Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by blaser-waffle » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #527

tekknik wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can’t stand waking up everyday because of your job then at some point mental health steps in. Since you’ve been there for 21 years, I’m sure you’ve seen the changes as well. Is the Navy the same as when you started? The crossing the line ceremony for instance. When I was in, they had to have permission to haze you. Nude mermaids are no longer on the certificates as well from what I understand. Many little thin…

> How does basic training even work now in this post yelling world? I was called “Porky the Pig” in basic. It forced me to exercise much more than threat of some fake arrest. As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their wo…

> As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their workplaces, without anybody raising their voice.

I've worked at large orgs, to include F500s and national-tier multinationals with plenty of yelling.

> In normal life, an organization that bullied its employees in the way that's routine for militaries would be considered extremely dysfunctional, and you would expect to see extremely dysfunctional and toxic people flourishing in that atmosphere.

Bollocks. I've worked with plenty of ruthless, absolutely out-to-get-you sociopaths in brand-name corporations that I'd bet most of you'd know. Just cuz there wasn't out-and-out yelling doesn't mean it was nice, and most were far more dysfunctional than the military orgs I was involved with while enlisted.

There is something to be said for not shying away from conflict and having it out.

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

#562

Post by pasabagi » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

blaser-waffle wrote: post #561

pasabagi wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does basic training even work now in this post yelling world? I was called “Porky the Pig” in basic. It forced me to exercise much more than threat of some fake arrest. As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their wo…

> As a non-military guy, this is what I've always found really nuts about military institutions. In normal life, people do an extraordinary array of difficult and uncomfortable things, and generally learn a whole lot for specific roles in their workplaces, without anybody raising their voice. I've worked at large orgs, to include F500s and national-tier multinationals with plenty of yelling. > In normal life, an orga…

I take your point, but if somebody called me a 'porky pig' in the first month of a new job, I'd probably a) quit, and b) assume the organization was seriously messed up. I'm not a particularly sensitive person, but I don't want to waste my time on an organization where high levels of interpersonal aggression is normal.

Intuitively, you'd expect organizations that have management styles that make everybody miserable to have high turnover and low productivity. That's why it doesn't make sense to me when militaries actively teach and propagate management styles that are, by normal standards, misery-inducing.

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

#563

Post by notadev » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #541

notadev wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of bootcamp isn’t just for you to learn how to do this or that, it’s also about breaking you of your individualist civilian mentality and molding you into a soldier/sailor/marine/airman who can put the mission and their fellow service members above themselves. Being yelled at is negative reenforcement and quickly helps you understand your mistakes. Camaraderie also flourishes when you all hate your drill in…

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple of centuries. Therefore, a technically capable soldier who is cowardly, individualistic, and occasionally insubordinate would be, in some roles (say intelligence) superior to one who was none of those things, but didn't have the technical skills or aptitude. Re…

I think what you wrote makes perfect sense and I could get behind not caring so much about some standards for some positions. What would you propose for the support jobs like “Culinary Specialists” or “Logistics Specialists”?

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

#564

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

analognoise wrote: post #518

wolverine876 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to fix it is to bring back the draft, in either full or some modified form. One idea is a draft for the reserves, not for active duty. That gives us the benefits of an AVF - the professionalism, etc. - and also gives Americans 'skin in the game' when at war, when reserves are called up. It's hard to imagine Afghanistan dragging on for 20 years if, for the whole time, civilians were being sent there to…

Hold on. We got lied to about Vietnam. Iraq had WMDs. Afghanistan was a budding democracy, fully equipped to stand on its own. Russia was an unstoppable modern military and we need hundreds of billions to hold them off! Now. All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population for not having skin in a game which is clearly run by liars, and not "doing more" to stop these liars? We've watched it mangle ge…

> All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population ...

Those people are us. The system is us, including you and me. There's nobody else to blame, and nobody else to do anything about it. Nothing in the parent comment offers a solution, or a better solution, or an improvement on the existing solution.

Blaming some unnamed entity, pulling out a list of bad things that have happened over a half-century, simplifying and hyperbolizing them, taking them out of context (of the good, of the possibilities, of the causes and effects, etc.) - that only disrupts the situation further, and that act is part of the reason our system sometimes doesn't work. That comment was written in your capacity as a fully fledged, fully vested actor in the system. Of course it isn't working right here, right now.

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

#565

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #510

wolverine876 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that billionaires serve at the same rate as others? Or that there are many billionaires in the military?

There have been many billionaires, or billionaire-equivalent for their time-period, in my tiny unit alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cheshire_Yeomanry_off...

Thanks. Quickly looking at the links, it seems all pre-WWI, mostly 19th century. Is that still true?

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

#566

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #537

wolverine876 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hope that's true, and could see how it might be, how do we know it? Israel uses their military heavily, so I'm not sure it will provide a great example.

>Israel uses their military heavily, so I'm not sure it will provide a great example. Take a look at their neighbors. When you're surrounded by people who are ideologically bent on your complete destruction, paranoia is no longer an irrational response.

That changes the discussion from, 'do drafts in democratic countries temper civilian perspectives on the military' to 'is Israeli military policy justified'. Tangents happen, but what do you think of the former issue?

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

#567

Post by CobaltFire » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #541

notadev wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of bootcamp isn’t just for you to learn how to do this or that, it’s also about breaking you of your individualist civilian mentality and molding you into a soldier/sailor/marine/airman who can put the mission and their fellow service members above themselves. Being yelled at is negative reenforcement and quickly helps you understand your mistakes. Camaraderie also flourishes when you all hate your drill in…

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple of centuries. Therefore, a technically capable soldier who is cowardly, individualistic, and occasionally insubordinate would be, in some roles (say intelligence) superior to one who was none of those things, but didn't have the technical skills or aptitude. Re…

This entire paragraph reinforces what's mentioned elsewhere: that modern people are completely divorced from what the military is actually required to do and how it does it.

