or not? Does he get reasonably and transparently informed about the issues leading to him being deployed?

Having to fight or kill is not something one should consider lightly. It's a responsibility that very few should have to bear and hopefully you should be as informed as possible about why you're doing it when making the decision to bear that responsibility.

pjc502• 4 years ago

Might his squadron be called in to quash civil disturbance? Sent to the next Iraq? Is it reserved for defending the UK from invasion?

Yes, yes, and no. His own explanation mentions Peterloo! He joined the full time army during the Iraq war (although doesn't mention being deployed). This is evidently not something he's curious about.

Ukraine has certainly highlighted the need for a defensive force. It's also made the question of whether all the fighting of the past 20 years has made the world safer or more dangerous - you could argue that Iraq re-established the precedent for aggressive war, and the fallout has made most of the muslim world less safe. Including Russia's war in Syria. Which they used as training for invading Ukraine.

InCityDreams• 4 years ago

He should fight the Grammar Nazi's: "A Hobby Gotten Out Of Hand"...very American(?), and terribly un-British.

michaelt• 4 years ago

According to [1] in 2004, when numbers were at their peak, reservists made up 20% of Britain's strength in Iraq; and 'large numbers' of reservists deployed in Afghanistan.

Seems to me that's the big downside to joining the TA - you're putting your life and honour in the hands of professional politicians.

(However, it also says 'many' reservists were deployed as 'individuals' rather than units - presumably meaning they were deployed by choice?)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Reserve_(United_Kingdom)#...

qiskit2• 4 years ago

"Queen’s enemies."

I can't believe people still fight for royalty. Ants fight their queen's enemies. Free human being should fight for themselves, their families, etc.

adewinter7• 4 years ago

Sure if you take the most hardcore literal interpretation. It's just short hand for "the enemies of the state" or "whoever my duly elected leadership consider to be the bad guys". Yes, people still willingly give up their independence for what they consider to be the greater good. Consider the entire united states armes forces and almost all government employees (in particular the folks who work for 3 letter agencies).

jpgvm3• 4 years ago

It's not meant literally. Even in Australia our armed forces are still "Royal" but this is just a vestige of the past. i.e our ships are designated Her Majesty's Australian Ship (HMAS).

What is means in practice is they fight for their country and its allies, just like any other military. While technically the Queen's representative in Australia (the Governor-General) is the chief of Australias armed forces (as defined in the constitution) this has never been used in practice (and would probably be ignored at this point).

adolph2• 4 years ago

Isn't using the literal meaning of that oath similar to claiming that an American oath [0] is to a sheet of paper? It's indicative of either ignorance [1] or lacking good faith.

0. https://history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_the_United_Kingdom

inopinatus2• 4 years ago

"Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians."

— Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister, March 1980.

Tepix3• 4 years ago

While reading, that paragraph really stood out to me. Why would you even want a queen? It's an expensive relic of darker times.

The whole idea of fighting for your life is completely alien to me. But then again i guess the people in Ukraine weren't expecting to be invaded for the longest time either.

Humans are animals.

jpgvm3• 4 years ago

The Queen basically serves as an extra head of state, a useful diplomatic figure and not much more. I don't think the UK monarchy is a net-negative but admittedly isn't all that necessary either.

I come from a military town so my view may be different to some but I believe you need to be able to fight when you are threatened and to do that you need to be prepared. It's very hard to be prepared if you don't have a military and competent, motivated and well trained people to fight in it.

tetromino_• 4 years ago

Or closer to more recent events, imagine signing a contract to defend your country from NATO or Chinese invaders, and then one evening receiving an order to kill your friends and relatives in Ukraine...

sputknick• 4 years ago

I spent five years in the Air Force. Posts like this are really helpful, a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college. My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders, and don't ask for feedback, and subordinates dutifully carry out those orders. None of those is true. There is a time to "shut up and color" but that is by far the exception. For the young people on here, I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you serving in the military was a positive experience for me.

umvi• 4 years ago

Some reserve units in the US are highly technical too. I did a cyber education course at AFIT when I was in Air Force ROTC and there was a particular reserve unit somewhere in Maryland I want to say nearish NSA that had a lot of super smart security researchers that came to guest lecture us including Raphael Smudge (creator of https://github.com/rsmudge/armitage)

tomcam• 4 years ago

I refuse to look up the name Raphael Smudge. I choose to believe it is the name of a villain in the third Sonic movie.

theturingnerd2• 4 years ago

Mudge is great. Super smart guy. He, too, left, rather tired of the mess. People like him are exceedingly rare and never appreciated.

scruple3• 4 years ago

I spent 4 years in the USAF and echo the same sentiment. Military service isn't for everyone but I had a positive experience and my decision to join remains one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

oaxacaoaxaca2• 4 years ago

None of that is true.

All of that is true about my Army experience lol. If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force. I agree that the military can be a positive experience and it's a good idea for some people, but the caveat with my endorsement is that you gotta carefully choose the branch and the job.

I almost chose linguistics, but for some silly reason chose mechanic and paratrooper, and wouldn't you know it I ended up with injuries causing me to walk with a cane in my 20s.

freedomben4• 4 years ago

you gotta carefully choose the branch and the job

yes absolutely. I'd even say "the job" is the most important part. There are Army jobs that are pretty good, and there are Air Force jobs that are pretty bad.

brynx97• 4 years ago

All of that is true about my Army experience lol. If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force.

Yes, it varies wildly based on branch, different units or battalions/brigades etc, and which MOS (job) you are. Or if you are enlisted or officer. I had a leadership change in my company over a period of like 6 months where all senior enlisted and officers changed, and it was like night and day different. Very micro-managed. It was like being back in Basic Training at Ft. Benning, insane. This ruined it for me, I chose not to re-enlist. I do really miss a lot of camaraderie, and every point in the "Why do I do it?" section of the article resonates very strongly with me.

I'd also chose Air Force or Navy instead of Army if I did it over again. Better training. More impactful missions I think for my MOS (Satcom). Not sure it would be available though, Navy and Air Force don't have as much "room" for folks then (2011) and especially now.

master_crab• 4 years ago

Your biggest issue was choosing to be a light wheel mechanic in an airborne unit. If you think survival rates for combat dropping troopers are bad, I'd hate to show you the actual percentage of HMMWVs that drive away from a drop zone.

YMMV, but I was Army too. And everyone I dealt with was an adult.

chaostheory3• 4 years ago

Everyone wants to get into the Air Force, so if you are applying to say subsidize your medical education, you’ll find that there aren’t many openings; so most people tend to opt for the Navy. The Army is the last choice for most people.

pyinstallwoes2• 4 years ago

So you’re allowed to choose your job? I thought it wasn’t guaranteed what interests you had vs what you are placed in.

notadev5• 4 years ago

In the Navy, MOSes are called Rates, so “choose your rate, choose your fate” was a common refrain.

blaser-waffle4• 4 years ago

If I could go back and do it again, I'd definitely choose Air Force

Aye, I hear that. Mixed experience, overall. I did signals intelligence stuff in the USMC and if I'd have to do it again I'd go back and be blue-water Navy.

lenkite• 4 years ago

Were these injuries in training or in War ? I thought that paratrooper training was made really safe nowadays with extensive basic training done by Sergeant Airbornes in the BAC course. (assuming US)

giantg23• 4 years ago

"My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders, and don't ask for feedback, and subordinates dutifully carry out those orders. None of those is true. There is a time to "shut up and color" but that is by far the exception."

Based on my limited knowledge, I think it's highly dependent on the leaders in the unit. I have a friend who always dreamed of being an naval aviator, went to the academy, and served for several years as a pilot. They are leaving due to the political BS of the organization and poor leadership by those in command. My relatives' experience back up similar experiences - up to and including the extreme example that an XO overrode a maintenance officer in order to bark orders that work needed to be done in a way that was contrary to documented procedures and resulted in loss of life (in training no less). Basically 9/10 leaders range from decent to excellent. That other 1 is the one that can make your life hell or get you killed with little to nothing you can do about it.

baud147258• 4 years ago

an XO overrode a maintenance officer in order to bark orders that work needed to be done in a way that was contrary to documented procedures and resulted in loss of life (in training no less)

did the XO suffer any consequences from this?

tekknik5• 4 years ago

They are leaving due to the political BS of the organization and poor leadership by those in command.

I have a brother-in-law (a chief) leaving 3 years prior to retirement for the same reason. Except it’s exactly the opposite. They’re not allowed to yell anymore, have a lot of limitations on punishment, and have to accept things like enlisted being late to work. They’re leaving because they think the military is on a downtrend and can’t control the high schoolers under their command.

YATA117• 4 years ago

especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

This is a often repeated myth. The upper class serves more per capita than the lower class.

chrisseaton11• 4 years ago

The man who did my job back in the 80s was a literal billionaire, putting on the same uniform as me for the same pay.

throwaway0x7E63• 4 years ago

sure, but not in combat roles

and while sure, those 6 or 8 or whatever out of 10 army people per 1 grunt do contribute a lot, they don't get shot at. no risk, all reward

losvedir• 4 years ago

Do you have a source for that? The nearest I could find was this[0] and it doesn't support your assertion.

[0] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military

coldtea• 4 years ago

Yeah, just not in any combat duty, except the rare ocassion. Combat is for the lower classes, preferably rural poor

tempnow987• 4 years ago

One issue with reserves, especially army. Through the iraq/afghanistan deployments BOG time was way up (ie, your service commit is not just that weekend a month). BOG = Boots on ground time.

In afghanistan Army deployments (both active and reserve) were far higher than other service branches.

My quick understanding is that normally they would like to target 1/4 BOG/Dwell time. So if you are thinking of reserves, particularly army, be asking, could I be gone 12 months out of 48, with potential for more?

blobbers3• 4 years ago

Is there data on how much real service one might be doing? As in incoming mortars, bullets flying over your head, in a place with IEDs or mines etc.

