Military cadence

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You know, I'd say the US Army certainly has that potential, but the war definitely took its toll on that aspect of the military existence. The way they're currently handling the force draw-down is pretty disgraceful, too--re-instating draconian tattoo policies that were suspended during the Iraq war, forcing career NCOs to retire early, encouraging units to involuntarily separate Soldiers for minor offences rather than give incentives for people to leave on good terms, and so forth. Its becoming a very political and very competitive Army very quickly, as everyone with a clean record jockeys for a position in the down-sized Army. I saw this coming, and when my ankle got hurt I knew I'd be one of the ones on the chopping block when this time came, so I suppose I'm just happy I didn't re-enlist.

Certainly, once we're done with major conflicts, the Army will go back to that character-building schtick, but its really a luxury that a wartime Army can't afford and it was one of the first things out the window when the Iraq war turned out to be less than mission accomplished.

Well, the higher ups in the US Army will remember the whole show falling apart after Vietnam - they're probably being aggressive with the dead wood, cutting off some live wood too, to prevent a re-run of the 1980's. That's not to say they're doing the right thing now but I can understand the desire to not have to spend a decade re-building the army again.

UK troops had deployments of around 6 months, but I hear US deployments were getting up to 18 months towards the end. That's pretty much insane, those guys will come out nuttier than a bunch of squirrels after that.

So the answer to unwanted behavior in society is generally more government-subsidized brainwashing?

We even had a reality TV show about it here, Bad Lads Army, where they take 30 young men with poor records and put them through National Service. At the end of one series, about 10/3 up and signed on with the real Army and one guy proposed to his girlfriend.

In the UK we have a very strong belief in the reformative power of the British Army.