Why does every person on an aircraft carrier need to be physically fit, follow orders, and be able to put others or the mission ahead of themselves? Because under fire, in a casualty (fire, flooding, etc.) those technically apt, out of shape people die and get other's killed. I need to know you can put on the SCBA, carry smoke curtains and hang them, etc. No, we don't have dedicated fire fighters or casualty handlers; in a SHTF situation everyone needs to pitch in. There isn't room for dead weight.

To go further, I haven't found that those "conscientious engineer" profile people are even worth the time. The people who we get into the jobs are often far more competent than you would give them credit for, while still being fit and capable of taking orders. We get plenty of that profile in my jobs (I used to be one if I'm being honest) and though they excel at the technical aspects of the job they are so bad at everything else that's required that they often end up getting hurt or getting others hurt even in daily activities. Performing demanding technical tasks (like running software updates on a linux distro, only the bash script is corrupted so you've got to understand WTF is happening, pull the required info from the aircraft's systems, slip it into the patch so it will be authorized, then push it manually) in 40lbs of safety equipment on a flight deck with moving ordnance and launching/recovering aircraft is something we need a well rounded person for, not a prima donna.

Basically you are making an outsiders mistake of thinking you understand what's required to make that ship function. If you are interested in learning what's really required there are any number of people in this topic that would likely be happy to tell you. I'm one.

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

#568

Post by CobaltFire » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #545

germinalphrase wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. Can anyone comment with regard to the Air Force? Not asking for myself. I am a high school English teacher, and I am currently helping a young man with his application to the academy. He is committed to the Air Force either way, but I try to pass along any information that I come across (with the caveat, of course, that I don’t know what I’m talking about).

I joined Air Force active duty for a 4 year hitch when 9/11 happened, and was in the Air National Guard for a few years after my initial enlistment. I mention that because some things may have changed since I've been out more than a decade, but I don't think they have. Individual job descriptions do change though, so I will only give high-level advice rather than specific AFSC/MOS. I went into Satellite, Wideband, an…

As someone who has worked Nuclear (fast attack), Aviation (F/A-18 and H-60), and a few other things (LCAC Nav, USMC aviation, etc.):

Nuclear is horrible. Stay far away. Life sucks and everyone hates it.

Aviation sucks for a job outside and you work your ass off inside.

Go IT, go Supply (logistics is reasonably easy inside and has lots of opportunity outside), or go admin and get a degree while in.

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

#569

Post by pasabagi » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

notadev wrote: post #563

pasabagi wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the logic, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense any more. Fighting wars has become an increasingly technical occupation in the last couple of centuries. Therefore, a technically capable soldier who is cowardly, individualistic, and occasionally insubordinate would be, in some roles (say intelligence) superior to one who was none of those things, but didn't have the technical skills or aptitude. Re…

I think what you wrote makes perfect sense and I could get behind not caring so much about some standards for some positions. What would you propose for the support jobs like “Culinary Specialists” or “Logistics Specialists”?

My thinking is that a peacetime military is basically a skeleton that needs to be able to be rapidly fleshed out when it becomes necessary. That's not exactly a novel thought, but I think there's a lot of room to explore when you stop thinking about fighting wars, and start thinking about how to build the machine that builds an army (preferably within weeks) if a war breaks out.

European countries can be quite good at this: the whole logic of Finland's conscription system is to have it so that if a war breaks out, you can mobilize the whole nation within a short time, and everybody knows where they fit in.

In previous big wars, nations have typically just slashed their standards when the war broke out to meet manpower quotas. It would be better, generally speaking, to build an institution that can, in an emergency, use everyone. That would mean, in peacetime, working out if there are profitable places to put people to use, so when you get a deluge of asthmatic flat-footed civilians signing up because a big war has broken out, you don't waste time trying to make them into infantry.

Obviously, my view is informed by being a peacenik. If you want an army to do offensive, expeditionary operations on a budget, there's much less to change. Having a big and capable HR department would be important if you were going to get all the dysfunctional people in a country to fight in an actual war, but it would be better, in a small professional force, to just not induct anybody who doesn't meet a bunch of stringent standards.

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

#570

Post by analognoise » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #564

analognoise wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on. We got lied to about Vietnam. Iraq had WMDs. Afghanistan was a budding democracy, fully equipped to stand on its own. Russia was an unstoppable modern military and we need hundreds of billions to hold them off! Now. All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population for not having skin in a game which is clearly run by liars, and not "doing more" to stop these liars? We've watched it mangle ge…

> All those people lied - buy we're blaming the civilian population ... Those people are us. The system is us, including you and me. There's nobody else to blame, and nobody else to do anything about it. Nothing in the parent comment offers a solution, or a better solution, or an improvement on the existing solution. Blaming some unnamed entity, pulling out a list of bad things that have happened over a half-century,…

...what? Those fucks aren't us. At all.

No. There's no context - they lied to get us into multiple wars. The American people don't want that shit. This sounds like apologia for the military-corporatic interventionist garbage.

Honestly it's the same infuriating "personal responsibility" CRAP like recycling - it's a smokescreen, meant to make a collective problem your personal responsibility. It doesn't matter how many bottles you throw out if you allow the factory up the street to make 1B of them, some of them are going to end up in the river, but do we hold the businesses accountable or make them switch to glass bottles? "That would impact their profits!"

A rational actor would avoid, if at all possible, anything to do with the military. It hasn't "worked" for us for decades and decades. Those people are NOT US.