I feel like if I wanted to be put in that specific situation, I'd want a whole lot more training than a reservist.

routeerror403• 4 years ago

I signed up for 4 years for the US Army in order to finish college. Ended up doing 5 years for being stop lossed due to a deployment that got extended. When I joined I had 72 hours college under my belt, went in as a PFC. The reality of service is it is both the good as portrayed here and the shit experiences I know we have all had in the service. Would I change anything, no. Was it all cake, hell no. But I wouldn't change anything. The single best thing about service, that I think most people actually need in life, is the forced mega dose of reality, and how the military deals with it, especially when as a person you've refused to, and made it the militaries problem. Everything about my time in has helped me in my civilian life, except how to explain to people that they are denying reality.

vlod• 4 years ago

is the forced mega dose of reality
except how to explain to people that they are denying reality.

It would be great if you could expand on this.

wolverine87615• 4 years ago

I don't doubt your experiences, more generally the military is quite unreal - a world with very different cultures, rules, clothes, jobs; a world where you can exist without dealing with outsiders very often. There's almost nothing else that is quite so much a parallel reality. A lot of people leaving the military have trouble adjusting to real life.

antattack3• 4 years ago

forced mega dose of reality

Sounds dreadful.

gadders• 4 years ago

> My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders

I heard Petraeus (I think) on a podcast and he said the biggest misconception by civilians about the military is you can just order people to do things, and the biggest misconception by the military about the private sector is you can just sack people.

snerbles• 4 years ago

None of that is true.

Really depends on your AFSC (job code), unit and era. I was in one of the more infamous career fields (Security Forces), and the running joke was that we were "real military" compared to the rest of the "Corporate Air Force". A lot of maintainers I knew had similar sentiments towards other office-based career fields.

And that was only at a stateside base - the dynamic got really weird when we deployed on in-lieu-of taskings to relieve understaffed Army units in Iraq. Their Military Police had a similar level of intensity as us, but most of their rank-and-file in the role were augmentees pulled from other career fields without a law enforcement background.

jcurbo• 4 years ago

High five. 6 yrs in the USAF here.

wolverine87615• 4 years ago

a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college.

I think that's a serious problem. Americans have little idea how the US military works and tend to form extreme opinions, either glorifying it or villifying it - the former especially in the last 20 years or so but neither is at all healthy. When people understood the military - when we had a draft and a wide spectrum was personally familiar with it - we had popular entertainment like Gomer Pyle and MASH, and expressions like FUBAR and SNAFU. The military was seen as an enormous, absurd, powerful bureaucracy; people understood its limits and capabilities, and could make decisions about using it. Warfare was not glorified so much, but seen as the scourge it is, the last option, because many actually had experience of it. They also had skin in the game during a war, risking being drafted and knowing people who were. Now we fight the 20 year GWOT, send people on one tour after another, and many outside don't even realize there's a war on or wonder how it's going - but they do say 'thank you for your service' endlessly (a young relative in ROTC (US undergrad trainee program) was thanked several times wearing their uniform around town!).

Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits. In the US Army, 79% of recruits come from families which already have service members. [0] Consider that only a few percent of the population is in the military. Also, I read that the military does not recruit in - or puts very little effort into - major cities (though I can't find the cite now, and it was a few years ago). [EDIT: cite found: 1]

[0] https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-ex...

[1] From 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-i...

Terr_• 4 years ago

The flip-side is that with mandatory manpower for military adventurism, politicians and the military leaders who advise them have fewer reasons to temper their aspirations.

Part of the problem is the narrow population from which the military recruits.

I wonder if this relates to how military service (not civilian-contractor roles) appear to have a bit of an, er, "sign your soul over and hope for the best" mechanic.

I dimly recall some event where some state was offering a "Try it for a year" promotion for their National Guard service, and the guy on it ended up being stop-lossed over to Afghanistan or Iraq.

onion2k• 4 years ago

Posts like this are really helpful, a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college.

8% of the US population are veterans. 34% of the US population have a bachelors degree. That suggests to me that quite a low proportion of people use the military as a route to education.

exdsq3• 4 years ago

especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

Weird! In the UK the army is very cross-class

EdwardDiego• 4 years ago

a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve

Why do Americans need to be connected with the military though? What do you think the benefits of being more connected would be?

Many of us are disconnected from members of the constabulary, from members of the ambulance services, from members of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing, Pipefitting and Sprinkler Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada.

It's just how disparate careers go.

jjj123• 4 years ago

From a leftist perspective, it’s beneficial to have something like a draft because it forces all classes to confront the reality of our wars. Instead of how it is now when it’s mostly the lower class that goes to war.

The last draft we had was Vietnam, which was a PR disaster for the US military because middle class america saw (and experienced) the war for what it was: destructive and unnecessary.

I guess the difference is the sprinkler fitting industry doesn't result in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths the way a war does, so I don’t really care how the general public perceives it.

alexanderballou• 4 years ago

Voluntary participation in the military can be a great way to learn leadership skills that can translate to other occupations. No one should be forced to serve but it is possible that with the right motivation it can be beneficial to individuals and society.

dogman14411• 4 years ago

The DoD could certainly use some technical help, and the leadership from ex (or current reserve/national guard aka "R/NG") officers and NCOs in tech jobs benefits the tech industry.

The issue is this - the American military Reserve/NG is not very truthful, in my experience, with the time commitments. The marketing slogan is "a weekend a month, two weeks a summer" of time commitment, or something to that effect.

In reality, as a National Guard member you'll see commonly see month-long "activations" to go supplement active duty military training in Louisiana in February. You'll see 9 month deployments as R/NG are in fact part of the military and will deploy, and you'll go over there with a fraction of the training, funding and equipment but the same mission requirements as the funded, trained, and equipped active duty unit you replaced. This is somewhat akin to a FAANG hiring a suite of contractors and subbing them in to take over Google Search for a quarter or two. When your R/NG Soldier has domestic issues, you as the R/NG are on the hook to go help them quite literally. The list goes on... All for pretty bad pay, so-so healthcare, and a civilian employer who starts having an aneurism about the lack of managed expectations from you as it's not a weekend a month and some summer vacation time.

To bring this back to tech - the situation above is very well known, and it coincides with the military's efforts to heavily ramp up its technical expertise via "software factories," civilian corps, direct-commissions into elevated ranks at higher pay if you're a technical SME like the military does with civilian doctors, and reserve units focusing on cyber or software development.

Unless the military is able to fix that above, which anyone who has spent a shred of time in active duty military can confirm exists in one form or the other, the upside-down logic of R/NG service will keep good technical hires out... unless they really need the healthcare. The talented ex-military who go into tech stay out of R/NG efforts because of this, as serving actively would damage their career.

I hope it is different in the UK!

Edit - I will put a hopeful ending to this: the PLA's (CN mil) hackers go to "work" in an officer tower in a city, wearing civilian clothes, and (at the risk of speculation I don't enough about probably) work a 9-5 or if they're up late, it's for a mission. I say this with some background in the US version of ex-mil in tech: the moment the DoD and Federal agencies enable its technical hires to go to work in NY, Seattle, or SF in a fiber-equipped office building (or really just not rural West Virginia/North Carolina/Alabama/Mass), can meet at least 60% of private sector pay with some tax benefits perhaps, and gets sane about past civilian marijuana use re: getting a security clearance, they will have more technical patriots signing up than they can handle processing. It's really just this simple. The FBI was trying to hire talented CS students out of college with a great opportunity to go work in their brand new facility for tech that they built in.... Huntsville, Alabama.

akamia• 4 years ago

This is spot on. I had a coworker who was in the reserves and the commitment was significantly more than what they say in the brochures. He was often gone for weeks at a time. This made it really difficult for him to progress because he was never able to start AND finish any major projects. Our manager really tried to support him but going through a promo process without any good examples of execution is nearly impossible.

Even raises and bonuses were tough because our company's policy in these circumstances was to default their rating to "meets expectations". The company didn't want to penalize people for their service but it also meant he usually didn't get anything above the average rating. Middle of the road salary adjustments and bonuses. Not bad but not great.

dogman14411• 4 years ago

Ya, it's a real organizational management and national service tragedy.

So much of the technical modernization is getting pushed towards the R/NG units, and you can just see how that will go short/mid term. This is paired with a common refrain from vets in tech that the pay and lifestyle is great but the work is pretty empty, so they'd look to do something else. But, they also know the meaningless silliness they'd sign up for by going back into the R/NG, let alone active duty. So, they land in defense contractors or SV startups doing defense tech, and straddle a middle ground that's not much better. The good ones won't go to the big defense contractors either.

Therefore, given that the recruitment target is a populace that has lived fairly simple lives in duty stations around the US, are happy earning something over $100k and calling it a day, and have pretty firm moral views on the importance and value of service the inability to capture this population back into public service due to the lack of any form of sane incentives is maddening to watch. Even discussing the pay is hard - the general populace and their representatives in congress (I say this reading OPEDs via them, although it is def anecdotal) can't believe that $70k is too low pay for an engineer to leave private sector. I'll stop this rant here, but my dream is someone in power finally starts understanding it's only (1) pay, (2) work geography matching modern tech centers, (3) drug policies from the 1950's keeping the talent out in aggregate.

Upgrayyed_U• 4 years ago

Thank you for posting this. I'm a USAF vet and former reservist and guardsmen. Most of the rest of the comments here are FUD, but this one actually captures one of the biggest challenges of balancing military service with a developing career.

Here's the actual reality on the ground, from someone who's been in and around the military for ~ 20 years:

- A surprisingly high percentage of military personnel share views that would fit right in with the HN crowd. They are largely anti-war and anti-interventionists but continue to serve for a variety of other reasons. What you see on TV and TikTok is often a gross mischaracterization of who military people are and what they think.

- The military is an amazing escalator for the poor and lower middle-class. I know plenty of folks who started out as junior airmen making less than $25k a year in their early 20s who are solidly upper-middle class/rich millionaires in their 40s. Sure tech affords you the same opportunities these days, but that wasn't necessarily the case when the folks were getting started 20 years ago.

