71% of Americans between 17 and 24 can’t meet the minimum criteria for service

[pentae]

I was hoping that the article would touch on what the physical requirements are, and was disappointed. Here's some interesting resources

http://work.chron.com/armys-minimum-physical-requirements-jo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Physical_Fi...

The criteria are:

- BMI

- Eyesight

- Physical fitness on push ups, sit ups and length of time to run 2 miles.

Notably, the differing physical requirement minimums for men vs women are quite significant.

[moomin]

Ironically, the _maximums_ for women pose a serious problem for women who want to go for the toughest roles. You need to seriously bulk up to get in.

[moomin]

If you take a look, the problems they’re describing are direct counterparts of problems society has: The prison/industrial complex and the war on drugs is disqualifying people on the character test, the basic fitness requirement is undoubtedly affected by the food deserts in major cities and so on.

This is pretty serious: an armed force that doesn’t resemble the general population is a recipe for conflict and tyrrany.

[cm2187]

The fairness of prison sentences for drug abuse or dealing is a different debate, but I am not convinced drug users and drug dealers should make it to the army. It's not the war on drugs that creates drug users.

[WalterSear]

Not that it affects your thesis, but food deserts aren't a thing:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132076786/the-root-the-myth-of...

[jedberg]

Someone on reddit pointed out something the other day that made a lot of sense.

The GOP is afraid of subsidized health care and subsidized/free college, because it would remove the two biggest recruiting tools the army has -- free lifetime healthcare and money for college.

Without those carrots, few would sign up for the military.

[moomin]

Living in the UK here. We don't have money for college anymore, but we still have the NHS. And we've never had that much trouble recruiting.

Perhaps they should send a fact-finding mission across.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

While this makes a lot of sense, I really hope it's not true.

[beingmyself2]

What's undesirable about this situation? We need a military force to protect us, I don't think that is a controversial idea. With certain political groups doing their utmost to absolutely kill any kind of nationalism or patriotic feeling, what incentive do we have to put our lives on the line for our country if not for the rewards?

We could increase military pay to make it more attractive but the overall budget to be gained by axing healthcare and education spending probably would not make a huge difference in the bottom lime for most soldiers. What are the proposed alternatives?

[jbob2000]

Why do you think they fight abortion? Unwanted babies that grow up in mishandled homes are ripe for army recruiters!

[0xbear]

Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world and you’ll have plenty of capable volunteers. No one wants to get their extremities blown off just because some military industrial complex CEO needs another beach house.

[sk0g]

Are you implying little Johnny isn't a real hero? He lived in a military camp in Baghdad for 4 months! He even had a gun pointed at him at one stage!

I really don't get America's glorification of combat "veterans." In the old times, sure, but these are just people doing their jobs at the end of the day, and jobs that frequently involve killing people. I'm sure most people who sign up don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the sake of "peacekeeping."

[bambax]

The so-called "Founding Fathers" were strongly opposed to professional armed forces for exactly that reason: it's less likely that ordinary citizens recruited via conscription would be sent to fight "bullshit wars".

Vietnam changed all that, or, more to the point, verified it. The anger against the war was fueled by the fact that anyone could be sent to fight it. Politicians realized that wars would not create such uproars if they were only fought by professional soldiers.

And indeed this is true to this day. Most Americans don't care about US foreign wars, because for them personally the stakes are low.

[benevol]

> Stop fighting bullshit wars halfway around the world

In the US, war is big business. So it's not going away as long as a couple of ultra-rich people are making themselves even richer by inflicting suffering onto others.

[parent5446]

The article says that the primary problem is the number of eligible volunteers. Changing what wars are fought isn't going to affect individuals ability to pass military fitness and character tests. If the problem was that there are so many eligible people, but nobody wants to volunteer, then you might be on to something.

[cm2187]

Perhaps the US should explore the concept of a foreign legion. A 5 years service would become a fast path for foreigners to gain US citizenship.

[dagw]

The US had program a bit like that for while (MAVNI), but it was very limited in who it would accept and was recently shut down.

[jonah]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15506021

[acosmism]

key point!

[thebooktocome]

Luckily, the services only enlist less than 2%.

[TheCoelacanth]

Isn't this largely because standards are relatively high right now because the military has more people enlisting than it needs? If they needed more people they would just lower the standards a bit like they were a few years ago and they would have plenty of people. They would have to do a bit more work during training to get them in shape and they would have to overlook some minor issues that they aren't willing to now, but they wouldn't actually have trouble getting enough people.

[Yizahi]

Oh don't worry, if army ever gets a shortage of people they will just lower standards. They can do it pretty much indefinitely.

[cm2187]

You can read the article as “it is a problem for the army to recruit”, but also as “we in the US have a health & crime problem”.

[petre]

Just send more robots into warfare. I keep reading about robots displacing civillian workers, but why not anything like this about the military? Why so little concern for these kids getting blown up by IEDs or otherwise killed while fighting for peace in some remote country who's culture they don't understand?

[bambax]

If you're fighting against robots the only answer you have left is terrorism, as a way to make people who drive the robots, care about the fight.

More drones, more robots, more terrorism.

[mnm1]

This seems like the only upside to obesity, the drug war, and lack of education that plague our country.

[mankash666]

With a lop sided supply-demand situation, Trump ended a program (MAVNI) that allowed immigrants to obtain citizenship if they served the armed forces for six years. Many previous such enlistees have given their lives (for the US) in war. Ironic

[avar]

That program was ended in December 2016 while Obama was president: https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/bcm-1612-02.pdf

[RickJWagner]

Maybe better publicity for the college assistance available to veterans.

Some of those-- drug use and fitness problems-- seem like they can be fixed if people understand the incentives.