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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

#61

Post by Aeolun »

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…

> > "Suicides among post-9/11 veterans are four times as high as combat deaths, a new study finds."

I wonder if this is a factor of more effort spent to keep soldiers alive (e.g. just bomb the shit out of something, kill all the people in the house, instead of taking the risk that one of them is an insurgent). Which then eventually doesn’t matter since they still have to deal with the aftermath, and kill themselves as a result.

I know, oddly specific, and I don’t think I have any solid facts to base it on.

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

#62

Post by Zurrrrr »

throwaway9980 wrote: post #56
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.

100% agree.

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

#63

Post by nebula8804 »

primitivesuave wrote: post #28
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…

Regarding #1, you can get a waiver for past cannabis use if you weren't a habitual user (by self admission) and never faced any legal action (distribution, possession, etc) in regards to cannabis. If you have ever distributed any drug (even so far as splitting the cost of drugs with a roommate) you cannot enlist. The enlistment screeners are surprisingly effective at getting people to admit things they did over a dec…

>If you admit to ever using LSD or psychedelics, even one time, you will be automatically disqualified from serving in the military or law enforcement (go figure).

Is this documented anywhere? I have gone on a psilocybin retreat and have considered a career in the air force in the distant future.

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

#64

Post by htag »

defrost wrote: post #40
primitivesuave wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, you can get a waiver for past cannabis use if you weren't a habitual user (by self admission) and never faced any legal action (distribution, possession, etc) in regards to cannabis. If you have ever distributed any drug (even so far as splitting the cost of drugs with a roommate) you cannot enlist. The enlistment screeners are surprisingly effective at getting people to admit things they did over a dec…

Oddly enough if you joined the British Army in days of yore you might have found yourself ordered to take LSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs ( Likely also true for other countries, eg: USofA, etc )

Interesting footage of US soldiers doing drills on LSD. It's really strange that someone learned about LSD and decided to see how well people can march in a parking lot while under the influence. Whoever designed the experiment really didn't understand LSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbSEU8Hv4lA

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

#65

Post by Gud »

htag wrote: post #64
defrost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough if you joined the British Army in days of yore you might have found yourself ordered to take LSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs ( Likely also true for other countries, eg: USofA, etc )

Interesting footage of US soldiers doing drills on LSD. It's really strange that someone learned about LSD and decided to see how well people can march in a parking lot while under the influence. Whoever designed the experiment really didn't understand LSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbSEU8Hv4lA

The whole point of that experiment was to see how a military unit behaves on acid.

Why shouldn’t they be marching the soldiers?

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

#66

Post by nebula8804 »

pxc wrote: post #29
AardvarkAnon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Everyone needs to take a look at the comments on the latest recruitment ad on YouTube to gauge the sentiment of young American men towards the government and military: > https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lwx-2R9swDg > It really is a sight to behold. You need to see it. An endless stream of condemnation. Looks like a bunch of antisemites and racists found the video and hit it with their comments at once. The further down…

>Looks like a bunch of antisemites and racists found the video and hit it with their comments at once.

Not too sure about that. Seems like a positive sign that people are not putting up with all the BS surrounding Israel anymore. This is what gives me a shred of hope: that thanks to the internet, people are questioning existing alliances and asking why? In the distant future as terrible states such as Israel and Saudi Arabia continue to fail to rehabilitate their image my hope is that the tides will change in Western leadership in how they tolerate these states. They clearly do not practice western ideals so it makes no sense to waste, money, lives, and political reputation on them.

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

#67

Post by friend_and_foe »

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…

I think the decade long wars in the middle east are a huge part PR wise, but theres more to it.

The military is a shitshow. The messaging alienated it's core recruitment base, namely white and black teenagers and young men. It alienates young American men in general, but those demographics in particular are historically the core of America's fighting force. Having to balance domestic recruitment PR to be politically correct while also wanting to reach tough young men and entice them is an impossible task.

It's a giant jobs program. People in the military can tell you, it's devolved from just being rules/procedures based chain of command, to being a full blown Brazil-esque (the movie) busybody bureaucracy.

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

#68

Post by AardvarkAnon »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #23
AardvarkAnon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That YouTube video specifically appears to have been raided by 4chan so I would be careful drawing conclusions from the comments.

[flagged]

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

#69

Post by beebmam »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #49
beebmam wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes

Do you think the US was not justified in destroying the terror camps that Al-Qaeda was operating in Afghanistan after the US was attacked on 9/11?

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

#70

Post by Animats »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #21

Not a big difference, but I note that this is without a waiver. There is a process for getting a waiver for each branch[1]. There aren't a ton of waivers issued - only between 50,000 and 80,000 [2]. But the DoD is reviewing what can be removed as disqualifying (at least 38 disqualifying conditions) and multiple reports have been issued signaling out ADHD and marijuana as potential criteria to eliminate[3]. Personally…

RAND study on this: [1]

Recommendation: "To mitigate the higher likelihood of adverse performance-related outcomes, require that waivered recruits and those with a documented history of marijuana or behavioral health issues have Tier 1 education status, have Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores in categories I–IIIA, or be age 22 or older."

"Tier I education status" means high school graduation. AFQT scores of IIIA or above means above the median intelligence for the military.

[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4431.html

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