- As a rule, you generally have a lot of freedom when deciding which assignments to take as a reservist or guardsman, at least on the Air Force side. There are usually more volunteers for missions than their are slots available for people to go into. From my understanding, this is much less true on the Army side, where they will often deploy an entire unit on a mission. Anyone assigned to the unit most go, with few exceptions.

- The benefits are generally better than what the HN crowd are representing here. It's pretty easy to get a 4-year degree from a good (and occasionally great) school with little or no out-of-pocket expenses. You can also buy a house up to $650,000 in most areas (with adjustments for even higher cost-of-living areas) with $0 down and no PMI payment.

You've captured most of the downsides here. But for me, the biggest downside was that the military (at least during the time I served) has an extremely poor record of properly recognizing talent within its ranks. I worked with a lot of folks who could and often did land cushy jobs in SV. But back in their military jobs, they often were tasked with menial jobs that failed to take advantage of their talents. Yes, there are leaders that can and do recognize talent in their ranks. And the Air Force isn't nearly as hierarchical and directive as folks here would have you think. But rank still matters. I left when the delta between my "rank" in my civilian career and my military rank became to big to bear.

dugmartin2• 4 years ago

Just a small aside, Huntsville, AL seems to make perfect sense to me to build a new facility. It has a huge built in base as it supposedly already has one of the highest concentration of STEM majors in the USA and the cost of living is 55% lower than SF (https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...). If you are going to make government wages your dollar will go a lot farther there.

dogman14411• 4 years ago

It has the highest concentration of STEM majors because the govt keeps building and recruiting there. And I would add that I agree yes - robotics labs in high school, etc. Very solid STEM.

Issue is recruiting people outside the govt network. The exceptions prove the rule, but it is a very hard sell to get people from Big Tech who aren't Eric Schmidt or the newest CS grads from MIT to move to these places. Tell me the 23 year old who all things equal to include a comparable salary will choose rural AL over SF?

As a result, it perpetrates the issue of insular govt technical hires that heavily orient around weapon systems and similar, and are out of step with the new practices, which means less talent comes in and then dicy implementations like PlatformOne are the result.

If you want govt tech to be continually dictated by the clowncar of govt contracting and general DoD grift, then Huntsville makes perfect sense as you say. Space Force is HQ'd in rural AL for similar reasons.

There is a reason why Kessel Run (USAF) is in Boston, Army Futures is in Austin, and smaller elite units have outposts in SV.

Edit - and fwiw, the fact that the defense tech startups out of SV can hire those 23 y/o or ex-Google types without a lot of issue is a good indicator to track.

_tomasz2• 4 years ago

These are all valid points everything you said resonates with me.

I was in the US Navy myself and have been out for 11 years during which time I've finished a Bachelors (thanks GI Bill), will be finishing a Masters here shortly (also in CS), and have been in tech the entire time. While the pay is great and intellectually fulfilling, a part of me certainly misses having contact with a broader cross-section of society and of doing things that give you purpose.

I've been considering returning to a National Guard unit especially as I was born under Soviet occupation and the current events of the world highlight the growing threat of certain nations deciding to invade Eastern Europe.

throwawayafsp• 4 years ago

Your reasons for missing service and considering returning ring very true with me.

As someone who's been in tech for a decade now, the biggest obstacle to me is the 1-2 years of training and how that would affect my career and family. It seems harder for mid-career adults to enlist/commission once you're already in a career and trying to advance...

jwithington3• 4 years ago

Join the Navy reserves like me and find a unit that supports Sixth Fleet (Europe)! No need to go green (national guard).

_tomasz2• 4 years ago

hah, tempting but if I went back to the Navy reserves I'd try to go to dive school, but I'm well past the age for the Navy. For the Army and Air Force their max age is 39 waiverable so I have some time there though I'm too old to go pilot :(

schraeds• 4 years ago

A nation with a GDP smaller than California and a lot of wound licking to do from their most recent foray just to keep things in perspective.

agapon2• 4 years ago

And a lot of hate, and a lot of paranoia, and a lot chauvinism / imperialism, and lot of history of invading countries just because they can.

ylkjt2• 4 years ago

Is there anything similar in US for non-citizens? I am an immigrant (H1B) and would love to serve regardless of pay or other incentives.

Jtsummers• 4 years ago

You need to be a permanent resident or citizen to join the US military. As an H1B visa holder you can apply for permanent residence, but you wouldn't be able to join the military until you have received that status.

dubbel• 4 years ago

Maybe a volunteer fire department, Search and Rescue Unit or another local civil protection organization?

I'm volunteering at my local "Sea Rescue" station as a boat commander (not in the US). I feel like I'm getting similar things out of it, that are described in the article, namely

- leadership experience

- taking decisions under pressure

- contact with many different groups of society

- feeling like I'm doing something concrete to help my community

Even though I am sure Chris is a great guy and who is absolutely doing this for the right reasons, he mentions a "daring raid across the desert in Libya to rescue captured sailors". When you read about the dash, it ended with the "captors attempted to run away but were gunned down by the enraged British rescuers. The prisoners attempted to stop the killings but failed." Sure, that was a long time ago, but the guy commanding this raid still seems to be a fondly remembered role model for the squadron. Not because of the above war crime I'm sure, but they are overlooked in favor of a "daring dash". That is one of the issues I have with the military.

mardifoufs7• 4 years ago

That's pretty close to being a mercenary.

notch656a5• 4 years ago

I believe French foreign Legion, YPG, and possibly the Georgian National Legion (operating in Ukraine) accept non-citizens, although none of these are in the US. There is at least one foreign legion protecting Yazidis that does as well.

quantumwannabe• 4 years ago

If you have a green card you can enlist. https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...

jmyeet3• 4 years ago

So one of the things I like about Tiktok is you get exposed to something you normally wouldn't and it can be fascinating. One example of this I had an Air Force recruiter pop up on my fyp. This is obviously US-centric (as opposed to the article, which is the UK) but here are some things I've learned:

1. The difference between Reserve and Guard? Reserve is Federal, Guard is State (this was news to me);

2. Signing up for the Guard or Reserve is typically a 6 year commitment;

3. Your commitment begins when you sign up but you can defer your enlistment for up to a year;

4. You can sign up having completed your junior year in high school and defer training until after you graduate (which I think you have to anyway) but that's 1 of your 6 years down already;

5. Reservists get tuition assistance of up to $9,000/year;

6. Assuming a 4 year college degree and early enlistment, you can graudate with 5 years of your 6 year commitment done;

7. For one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year, you typically get $250-300/month (plus active duty pay where appropriate);

8. You also get medical and dental insurance.

As ridiculous as the US college system is in terms of cost, I'm happy things like this exist to at least give people more options. If you go to college, the above can amount to $50,000 plus benefits over a 6 year period.

mschuster91• 4 years ago

As ridiculous as the US college system is in terms of cost, I'm happy things like this exist to at least give people more options.

The only people I want in an army are those who have freely and independently chosen to join the army and who have been psychologically and physically checked to be fit for service. The motivation of a soldier should exclusively be to serve their country, not financial or status (e.g. citizenship) gain.

People who have "chosen" because they have no other perspective to rise in life later-on should they survive their service or because they were pressured to do so by their family or friends have no place in the armed forces.

An army should strive for excellence - Putin's troops are the current showcase for entire generations to see what happens otherwise.

yywwbbn• 4 years ago

‘ The motivation of a soldier should exclusively be to serve their country, not financial or status (e.g. citizenship) gain.’

No successful professional military has ever worked like this. Basically you want a an army comprised mainly of fanatical nationalists whose only purpose is to ‘serve their country’ (whatever that means). Hate it to break it to you but such a force would more closely resemble the Waffen SS, rather than the citizen militias of colonial America or ancient Greece. A modern professional military should mainly made up from balanced and educated professionals to be effective. People like this usually have other choices in life and thus need certain incentives to join. Not saying serving you country shouldn’t be a part of it, but for most such people that alone is not enough.

For that you either need to decrease the general size of the army dramatically or find other ways of ‘motivating’ new recruits to ‘join’. The second options has not historically resulted in anything resembling ‘ excellence’ outside of ultra-militaristic, jingoist societies.

toomuchtodo6• 4 years ago

This isn't a positive. It is a tragedy that these services (education, healthcare) are difficult to obtain without military service in a supposedly developed country.

dogman14411• 4 years ago

I'd argue it's a positive in that its the only route out currently for people born in certain zip codes, such that with 2 years in active duty, your whole life trajectory can change (free college, "honorable military service" stamp on your resume, so on - I'll spare the recruiting pitch). The local high schools aren't doing it, the government isn't doing it, but the military will. But...

The tragedy is that this is the only route available for people born in certain zipcodes. The dynamic of needing to volunteer to discernibly bump up the odds of your own gruesome death in order to get the only decent fair deal on succeeding in the civilian world is everything that is wrong with the US at the moment.

abduhl3• 4 years ago

You’re just complaining. The world exists as it does now and broad generalized complaints like yours are often used to support positions which actively harm those you purport to help.

Say we take away the military on-ramp to class mobility. What can we do for those trapped in poverty whose only ticket out was enlistment? Your answer should be focused on what we can practically do as the world stands now, not in your fictional utopia where militaries aren’t necessary and education is free. The military is offering “good” and you’re looking for “perfect.” We all know the saying.

simulate-me3• 4 years ago

Plenty of developed countries have compulsory military service (South Korea, Israel, Switzerland). If anything, we're lucky that it's a choice.

brimble• 4 years ago

The US military is largely a blue-collar jobs program that lets you opt in to service in exchange for something resembling standard European social benefits (retirement, healthcare, housing, education). Which sucks for a bunch of reasons, including that some are excluded from eligibility, but it's what we've got. That's obviously not the whole reason we have a military, or even close to it, but it's become a big part of its role in society.

