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U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

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Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#171

Post by nvm0n2 »

Duwensatzaj wrote: post #8

Hope they haven’t forgotten about Project 100,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 Another article is more explicit about exactly who isn’t joining the military anymore. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-sees-sha...

> the drop in white recruitment has baffled Army staff and isn't easily explained by any one particular factor

... after a whole article full of explanations, none of which involve surveying white men to ask them why they don't want to sign up anymore. Classic journalism.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#172

Post by nvm0n2 »

arwineap wrote: post #66
shipscode wrote: post #35

[flagged]

You obviously have no idea how many shots are mandatory for recruits deploying It would be a significant strain on their logistics, which the us military is very good at, to let these shots be optional It's mission oriented, not politics.

If the US military can't manage a feat of logistics that local doctors offices routinely manage then it can't possibly win a war.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#173

Post by Scubabear68 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #105

I'm not sure what a high school diploma proves. In my local school district, of students that enter high school: - by 11th grade, ~50% meet state standards 11th grade standards for math - by 11th grade, ~50% meet state standards 11th grade standards for English - by 12th grade ~90% graduate

Lucky you. In our public school district, English test scores are slightly lower, Math is at about 30%, and Science is below 20%.

Passing rate is 99%.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#174

Post by austin-cheney »

nindalf wrote: post #126
klipklop wrote: post #24

A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people that could be a great soldier/servicemember that didn’t make it through high school. Some will flourish under a military environment that failed out of high school. I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow infer…

That standardised test administered by the US military has some history. The idea was that folks who were below an 85IQ would be harder to train. During the Vietnam war they tried abandoning the requirement and the results were sad. It cost the military a lot more in remedial training, but the real tragedy is that these folks died at 3 times the rate of people who would have passed the test. They weren’t cut out to b…

The only thing on the ASVAB the Army cares about is the GT score. When I took the test as a dumb high school kid I was only smarter than 79% of the population and had a GT score of 107, which is too dumb to become an officer. Many years later after almost 7 years programming full time in the corporate world I retook the ASVAB. Then I was smarter than 98% of the population and had a GT score of 129. The max is 130, so I may have had the highest GT score among test takers that year.

The GT score is comprised of combinations of several different segments of the ASVAB of which the most important is applied arithmetic. Those are math problems in paragraph form that requires careful reading and multiple steps of very simple algebra like calculating pricing for a retail purchase and deduction of the coin denomination in return. The challenge there is just finishing the test because they, by design, do not provide enough time.

EDIT

I just want to point out that I did not become more intelligent as I got older. My ability to read and instantly formulate logic substantially improved as I got older through practice. Those, reading and logic, are skills and the performance improvement is permanent.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#175

Post by ben_w »

b4ke wrote: post #56
b4ke wrote: post #53

They should institute a voluntary conscripted amnesty/asylum for those who entered into the country and are on immigration parole. This program could allow for retroactive application to spouses/children (no extended family transferability until completion of service contract). There would be no need for sign-on bonus, you could add additional qualifications for g.i. benefits in the form of naturalization. It would r…

I keep hearing about it being military-aged men whom are illegally emigrating to the u.s., and low recruiting would seem like a low-hanging fruit in the form of conscription for immigrants. I mean it also would afford their actual stations more contract labor in non-military support roles at their posts for their spouses. Also would reduce recruitment costs as you wouldn’t need so many incentives to get em through th…

For the most part, my views on migration are "why do we even have borders?" (And then I look at humans choosing to be all Machiavellian to each other and am sad for a bit).

Given we live in a world with borders where nations try to subvert each other to their own interests, I think training migrants to use weapons you give them is going to be a great way for, say, America to give Mexico a military for free. (As a European, I think this would be hilarious… but more as a plot for a Peter Sellers film rather than as actual news to wake up to).

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#176

Post by PeterisP »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #99
klipklop wrote: post #24

A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people that could be a great soldier/servicemember that didn’t make it through high school. Some will flourish under a military environment that failed out of high school. I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow infer…

>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environm…

I think you shouldn't equate "didn't graduate" with "can't graduate" - I feel that a large part, perhaps most, high school dropouts didn't drop out because of various social issues, and for a young person without a high-school diploma, very likely lack of money and potential jobs, and very likely a lack of a supportive home environment, the army can provide a stable employment and a community that has its issues but is likely less abusive than whatever home environment prevented them from graduating high school.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#178

Post by CapricornNoble »

petre wrote: post #80
MangoCoffee wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

human wave is not the game. The Ukraine-Russia war has shown us how important the technology is. The whole war is fighting with drones to detect and kill enemies.

At least in the current Ukraine context: tech + a lot of dumb 155 mm shells, highly mobile artillery. Although guided shells would be even more useful if they were cheaper to build. Russia's human waves were just means to reduce the prison population: practical stalinism 101. They are phasing out prisoner benefits as the recruiting pool is getting smaller. Also there is an increased chance Putin might order be mass m…

> Also there is an increased chance Putin might order be mass mobilization after he wins the elections in May.

Increased but still highly unlikely. The Russian military inducts ~260,000 men annually just from conscription. Now that the Ukrainians have exhausted their supplies of ammunition, manpower, and funding, it's unlikely that the AFU can sustain its ability to attrite Russian manpower faster than it can be replaced.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#179

Post by samus »

paganel wrote: post #148
riffraff wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I giggled at this, but in starship troopers you'd not inherit citizenship. OP's proposal seem more like what the Roman empire did granting citizenship to conscripted barbarians, which worked or not depending on your perspective.

It worked until it didn't, and when it didn't anymore the failure was spectacular.

It worked as long as they were properly integrated into the legionary structure. Auxilia were organized, disciplined, led, and ulimately paid and rewarded like the non-auxilia. The system stopped working because they abandoned it. Due to time pressure, they hired entire war bands and armies as mercenaries led by their kings instead of reorganizing them into Roman-style forces. It didn't help at all that the Romans were prone to cheating them out of their rewards.

Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

#180

Post by Krasnol »

paganel wrote: post #153
petre wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you get something like the KPA (North Korean army): not very good at fighting wars but quite good at construction work. In order to have a capable military, it needs to fight wars. Hence all the countries joining the US in Afghanistan to achieve valuable on the field training. What use is a big stick, other than intimidation, when you just carry it around, not knowing how to actually use it? Future recruits will…

The drone thing is just a fantasy some of us nerds like to tell ourselves, I've seen it in some reddit subs, too. As per North Korea, they were able to come up with 1 million artillery shells for their friends the Russians, while the West couldn't do the same for their friends the Ukrainians [1], I'd say that North Korea got the better of the West here. [1] https://unn.ua/en/news/it-seems-that-north-korea-is-a-more-e…

We'll see about that when the war is over.

At the moment it's not NKs shells that keep the war rolling but the huge Russian population which allows for a seemingly endless supply of corpses to be.

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