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Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

americanmilitarynews.com

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Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#51

Post by cmh89 »

AardvarkAnon wrote: post #12
htag wrote: post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

[flagged]

I mean, only a fool would mistake Youtube comments for real life. Was is the pro-Nazi comments that resonated with you and made you feel like you weren't alone?

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#52

Post by remarkEon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22
CSMastermind wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has their own experiences but I will say that joining the Marines was the best thing that ever happened to me and I would openly recommend it to any young man.

Quite literally survivorship bias. Anecdotes aside, the statistics are damning. https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/vet-stats > Over 40,000 veterans are homeless on any given night > Veterans are at 57% higher risk of suicide than those who haven't served. > "Depending on branch, up to 31% of service members develop PTSD after returning from combat." ; "The rate of suicide for veterans in the LGBTQ+ community is up to 7x…

The United States made a choice to have a contract military after Vietnam, under Nixon - the "All Volunteer Force". We could revert to a national draft, which is my preference, for National Defense. I was in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan and have my own issues and my friends (dead and alive) have their own as well. I agree with you if your point is that the US Government doesn't do enough for veterans. In a morbid way, I understand why suicide is so high, because we fought those wars for mostly nothing.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#53

Post by orangepurple »

lojn wrote: post #44
ARandomerDude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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They don't think of service like that. The main important takeaway of military service for many is structure in your life (often a first for many), a feeling of brotherhood (often a first for many), and a tangible set of goals in life (often a first for many). The killing machine part is an abstraction that is easily ignored. After all, you're ultimately killing people that hate America, and that is obviously "a good thing."

Replace the brotherhood with a set of people with very different beliefs that ultimately wouldn't support each other and give them a mandate to work together to fight a common enemy. It just won't work that well.

That's probably what GP meant about the problems of woke.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#54

Post by devmor »

ryandrake wrote: post #33
htag wrote: post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

Number 2 is also putting a dent in the supply of airline pilots. The FAA has a very large list of mental disorders it considers disqualifying, and ADHD is one of them. It’s nuanced, in that it depends on things like whether you require medication or not, but if you ever in your life had any kind of diagnosis, even mild anxiety, you need to disclose it on your medical application and they will dig in to it.

It is completely understandable IMO. As someone with severe ADHD I would not want to be entrusted with the operation of sensitive military machinery in a situation in which I may run out of medication. I won't even drive my car if I don't have adderall or at least the ability to self medicate with a high caffeine dosage.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#55

Post by jackcosgrove »

13of40 wrote: post #9

It would be interesting to see how many of the remaining 23% are in the slice of society where a military career makes financial sense. When I joined the Army I was going from having been fired from McD's last month to making $1K a month with food and shelter taken care of. That made sense at the time. My kid is plenty skinny, mentally stable, and drug free, but he's also a successful college student and budding entr…

I was speaking with an advertiser who was somehow involved in the return of "Be All You Can Be".

He stated that military recruitment is highly sensitive to unemployment rates. Unemployment is very low now, especially for entry level and service roles that would hire an unskilled 18 year old.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#56

Post by throwaway9980 »

Zurrrrr wrote: post #25

And then you have those with higher education and critical thinking capabilities who wouldn't ever join the military... That aside, these stats are not surprising. Anyone from outside the US knows just how bad the education system is within. With red states outright banning books and knowledge, that number may just continue to climb.

People who remove books from libraries are scared pitiful people.

People who claim that removing some books from a library is akin to banning or will have any affect on the actual dissemination of knowledge are fools at best and liars almost surely.

Education is like everything else. If you believe it is someone or something else’s responsibility, you won’t have much of it.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#57

Post by hombre_fatal »

onigiri420 wrote: post #6

Big food companies pushing carbs while funding anti-low carb diet studies have nothing to do with it.

The meat industry is so big and powerful that they have ag-gag laws that stop you from even reporting on them. Weird how the no-carb social media tribe acts like they’re the underdogs.

But this comment just seems like a way to force your favorite pet issue to e-fight over into the conversation.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#58

Post by riffraff »

photochemsyn wrote: post #39

Joining the military means giving up most of your civilian rights laid out in the Bill of Rights, in exchange for pay and training. Historically, this has often been a pretty good deal for those without other economic options. However, if you think the country's leaders are going to send you off to get killed in poorly thought-out and reckless adventures for dubious reasons, then giving up those rights starts looking…

Do you believe the wars other than Iraq and Afghanistan were better?

I mean sure, less Americans died but the gulf war reportedly caused 180k permanently disabled US soldiers, mostly PTSD I believe.

And the Vietnam war was pretty notorious for being bad for the US.

It seems to me every generation got a reckless and dubious war, tho the war on terror was insanely bad.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#59

Post by nothrowaways »

htag wrote: post #8

1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades. 3. This…

Still, China is in much better shape, if you compare general population.

Re: Study: 77% of young Americans too fat, mentally ill, on drugs to join military

#60

Post by eastbound »

beebmam wrote: post #41
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of when I turned 18. I was pissed. Signing up for selective service while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were going strong. I was worried there could be a draft and I'd end up in jail. Recruiters would call my house and I'd bitch them out about how I wasn't going to go invade another country and murder civilians. Just typing this out really reminds me how much I despise our military. The US is a shi…

I'm curious about your opinions here. Do you think the war in Afghanistan was unjustified from the very beginning?

My faith in humanity will never recover after Colin Powell died. No way to judge him anymore for agitating “definite proof of WMD” at the UN Security Council in 2003 which were not found on the field. Since the UN didn’t succeed to trial Colin Powell in time, I consider the UN itself is at fault.
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