As far as I can tell, the closest we have to a white-collar jobs program is the health insurance industry and insurance-related jobs elsewhere. Keeping millions employed while being a drag on the rest of the economy.

antattack3• 4 years ago

Universal healthcare or free college education would lower Army recruitment for sure.

barbazoo3• 4 years ago

It's nuts that some people have to consider joining the military to be able to pay for tuition and/or to get health care. I have nothing to contribute other than expressing how soul crushing this seems for someone outside the US.

robertlagrant2• 4 years ago

It is a tragedy that these services (education, healthcare) are difficult to obtain without military service in a supposedly developed country.

Don't be silly. Education is not difficult to obtain without military service.

oh_sigh2• 4 years ago

Is education difficult to obtain? America is the #6th most educated country in the world, when viewed from the perspective as percentage of population having at least some tertiary schooling:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/the-10-most-educated-countri...

pxmpxm2• 4 years ago

"difficult to obtain without military service"

This is factually incorrect - you literally can get $400k in education of your choosing at the tender age of 18, which is why we frequently discus articles revolving around student debt for degrees that don't pay anything. There isn't anything even remotely equivalent when it comes to money access of this sort (try getting a $400k mortgage with zero income and zero assets )

letitbeirie• 4 years ago

This isn't a positive

It's a silver lining. It's shameful that the need exists at all, but it's definitely a positive for the people who are getting mostly screwed by the status quo but would otherwise be getting completely screwed.

jmyeet3• 4 years ago

I really hate this kind of argument because it's an argument that springs from privilege and entitlement.

We can sit around and say that education should be free and accessible and that would be nice but it's not the world we live in. The fact of the matter is that life isn't fair and some people get substantially better or worse starting hands.

Yet you would seemingly rather remove opportunities from those with the fewest options because of how the government chooses to use the military.

It's pretty easy to say that others with fewer options than you should make sacrifices that that are at best symbolic when it requires no such sacrifice from you.

What are you doing to effect change? I guarantee you that influencing the government that sets policy is going to be a whole lot more effective than a few disadvantaged people sitting out a Reserve program where they might otherwise just be doing admin work.

imgabe3• 4 years ago

Wait until you hear about all the developed countries that have compulsory service for everyone. (every male at least)

refurb5• 4 years ago

Reservists have normal jobs since they only report a few weekends plus 2 weeks a year.

People who can’t afford college or healthcare ain’t going into the reserves to get it.

foldr2• 4 years ago

You also get medical and dental insurance.

This reminds me of a point Michael Moore made in Sicko – that Americans are generally fine with government spending if it's directed at the military. As he put it, America could probably have a national health service as long as the doctors and nurses wore camo.

zdragnar2• 4 years ago

It's a pretty lame point. We're fine with spending on members of the military because, at any point, they may have to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. National defense isn't something you can prepare for after you need it.

There are valid arguments to be made for society banding together and providing health care for everyone. "but the military gets it" isn't one of them.

speed_spread• 4 years ago

"We'll fill those cavities (aka teeth terrorists) full of lead!"

dugmartin2• 4 years ago

IIRC, Bill O'Reilly wrote about this idea while he was getting his MPA from Harvard. Create a universal national health service run by the Surgeon General where all the doctors wore military uniforms. This would radically reduce any big government scare messaging from financial conservatives.

lm28469• 4 years ago

I'm happy things like this exist to at least give people more options.

Risking getting killed and having to kill people to pay for your education and being happy about it is up there in the list of "only in America"

ksec• 4 years ago

Most people have some big misunderstandings about what the Army is like, and some have a very negative reaction to the whole idea.

"Some" in Tech is likely an understatement. At least pre Ukrainian Russia War era.

I wonder, if there are the anything from compiler optimisation that could be applied to running an Army and vice versa.

The closest thing I got to the Army was CCF. Something I wish my kids could experience as well.

shantnutiwari• 4 years ago

First of all, nobody ever shouts ‘sir yes sir’.

Yeah, that myth comes from Hollywood's portrayal of US Marines-- I dont know if actual US Marines are like that, but that's certainly how Hollywood (and most fiction) portrays them.

Bahamut• 4 years ago

In the Marine Corps you never do a sir sandwich - that gets corrected in boot camp or beforehand for the few that do do that.

0des• 4 years ago

Don't ask don't tell was a long time ago. Sir sandwiches are fine.

chrisBob• 4 years ago

As an Army officer, I didn't say `sir yes sir` very much, because most people don't like a sir sandwich. I did say "Hoorah" (Who-Ra) a lot.

robwg• 4 years ago

The closest accurate Hollywood portrayal IMO would be the series "The Pacific". As far as shouting something similar to "sir yes sir" that typically can be found from boots(folks who havent deployed yet).

omaranto• 4 years ago

Are people that use the word "explainer" just unaware of the word "explanation"? Also, what do those people call someone who explains? "Explainerer"?

AdrianB15• 4 years ago

There are multiple dialects of English language and the author is definitely not from California.

Imnimo2• 4 years ago

I think a country absolutely must be able to fight to defend its people and friends.

Does this really feel like an accurate description of what the British military has done over the past, say, 20 years?

simonh7• 4 years ago

Yes it does. Was Afghanistan better off before the pull out, or now under the Taliban? Iraq is a mess, sure, but at least nobody is gassing whole cities and we can be immensely proud of the liberation of Kuwait although that was more than 20 years ago. Right now we are providing vital military assistance to Ukraine, and I wish we were doing a lot, lot more.

The failures were political ones. Militarily the army did the job it was given efficiently, ethically and professionally. I'm not saying it's perfect by a long shot and in war mistakes often mean deaths, it should be held to account where necessary, but what organisation is flawless?

basisword6• 4 years ago

> Was Afghanistan better off before the pull out, or now under the Taliban?

Why is that the comparison? The comparison should be was Afghanistan better off before we invaded in the first place. And committed war crimes. And radicalised a tonne of people who then came into Europe to murder civilians. You'd have to do mental somersaults to justify the Iraq + Afghanistan wars and think they were the right choice.

Imnimo2• 4 years ago

The failures were political ones.

When you sign up to join the military, you are signing up to enforce those political decisions. You are not only signing up to "defend its people and friends." I would find this sort of article much more convincing if the author took an honest accounting of what it is that a military does. He has chosen to enable and participate in all aspects of British military activity, not just the patriotic soundbite version.

Aunche• 4 years ago

Iraq is a mess, sure, but at least nobody is gassing whole cities

We didn't invade Iraq because of Saddam's genocide. That occurred while Iraq was allied with the US against Iran. The sudden concern for the Kurds was simply to manufacture consent for the war.

mardifoufs7• 4 years ago

I'm sorry but this is pure apologist rhetoric. It's so hand wavy that it puts even russian propaganda war justification to shame. "I bet they are doing better, if we ignore the 2 decades of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths!" is not a great argument, especially since you ignore the even more repulsive intervention in libya.

throwaway7436• 4 years ago

So it's okay that the US military is used as the world police?

Neither the war in Afghanistan nor Iraq were justified. Not to mention Saddam was an ally of the US for some time. US even gave Iraq the chemical precursors for their chemical weapons program.

Yes, what's happening in Ukraine is awful, but by this logic, why has the US been supporting the Saudi Arabian regime in its war on Yemen? Why isn't the US providing humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen? There's political motives for nearly every recent conflict the US has gotten involved in. It's not for moral reasons. The "moral reasons" politicians give are sales pitches to gain support.

We've got our own problems at home. The taxpayer money thrown away on contractors and needlessly getting involved in these conflicts could have very well gone towards funding universal healthcare and higher education programs for the public, rather than giving folks the stick and carrot of putting their life on the line for such "benefits".

They're "benefits" because they're walled off in our country, whereas elsewhere they're covered by taxes. Providing them to each citizen from day 0 would only boost productivity/GDP in the long run, if money is the concern. But it's likely there's an awareness of that, and a worry of a healthy and educated population getting ahead, which would disincentivize people from joining the military.

A government that doesn't provide its people with, at the very least, healthcare, and uses healthcare (and education) as a means of drawing in folks to put their lives on the line in its military for selfish and offensive purposes, does not give two shits about its people. Its interests are morally devoid and elsewhere, not with its people nor the people of other nations.

hugh-avherald2• 4 years ago

To be fair, a country that is able to defend its people is unlikely to actually ever need to. And the more able the country is, the less likely it will need to defend itself.

Justsignedup• 4 years ago

The saddest thing is the #1 reason why people join the military in the US is financial or college assistance.

Shows why the US is so hesitant to provide UBI or Free college. We'd lose one of our biggest recruiting tools.

If the US Military can appropriately show why people should be enthusiastic about joining, I'd be much more positive about it.

Also I have ex-military friends... Getting that college funding isn't easy. The health insurance they provide for you is sub-par (I know a lady who had Indemetriosis, and was completely untreated and in excruciating pain for years because... they just don't understand female anatomy at the VA hospitals apparently)

freedomben4• 4 years ago

college is definitely a top reason people join, but anecdotally I don't think it's number 1 (though any data on the subject would be interesting).

It's also very complicated because there are almost always multiple reasons at play, and usually they change as you go. I joined because I was homeless and floating around from crappy and physically demanding jobs, and I wanted to GTFO of where I grew up. After a couple of years though, college became the most important reason to me.

rhinoceraptor• 4 years ago

The real number 1 reason is to get a 96 month loan on a Dodge Charger :)

loxs2• 4 years ago

The most bizarre thing in the article for me (as a total layman) is that linked Jackal vehicle[1]... It's an armored vehicle which does not protect the... crew??? Why is it armored at all? Why are they not just using a Toyota Hilux instead of this 7 tonne monster?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackal_(vehicle)

pjc502• 4 years ago

It is basically a big technical, isn't it?

It appears to be the replacement for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatch_Land_Rover , which got its name from the use by military units grabbing civilians off the street in Northern Ireland.

loxs2• 4 years ago

Yeah, but I don't get the concept at all... why use this kind of vehicle, why develop it at all? What is the benefit of having the crew so exposed and how is it a good idea at all?

evancox100• 4 years ago

Your comment is not really worth responding to, since the article you linked addresses all your points/questions, but the armor is on the bottom to protect the crew from IEDs.

basisword6• 4 years ago

> I originally joined the British Army full-time after finishing my masters in computer science at Bristol in 2007. At the time, the campaign in Afghanistan was in full-swing, and the campaign in Iraq was still running. All my peers were going into office jobs in London but I still wanted more fresh air at that point in my life.

