They’re having a really hard time keeping up numbers. Not enough people volunteering, plus with all the shitty food Americans eat (result of poverty and massive deregulation of the food industry), a lot of the people who do volunteer simply don’t meet physical standards.

I’d guess too that if you spend three decades inculcating Randian individualism into people, you find – surprise! – that they’re not particularly good at following orders.

When I was in HS a few years back, they had college admissions officers and military recruiters trying to play a tug of war with the students’ futures. One of the Air Force things was a test flight machine to see how good you are at attacking enemy aircraft and sustaining your own aircraft(no lie it was well made and realistic-ish video game like device but looked like an arcade game with the driver seat) The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they made the simulation easy on purpose because there were a few kids who tried it out and it really boosted their confidence to think they could hold their own in an Air Force dogfight. And that scares me. The US Military is making murderers out of our friends and family and try to attach Honor or Bravery or Confidence to Profit-driven Imperialism and Genocides. I’m not saying anything new here but sometimes it makes me so angry just thinking about it

Mandatory? Good luck. I actually did AFJROTC all four years voluntarily at TX-861, and it was a constant struggle to recruit and retain folks. But the folks that stayed were cadre in every sense of the word. If we had instead had to deal with people who didn’t want to be there, it would have been a far less effective educational environment (and, predictably, it was the first-years who discovered the program wasn’t for them that were the greatest source of grief each year until they rotated out).

I learned a shit ton about leadership, teamwork, camaraderie, chains of command, organizing, etc. Ironically, I think it made me a far better eventual communist organizer. I got to see the value and utility of hierarchy and discipline, in contrast to the never ending shitshow that was other less regimented clubs. We punched way above our weight in terms of ability to turn out volunteers for community efforts, for one example.

This is legitimately disturbing, I cannot imagine the military in my or any other country just casually going to school and turning children into genociders, just vile

Yeah, we actually had the US army, police, and a bunch of military contractors come to our school one day and they recruited people and handed out pamphlets during lunch time. I had a hard time resisting the urge to display a certain finger that’s roughly centered on my hand. Unfortunately I didn’t have a 3D printer at the time, so I couldn’t wave my 3D printed red hammer and sickle in front of them.

The idea of joining the military (air force) has seemed so nice to me throughout some parts of my twenties. I was chronically poor and having a place to pursue free education, a career field, and a built in set of friends and free housing was so appealing. But I was always hung up on the fact that it would be at the expense of others.I dont blame anybody if they use the military to get themselves outof a bad situation or shitty hometown with no opportunities. But I dont know if I can say the same for myself because I full realized the consequences. Also, I have a few friends that have been in the military and are very jaded, it seems that the whole thing would get old after awhile.

They were at my high school, but I was in a town with a military base. They would harass students with nonstop texts and phone calls.