I just cannot understand this mindset. "I wanted to see the world so instead of taking a gap year I thought I'd go to the middle-east and do a bit of invading".

AllegedAlec2• 4 years ago

You're exactly the kind of tech person he felt like needing to explain this to.

basisword6• 4 years ago

I don't see what 'tech person' has to do with it. Personal opinions on the military are pretty basic ethical decisions.

mardifoufs7• 4 years ago

In my case it's more me being a muslim that who saw first hand the effects of what is being "handwaved" in this very thread. I dont think that has anything to do with me being in tech.

lisper• 4 years ago

To say nothing of the fact that the air quality in war zones is not particularly good.

adewinter7• 4 years ago

I think that's a pretty disengenous take on the author's thought process. If you read the entire article it's clear that he believes in the concept of defending his country and trusting his leaders to correctly decide how that defense is carried out. If that decision is to send him to the middle east then so be it. It very clearly is not about him wanting to "do a bit of invading."

Maybe you think the middle east invasion was the wrong call. Totally fair. But you should blame the correct actor for that call, and it certainly is not the individual soldier.

basisword6• 4 years ago

> But you should blame the correct actor for that call, and it certainly is not the individual soldier.

He joined while that war was ongoing (2007). I think it's perfectly fair to judge him in that case when the choice to take part was 100% his.

georgeecollins• 4 years ago

> so instead of taking a gap year I thought I'd go to the middle-east and do a bit of invading".

The fault of bad wars is partly in military leadership but much more with politicians and voters. To blame anyone who serves for the choice occupy Afghanistan is misplaced. And who do you want to have in the military of a democracy? Only people from a particular class or culture? I'm glad that someone from the Hacker News crowd is doing this.

howmayiannoyyou4• 4 years ago

bad wars

All wars are bad, but if you meant unsuccessful then until the Taliban again starts harboring terrorist intent on attacking the United States its a bit early to label it a 'bad war'. Similarly, Iraq is no longer a threat in the region and is instead a sink hole into which Iran must expend blood and treasure to maintain influence. Perhaps in time one or both can be clearly viewed as unsuccessful, but its not yet clear that is the case.

freedomben4• 4 years ago

Your privilege is showing. Most people can't afford to take a month off, let alone a year. Paying for world travel is out of the question.

basisword6• 4 years ago

In the UK lots of people max out their overdraft and spend some time travelling after uni. They then pay this back when they get good grad jobs - e.g. like the OP.

Regardless - if you cannot afford to do some travelling after uni, spending time in a war zone is hardly a sound alternative.

uxp1002• 4 years ago

That makes no sense in context on the author's statement, which was essentially saying, I did this because I wanted to, NOT because I had no choice.

howmayiannoyyou4• 4 years ago

a bit of invading.

The world doesn't work the way you wish it did. Atrocities are prevented and security is maintained through action and credible deterrence. This requires men and women willing or conscripted into service. Would be great if none of this were necessary, but it's simply not how the world works and there is ample historical evidence of what happens when a country lowers its guard. As I type this Germany is coming to grips with its own wishful thinking regarding Russia and its energy and food supplies.

Tepix3• 4 years ago

There is ample historical evidence that having an army to send into war makes the world less safe, not more.

If the US army in particular had a clear conscience, why would the US oppose the International Criminal Court in The Hague? Telling your soldies that their war crimes will go unpunished is a great way to invite them.

PoignardAzur2• 4 years ago

The author is... very nonchalant about the ethical aspect of his calling.

From the sanitized language (the "destroys the enemy through mounted close combat" euphemism kind of glosses over the killing part of said combat), to the almost smug dismissal of pacifists, I'm seeing a lot of rhetoric being put into deflecting the criticisms of the military without actually addressing them.

Like... the author mentions the Peterloo Massacre, the Boer War, and the Iraq War, and completely blows past them, and then goes on to explain how good the military is at building character and stuff. And I have no doubt it's true, but somehow I don't think Iraqis were especially thrilled to know the foreign troops occupying their country were from socially and economically diverse backgrounds.

Speaking as someone who supports my own country's government, mostly supports my country's military involvement abroad, and would enroll (hopefully) without hesitation if our territory were invaded, I've considered taking military-related jobs in the future, and I still might.

But if I did, it would be because I decided the positive outcomes of France's military interventions outweighs the negatives; which, given our past exactions, and the current state of Lybia, is... not at all obvious. My moral calculus certainly wouldn't be "on the one hand we're destabilizing poorer countries for cheap oil, but on the other hand the army sure pushes me out of my comfort zone and that's great".

adewinter7• 4 years ago

This article was about the author's reasons for joining the military, not sure why you expect it to also be about the detailed history of a particular unit or the general ethics of being a modern soldier?

PoignardAzur2• 4 years ago

Because ethics aren't something you hang up on a rack when your shift starts and pick back up when you go home.

If you saw someone post about all the cool technical aspects of their job designing a marketing app for a tobacco company, your first reaction might be "Wait, is this really something you should be working on?". At least it would be mine.

And if the author included bits like "Tobacco companies need apps too" and "I've heard extremists ask me if I liked poisoning children" and "If it wasn't me, it would still have to be someone", I would question how much they have really thought about the ethical aspect of their work.

Yes, I expect someone who joined the military and wants to convince me that's a great thing to do and I should do it too to spend a bit more time on the general ethics of being a modern soldier.

knd775• 4 years ago

I'm not addressing the rest of your post, but pacifism is absurd and pacifists should be dismissed. Pacifism allows those who are not pacifist to impose their will on others.

jokethrowaway• 4 years ago

That's great and I'd love to defend my country.

I don't care about doing missions somewhere else in the world though. War is mostly killing random people just because politicians decided so and it would be impossible if stealing money from people through taxes wouldn't be so widespread, easy and accepted. The cost of war is always socialised and it's huge.

I think the ideal way to defend society is to teach everyone how to fight, allow people to own guns and have a small army branch to do monitoring / deploy army leaders to assemble people when the enemy is approaching and organise local combat. There are tons of things to consider (think about airborne / naval defense) but that's something we can figure out, without having to steal profits for people and funnelling in war machines that are rarely used for defense. I'd be happy to chip in money to make sure we have anti-air weapons to fight the neighbouring country fighter jets, in case they invade us.

Instead what's happening is that the government spend my money, buy weapons and then give them to the Taliban, another country or use them to go and kill people in the middle east - without me having any say on the topic. The top-down approach of the army and its reliance on corrupted governments makes it so that soldier are, most of the times, just an armed gun for the mafia you call government.

JoeAltmaier2• 4 years ago

There's a difference between being willing to die defending your country, and willing to kill to defend yourself. That's critical to understand. Until then, I suggest sticking to paintball.

JoeAltmaier2• 4 years ago

My son was Army Reserve (US), did a tour in Iraq back in the day. He reported that Reservists didn't get the respect of regular Army, at least in his unit. They got shot at, shot back, did convoy duty, got blown up (twice). But somehow not 'real soldiers'. His unit got no commendations or promotions from the regular army base commander.

He returned, still had enlistment period left, went straight to the Army Recruiting office and signed up regular. Went well after that - at least the career part. He eventually got a medical discharge for his accumulated injuries. At the time was at Ft Benning, driver for the Sgt. Major of that base, a Sgt. himself.

Got a Mechanical Engineering degree from state college, GI Bill, and is marrying a doctor. So all's well that ends well.

scruple3• 4 years ago

The treatment of reservists, in OIF specifically, across the board -- from active duty service members all the way up the chain to top military leadership and the GWB admin -- was disgraceful. I saw a little bit of it first hand when I was enlisted. FWIW, they're all real soldiers in my eyes.

giantg23• 4 years ago

The odd part of that is that many of the reservists were active duty, including combat veterans, and then moved into reserves. So it's not like they haven't seen stuff.

2OEH8eoCRo04• 4 years ago

In Marine Infantry School we would have regular brawls with the future weekend warriors it was quite funny.

sennight2• 4 years ago

It was well deserved in my experience. Toward the end of my deployment, statistically the most dangerous period due to complacency setting in, we had to take over an AO that the Army had given to reservists for a year. They'd been reporting for months that all was quite, so we were looking forward to an uneventful weeklong left-seat/right-seat transition. They no joke met us going the other way as our convoy moved into the old British airfield they were using as a FOB, and we soon found out why they were so desperate to put distance between us and themselves: everything that could be wrong was wrong. Total indian country, their patrol routes got tighter and tighter as they'd just never return to an area they got attacked, they hadn't left the FOB for a month. Piles of unmarked UXO, serialized weapons hidden in elephant grass... a total nightmare. The first few days we got a lot of direct fire engagement on patrol, which NEVER happened - but the locals quickly figured out that, unlike Army reservists, infantry Marines take that sort of thing personally - and they fell back to the familiar coordinated IED attacks.

pram• 4 years ago

As someone who did convoy and “force protection” (sitting in a guard tower) in OIF/OEF I don’t think this is a reserve specific thing. It was just kind of a shit-tier job they got random people to do from all over (I was in the Air Force)

When I got back to my base literally no one cared or seemingly even noticed I had been gone for months lol

cassepipe• 4 years ago

So he almost died in the unlawful invasion of a foreign country but his complaint is the he did not get a medal or a promotion ?

jacquesm• 4 years ago

I don't think he had a say in that.

throw8383833jj• 4 years ago

It's commendable that he's explaining some things the average person probably doesn't understand. He also explains why a military is needed.

In the US, I think a lot of people may have a negative opinion of the military/defense in general because in the last 20 years it's been used more offensively (at least the stuff covered in the media) than defensively.

Gollapalli• 4 years ago

Great read.

systemvoltage2• 4 years ago

I meet a lot of people in tech who tell me with a straight face that they genuinely think we should just unilaterally disband the Army right now, and cannot comprehend why I’d have anything to do with it. At RubyConf 2014 someone in the lunch queue asked what I did before I was in tech and asked me if I enjoyed killing babies when I explained.

I think Silicon Valley has a lot to learn from this. I worked with a defense contractor (one of the largest ones), designed parts in military airplanes and always found it uncomfortable to share this history of mine after moving to SV. What I did was so cool and always wanted to contrast it with software engineering (which is also cool sometimes but in a totally different way). I was met with tremendous guilt, disdain and unfair judgement of my character. The whole thing would flip after I explain to them that the airplanes I worked on were used for search and rescue recon. SV is myopic and politically fraught, sorry to say.

adolph2• 4 years ago

"a lot of people in tech . . . think we should just unilaterally disband"

Not SV, but similarly myopic: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/dell-apple-should-cl...

systemvoltage2• 4 years ago

I’m not following, what’s Dell vs Apple in 1997 has to do with disdain for working on Defense in SV?

I want to clarify: there is still a massive spectrum from people working on Defense in SV and the types of engineers I interacted with (Googlers). What I find incredibly worrying is that the people that have disdain for Defense, it is sort of shallow and the main motive is to use it as a moral-superiority weapon against people that are on the receiving end. It’s free points to score with their colleagues. This is truly despicable behavior and I’ve seen it first hand. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to avert the discussion and diffuse it before it gets worse.

But it has left with me a sort of a chilling effect. Not being able to express one’s history, however marred it is in the opinion of the listener. This was not the case in places I’ve lived (East coast). Anyhow this thread is a way for me to share my grievances, for those listening please be kind to people that may not share your political or philosophical background. They’re not all baby killers.

photochemsyn2• 4 years ago

The most important thing to realize about military service is that you sign away all your citizenship rights (free speech, etc.) when you sign up for the service. Hopefully you won't be used in ridiculous debacles like the 2003 Iraq Invasion, based on lies about WMDs pushed by Washington (and see British role as well), but you'll have no say in the matter.

The other thing to realize is that, at least in the USA, they'll do everything they can to deny you medical benefits for injuries suffered in basic training, and this will persist after you get out, i.e. Veteran's Administration health care is pretty poor by all accounts. You can't just trust the system to look out for your interests in this area.

In addition, the 'educational assistance' is barely enough for a two-year vocational training program, certainly nowhere near enough for a full four-year college degree. It's better than nothing, certainly, but the advertising and the reality have a big disconnect.

If you're a teenage with zero alternative options and are completely desperate for a way out of an urban slum nightmare or a poverty-stricken rural life, the military is there as an option. I was once in a similar situation but I rejected military service because I'd heard too many Vietnam vets tell horror stories about how they'd been treated by the military. It wasn't much better for those who had to serve more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, for equivalently dubious reasons.

dawsmik• 4 years ago

I think there is some incorrect information in this post. I know people who have completed their Bachelors and Masters completely funded by the GI Bill, including living expenses.

In the experience of the people I know, the VA goes out of their way to give benefits as needed. One case, in particular, they were granted 100% disability for life with a packet submission and one phone call.

scottshamus• 4 years ago

Agreed. Even if your GI bill doesn’t technically cover all of your expenses, many schools have Yellow Ribbon Programs that waive any excess cost

https://www.va.gov/education/about-gi-bill-benefits/post-9-1...

photochemsyn2• 4 years ago

The details matter. A lot of people sign up for a two-year active duty contract (it's an eight-year contract in all though, you're in the reserves afterwards). That only gives 70-80% of the benefit (which only runs for a max of 36 months, not a full four years). You're also restricted to in-state public schools, no private (Ivy League etc.) or out-of-home-state schools. Most of the military people I talked to at my local community college barely got two years of schooling out of it.

https://www.va.gov/resources/how-we-determine-your-percentag...

ericmay• 4 years ago

Yep! I had my entire undergraduate degree and my MBA (for a couple of semesters) paid for. While I’m undergrad I also got BAH which was around $1,000/month in Southeast Ohio. Not to mention full Pell Grants. I used every cent of my GI Bill.

soared• 4 years ago

Thank you for the post. I had friends in college who were previously marines, but their entire school was paid for along with something to the effect of “Anything you need to achieve the career you want, within reason”. New laptops, writing easels, etc.

Are there varying levels of educational assistance?

trackone• 4 years ago

My experience is a bit old (2008 ish) so things might have changes.

I had the GI Bill. I submitted paper work each month that showed I was taking a certain number of credits towards my degree to the VA dept at the school. Money was deposited into my bank account a couple weeks later. I could use that money for anything I wanted. Sounds like this is what your friends had/have.

There are other programs such as paying off student loans when you join up, but I am not familiar with them.

LanceH2• 4 years ago

There are varying levels of accuracy in his post.

For the GI Bill, I put in $1200 ($100/month for the first year), and I while enrolled at an accredited university I was paid $400/month. I could use that however I wanted. Early 90's, that didn't come close to paying for much, but it was certainly something.

I was in the Marines, however. The Army, Navy and Air Force had matching funds and paid a lot more (like triple). This may have all changed or become consolidated.

I've also been through the VA for something and it's very much a government bureaucracy. If you have things documented it will run smoother, and it may run slow at times, but there is certainly no policy of denying everything.

The poster above just has an axe to grind and isn't concerned with reality.

ge96• 4 years ago

If you're a teenage with zero alternative options and are completely desperate for a way out of an urban slum nightmare or a poverty-stricken rural life, the military is there as an option.

yeah... I was in DEP for Marines felt like an ahole when I didn't follow through/returned to school. I was desperate to escape my life situation but I had to wait a while before going to bootcamp. I made a dumb choice with what I was going to do, despite getting 90's in ASVAB. I was going to drive trucks. I felt bad for the people that wanted to get into the military but could not pass the ASVAB or they had a medical condition. My education was funded with student loans/aid but I was able to leave my home.

Edit: in retrospect if I didn't go into school (debt) I could have just lived off labor jobs... It was the piling up debt from school that was freaking me out because I was also failing out of it (low 2.0's GPA). Idk if I would have ended up in tech/make the 3-4x labor wage (medium-level dev).

qgin3• 4 years ago

https://news.gallup.com/poll/186527/americans-government-hea...

Americans' satisfaction with the way the healthcare system works for them varies by the type of insurance they have. Satisfaction is highest among those with veterans or military health insurance…

scottlamb3• 4 years ago

Americans' satisfaction with the way the healthcare system works for them varies by the type of insurance they have. Satisfaction is highest among those with veterans or military health insurance…

Sounds about right to me. The VA health care system has problems [1] but on the whole doesn't seem worse than the rest of the US healthcare system, maybe better.

Anecdote: when my dad retired, my parents lost their insurance through his work, and my mom wasn't eligible for Medicare yet. They looked around at individual insurance options, which were horrible. My mom ended up using her VA benefits and was very glad to have them. The VA has treated my parents quite well, although the VA doesn't seem used to having a lot of female patients my mom's age.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/veterans-affairs-backlog...

mywittyname• 4 years ago

TRICARE is great. The VA: not so much.

Fomite• 4 years ago

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/04/26.html

RAND found that the VA typically also provides higher quality care.

briandear2• 4 years ago

The VA is much different than Tricare.

2OEH8eoCRo04• 4 years ago

at least in the USA, they'll do everything they can to deny you medical benefits for injuries suffered in basic training

Explain this please. Are you a veteran? I am and this doesn't correspond with my experience.

RobRivera• 4 years ago

uhm, having been active duty for 10 years...i disagree.

goodpoint2• 4 years ago

you sign away all your citizenship rights
completely desperate ... the military is there as an option

This does not happen by accident. It's practically indentured servitude with extra steps

Step 1: cut public schooling, food programs, job programs, affordable housing, public transportation, free healthcare

Step 2: fund the army to recruit a lot of people. Provide schooling, housing, food and healthcare to soldiers.

cscurmudgeon6• 4 years ago

False.

The US spends a lot on public education. A lot of it is inefficient due to highly politicized unions and top-level admins that pilfer the money out from benefitting ground level teachers and students.

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/issues-2020-us-public-sc...

1. Thanks to decades of increases, America spends more per student than any other major developed nation. U.S. per-pupil expenditures have nearly tripled over the past half-century, from $4,720 in 1966 to $13,847 in 2016 (2018 dollars). America spends more per pupil than any other major developed nation—10% more than the United Kingdom and 28% more than France; in the OECD, only Norway, Switzerland, and Luxembourg spend more.

  Per Pupil Nearly Highest in the World and in History

The U.S. spends 35% more per pupil than the average among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[7] Among those countries, the U.S. falls behind only Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg.[8] In 2015, the latest year for which OECD data are available, combined primary and secondary spending in the U.S. reached $12,800, significantly higher than other major European nations such as the United Kingdom ($11,400), Germany ($11,100), France ($10,000), Italy ($9,100), and Spain ($8,300).

Similarly, we spend a lot on other social programs. But inefficiently.

This is due to both governmental inefficieny and rent seeking.

sokoloff• 4 years ago

There are limits to your ability to take leadership roles in political parties and to make political statements while in uniform or where there could be reasonable confusion about whether your activity is as a private citizen or as a member of the military.

That is a far cry from “sign[ing] away all your citizenship rights (free speech, etc.).”

totoglazer• 4 years ago

There are currently serving members of congress…

starwind• 4 years ago

they'll do everything they can to deny you medical benefits for injuries suffered in basic training

I know of a guy who got run over by a speeding MP during Basic and had his leg broken in like 3 places. The guy who got run over got a medical discharge, and now gets a full pension and Tricare

mcguire6• 4 years ago

Every vet I know about has some disability payments. (Part of that may speak to a lack of safety culture, but they don't fight too hard to prevent anyone from getting them.)

jriot• 4 years ago

I served in the military for 11 years as an air traffic controller; 95% military jobs are non-combat related. Moreover, the military does more than fight wars, we launched aircraft to aid Indonesia after the tsunami hit them, Haiti after the earthquake hit them, Antartica for scientific research, etc... Additionally, the military completely paid for my bachelors and two masters degrees and I am now employed as a data scientist for a cyber-security company. I still have GI Bill benefits if I want to pursue further eduction.

2OEH8eoCRo04• 4 years ago

I got my humanitarian ribbon by rendering assistance in Indonesia.

Tacos4me• 4 years ago

There is so much misinformation in this post is appalling. Plenty of responses have pointed out some but I will just say this: I know several people that have received masters degrees while serving

dogman14411• 4 years ago

UCMJ is pretty clear re: the free speech angle and all points in that direction. UCMJ != the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Always blows my mind when people complain about this aspect.

mcguire6• 4 years ago

The last I heard, there was a US destroyer undeployable because the Captain refused to get vaccinated and (so far) has successfully sued to prevent his being transferred to another position.

mcguire6• 4 years ago

https://www.military.com/education/gi-bill/new-post-911-gi-b...

"The GI Bill can pay up to the full resident tuition at any public school, if you are qualified to receive benefits at the 100% rate based on your active service shown above. If you are attending a private or foreign school, the VA will pay you an annual maximum of $26,042.81, that amount increases to $26,381.37 on Aug. 1, 2022."

yodsanklai• 4 years ago

I'd heard too many Vietnam vets tell horror stories about how they'd been treated by the military.

Not forgetting horror stories about what they did to Vietnamese, Afghans or Iraqis...

Diesel5554• 4 years ago

As I read this post I kept thinking you had a rough time in service. This doesn’t match my experience at all. Then I saw at the end you didn’t serve, made assumptions based on stories, and had an axe to grind.

The most important thing to realize about military service is that you sign away all your citizenship rights (free speech, etc.) when you sign up for the service.

False. I can say the same things as any citizen outside of my uniform. I am a US citizen with rights. I signed away no such rights.

The other thing to realize is that, at least in the USA, they'll do everything they can to deny you medical benefits for injuries suffered in basic training, and this will persist after you get out

False. I have had access to every medical care I’ve needed, for free, for myself and family. This includes four major surgeries. I can go to an ER for free any time we have an issue. Zero stresses over medical expenses here.

the 'educational assistance' is barely enough for a two-year vocational training program, certainly nowhere near enough for a full four-year college degree.

False. The military completely paid for my undergrad and masters at a high quality university (50k+/yr). Zero loans. They subsidized a second masters in software engineering. After all this I still have my full GI bill that I can use for myself or pass off to my kids for their undergrad.

If you're a teenage with zero alternative options and are completely desperate for a way out of an urban slum nightmare or a poverty-stricken rural life, the military is there as an option.

Or if you wanted to serve with every opportunity in the world in front of you, the military is an option.

throwaway6753092• 4 years ago

He's not totally wrong. If you enlist in the army and later during your service they tap you for a conflict which you have ideological differences with, YOU ARE GOING irrespective of your convictions... unless you want a military tribunal and possible jail time.

ryan_lane2• 4 years ago

False. I can say the same things as any citizen outside of my uniform. I am a US citizen with rights. I signed away no such rights.

You're not allowed to say disparaging things about anyone in your command chain, which goes up to the president. There's also limits on your political speech, in relation to making political statements in favor of candidates.

The limits on your political speech aren't limited to service members, but also includes a pretty decent percentage of federal employees.

False. The military completely paid for my undergrad and masters at a high quality university (50k+/yr). Zero loans. They subsidized a second masters in software engineering. After all this I still have my full GI bill that I can use for myself or pass off to my kids for their undergrad.

I'm glad that the GI bill worked well for you. It does for most people, but note that not everyone gets the GI bill benefits they are promised. I don't agree with the OP that it doesn't cover enough for a four-year college, especially if you're going to a state school.

Or if you wanted to serve with every opportunity in the world in front of you, the military is an option.

I agree with you, in general, but it's important to note that the benefit one gets, vs the risks one takes are heavily correlated to ones status prior to entering. If you're poor, with poor education opportunities in your past, the likelihood of being enlisted, and being in a more dangerous service (and post) are substantially higher. If you're rich and had good educational opportunities, it's likely you'll be an officer, in a better service and post, with relatively low risk (and substantially higher pay).

Cabal• 4 years ago

None of this matches my experience serving, but it turns out this person didn't serve at all and is just trolling. Sad, man.

the__alchemist• 4 years ago

This reads like one of the perspectives other comments here lament, ie about Americans disconnected from the miilitary, and not having a clue what it's like.

mbrameld• 4 years ago

In addition, the 'educational assistance' is barely enough for a two-year vocational training program, certainly nowhere near enough for a full four-year college degree. It's better than nothing, certainly, but the advertising and the reality have a big disconnect.

Could you expand on this, please? My experience was different so I'm curious about what you actually know.

aethros• 4 years ago

In addition, the 'educational assistance' is barely enough for a two-year vocational training program, certainly nowhere near enough for a full four-year college degree. It's better than nothing, certainly, but the advertising and the reality have a big disconnect.

This is entirely false. I served my commitment on active duty and then went to college using the Post-911 GI Bill. I got 9 semesters (4.5 yrs) paid for with housing allowance as well.

I dropped out of school before I joined the military, and had $10k in student loan debt with nothing to show for it. After serving, I graduated with a CS degree, and a job lined up as a software engineer. I am truly grateful the opportunities I was afforded through my service.

robertlagrant2• 4 years ago

I hope that the recent moral turn against all military work in US big tech has abated now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

exdsq3• 4 years ago

I had quite a lot of fun in the Army Reserve in England (6 Rifles, B Company) while I was a teenager (17.5 - 19.5). Being paid to spend my weekends running around a field, camping, and shooting was a lot better than alternatives like working in a shop. I do partly regret not joining a deployment (some of my buddies went on Herrick XIII) but I still toy with the idea of rejoining in the future so maybe one day.

doodlebugging3• 4 years ago

What is the Yeomanry anyway?
In 1797 the Kingdom of Great Britain feared an invasion by the French. You may think of the British as always having a large standing Army, but it was relatively small at the start of the Napoleonic era. To give a better chance of defending the nation against invasion, volunteer units of part-time soldiers were formed to serve only within Great Britain. Infantry were easy to form as they just needed weapons and other basic equipment, but cavalry posed a problem in that it needed trained horses. A way to get these was to borrow them from local farmers and country estates.

As an American I interpret this to mean that the British took to heart a lesson learned from their recent experience in the American Revolution. I am reminded of this particular amendment to the US Constitution which was ratified by the US states in late 1791, a few years before the establishment of the Yeomanry.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Codifying this amendment in the Bill of Rights is the cornerstone for guaranteeing that trained individuals could be available to the United States should an external threat to the security of the new country arise.

This amendment has obviously become a trigger and a political dividing line here in the US. It's a shame. It is the one amendment of all of them that guarantees that a random collection of individual citizens drawn from any random locality can be quickly made ready to serve their country as an effective fighting force if called upon to serve.

Perhaps it is seen as too outdated, too permissive, etc. though in fact it is short and sweet defining the important desired outcome - (A well regulated militia,) the reasoning behind the need for that outcome - (being necessary to the security of a free state,) the specific right granted - (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.)

It would have been awesome if they had laid out the responsibilities of the citizenry who exercise this right and the types of arms permissible for a citizen to keep and bear. I'm sure we can figure it all out in time. I'm not holding my breath though and you shouldn't either.

emmelaich2• 4 years ago

I thought the meaning of the 2nd amendment is now not solely understood as needing a well regulated militia. It is presented as an example of the benefit. So a modern sentence would be something like

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. For example, it is required if a well-regulated militia is to be assembled.

Thus disconnecting the "well-regulated militia" idea as the sole justification.

doodlebugging3• 4 years ago

No disrespect intended at all in my response. I know it is a divisive issue.

Looking at the history though you would want to be a revisionist historian if you were to be phrasing it in that manner.

It was a contentious issue even back then. I have described why it reads as it does as it is important to understand that in reality, those who drafted the amendment went through multiple revisions before arriving at the final version precisely because each state had reservations about the level of power that should be given to individual citizens. They based their reservations on their own experiences dealing with threats on the frontier and with their experiences raising, training, and incorporating citizens into a force capable of defeating a well trained army during the American Revolution.

They tried to use what they had learned looking back, and craft an amendment that would help preserve the nation's ability to look ahead to a more prosperous future as an independent nation capable of defending itself from the threats they knew about or could expect at the time.

Like all the other amendments, the text in this one was a compromise between those who were charged with codifying standards for the new nation that all could agree upon.

frankfrankfrank• 4 years ago

I won’t mince words; it is unquestionably immoral and evil to join or even support the American military in any capacity in its current form. I say that as someone with direct knowledge and experience, and someone that is not “left” or subscribes to the whole “America always was evil” nonsense, even though there is a legitimate angle to that claim too.

The American military is a lying, conniving, duplicitous, war mongering, murderous entity just like the whole American government has ever increasingly become. The institution and its diabolical leaders want your skills and your soul. Make that deal with the devil as you see fit.

There, I said my piece/peace. Make of it what you want.

stangles1• 4 years ago

I question the relevance of your point to this article, which speaks exclusively of the British Army Reserve, specifically the Cheshire Yeomanry.

mardifoufs7• 4 years ago

The british army also invaded iraq.

alexashka• 4 years ago

Meh.

There are people willing to go kill strangers when someone tells them to.

That's what they are.

What I am, is someone who understands that without people like that, we would have world peace.

Now if your desire is so great, that it is more important than world peace, fair enough. If maybe it isn't, think on it, will ya? :)

inopinatus2• 4 years ago

If you peer at the photo very carefully you can see that the author is not in fact holding operations orders, but hard copy of a long discussion from bugs.ruby-lang.org regarding optimizations of the third implicit context

cmrdporcupine4• 4 years ago

If I knew my country's armed forces were 100% a domestic defense and emergency response force, I would absolutely have considered signing up when I was young. You learn good skills, and I see great value in some larger-than-self contribution to community there. My father is German and left Germany for good not long after doing his compulsory 1 year service. He hated it, and it was one of many factors that led to him emigrating. But one thing my aunts have told me is that before he joined he was a disorganized messy irresponsible person, and afterwards he was neat and structured. He is also an amazing marksman, which he learned there (before he left they were talking to him about advancing him through sniper training). He amazed my Canadian uncles when he went hunting with them.

But even here, in Canada, the armed forces gets involved in adventures abroad which I can would characterize as "dubiously thought through" at best ... but "blatantly imperialist" at worst. Being deployed to Afghanistan or some other adventure that I could not support would both enrage and depress me.

pmoriarty5• 4 years ago

See "War Is A Racket" by Major General Smedley Butler:

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf

oneoff7869• 4 years ago

Yeah. I’ve grown up starkly anti military due to the kinds of fights the American military has fought in my lifetime. It’s been evil. Plain and simple. And yet, I’m glad we have a strong military given happenings in Ukraine. I would strongly support putting boots on the ground.

To have the training necessary to join the volunteer defense forces in Ukraine or something similar resonates as a valuable, important skill.

Hard to mix such feelings.

brandmeyer2• 4 years ago

In the US, the military doesn't choose the targets. Elected civilians do. The way to square those feelings is to direct them at the people who give the top-level orders, and the rhetoric used to support those orders to the public.

There is an entire branch of ethics and philosophy dedicated to the topic: Just War Theory. The US interventions in Serbia and Kuwait were both well-justified in my eyes.

nradov4• 4 years ago

Putting American military boots on the ground in Ukraine would likely escalate to WW3.

seti0Cha• 4 years ago

Were you around for the buildup to the second gulf war? The rhetoric against Saddam Hussein was not terribly different in tone than that against Putin. People were similarly outraged and many people wanted us to invade because of all the awful things he did, e.g. his treatment of the Kurds. In fact, pretty much all the major conflicts that have happened in my lifetime have been accompanied by a call to action based on moral outrage. I don't mean to offend, but it seems to me it's people such as yourself who have abetted our participation in so many conflicts, and precious few have been better for our involvement.

jwithington3• 4 years ago

Thanks, this is really great. I'm in the US Navy reserves and it's fun comparing the similarities of our experiences.

chrisseaton11• 4 years ago

Thanks - some of the comments here that say we should literally unilaterally disarm just absolutely blow my mind. Can’t understand how they think that works in practice.

somethoughts• 4 years ago

It's interesting if there could be something similar to the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) but for emergency preparedness. In there Western portion of North America, it seems such things will be more needed going forward - whether it be prescribed burns or actual fire fighting.

From an individual participant perspective - it'd seem like it'd scratch a similar itch - slightly dangerous, wilderness training, heroic and camaraderie building.

From a societal perspective - there will always be natural disasters. Also some of the skills could be useful for national defense but not having to maintain an organization that's sole purpose is national defense seems like it'd be a huge benefit. Why not train the team and build camaraderie by fighting fires that need fighting versus expensive simulated war games.

A Season with the Hotshots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6CP5SKQjzg

pmoriarty5• 4 years ago

Before joining the military you should at least watch Winter Soldier[1] and Why We Fight[3].

Also, you should know that "Since 9/11, Military Suicides Are 4 Times Higher Than Deaths In War Operations".[3]

All things that military recruiters aren't keen to focus on.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMeQGw4Bfs

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Fight-Gore-Vidal/dp/B088PVZHCV...

[3] https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009846329/military-suicides-...

Animats• 4 years ago

Being in the reserves in a NATO country today means a good chance of being sent to reinforce the borders of NATO against an expansionist Russia.

ilrwbwrkhv• 4 years ago

All armies and troops should be abolished. We will look back with shame at our chimp ways.

marssaxman• 4 years ago

I am struck by the author's expansive comfort in the use of "we" to describe their military organization, even in the context of historical events. I have never felt such a strong identification with any organization I was actively participating in, much less with its existence before my involvement. I wonder what accounts for this.

jasonladuke03112• 4 years ago

It’s sacrosanct that I tell the people in my Squadron what I want them to achieve, and not how to achieve it. They take a goal from me and then use their own initiative to make it happen.

This is one of the qualities the military me with, and it has been so important to me that I constantly challenge my kids to do the same.

VictorPath• 4 years ago

defend its people and friends

Like the people in Derry marching to protest the internment of Irishmen without trial in concentration camps? Guess not, the Parachute Regiment shot into the crowd in 1972 and the Queen pinned medals on them.

How about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India, or the Batang Kali massacre in Malaysia in 1948, and so on.

stevenklein• 4 years ago

thanks for sharing - found this super interesting

blobbers3• 4 years ago

Question for you all: I'm coming into my forties, so if I want to volunteer for the reserve, I need to start now. Is it a ridiculous thought? If SHTF, I'd like to have some more useful life skills than typing at a computer. I do have responsibilities to my family, so it would not be an easy sell. That said, it does appeal to me.

Thoughts? Opinions?

SaintGhurka• 4 years ago

If your family responsibilities don't prevent you from going away for ~5 months for the initial training (depending on MOS), then it's not utter madness to join at 40 if you're in decent shape.

It may be a pride-swallowing experience at first. You'd be thrown into a barracks with a lot of 17-20 year olds and you'd be treated like one of them. We had a 35 year old in my basic training. The trainers gave him only a tiny bit of slack.

You'd also spend some time as a 40 year old private - which might get you some looks.

Whatever you do, pick your MOS carefully. Look around and see what type of reserve and guard units are local because that's going to dictate your job choices. If there's nothing but infantry locally, then you're going to be infantry or something that supports them. If that's the case, be a medic. Everyone likes the medic.

mcguire6• 4 years ago

"This is ‘mission command’ and violating it and micromanaging my Yeomen is a real taboo."

In 1912, a guy by the name of Frank Schofield gave a lecture to the US Naval War College that was later published as a booklet called The Estimate of the Situation. (This was later blown all out of proportion, but I think the original is the clearest.) (http://edocs.nps.edu/dodpubs/topic/general/est-sit_1912.pdf)

It's a very good way of setting up a mission command-style order:

1. Here's my understanding of the situation.

2. Here's what we need to do.

3. Here's the difficulties preventing us.

4. Here's the assets we have.

5. And therefore this is what I want done. (The person getting the order gets to go through a similar process to figure out how to do it.)

kfrzcode• 4 years ago

It’s sacrosanct that I tell the people in my Squadron what I want them to achieve, and not how to achieve it. They take a goal from me and then use their own initiative to make it happen. This is ‘mission command’ and violating it and micromanaging my Yeomen is a real taboo. If you try to tell a Yeoman how to cross a piece of ground in their vehicle rather than telling them where to get to they’ll certainly let you know what their job is and what your job is. I feel like tech could really learn something from this.

This is huge. "Commander's Intent" is something all team leads should set; trust your team to make decisions on the ground, because they all know the mission and understand they 'why.'

This is pure Extreme Ownership in action - allow ownership over decisions by informing and providing direction.

chad_strategic• 4 years ago

I spent 20 years in the USMC reserve, I enlisted while I was at high-end west coast liberal arts college in the first trimester. I felt college was a little too easy and lacked challenge. I went on to reenlist, become a chief warrant officer, start an MBA program, activate for OIF, become the first Combat MBA in Pepperdine History and retire after 20 years.

I brought 2 ESGER complaints, due to harassment for being in the reserves. I missed out on civilian promotions, weekend parties, social events, etc.

I still don't think I would have changed a thing. The experiences I have had shaped me into what I am today. The only thing close to my experience in the Marine Corps vs. the civilian world would be working on a start-up because they are fun and exciting and everyone is working as a team.

Shout out to 5/14!

langsoul-com• 4 years ago

I thought the army reserve only trained once a year or once every few years. 100 days a year seems pretty intense, especially with an existing job.

lnxg33k1• 4 years ago

I think one of the biggest issues of our generation / society is that we see military personnel not as the rapist, civilian killing, perverts they never fail to show they are when in combat, but we see them as someone with a strong mind (where?), doing something noble in killing other human beings as tool of the wealthy / powerful

You want to get out of your comfort zone? Be pushed to improve? Go do some sports, go play football, go play tennis, go play cricket

mach1ne• 4 years ago

As a male Finnish citizen, I have gone a year of conscript military training and am now in the reserve. Army life is perhaps the single most bizarre experience you can have in the West. Practically nowhere else do you lose control of your own life so completely.

jzer0cool• 4 years ago

Oorah! Was 1345 MOS here in U.S.

sytelus• 4 years ago

So the guy spends 100% of his time outside of his job at Shopify in constant training to fight some war someday. That day may not arrive for years, if at all. Still, he needs to go and spend all of his free time in some imaginary war exercises every week. I am unable to fathom in what way this is a good and worthwhile use of anybody’s time. I can understand needs of many people to satisfy their caveman style hunting instincts, to fight, to feel important, to feel brotherhood, to feel adrenaline rush, to fund their education, to feel proud, to get medical insurance while rationalizing this entire enterprise beneath patriotism. To be honest, I haven’t understood the need for armies for “defense” (I understand it’s need for offense). If you want only defense, you should train every able citizen with basic and mandatory training with occasional refreshers. This makes a country with 10M+ population nearly undefeatable, even without nukes. Most countries can then get rid of 80% of the army this way and the associated costs. There is no need for human robots who act up in imaginary wars every day of their lives as their sole purpose and meaning. Human life hopeFully should mean something more than that.

chrisseaton11• 4 years ago

Who’s going to train all your citizens if you don’t have any professional soldiers? Who’s going to lead them? As the article says, the knowledge of how to fight can’t be generated from nothing on the day that you suddenly need it. You need some kind of cadre to maintain skills and knowledge.

Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

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