If you faced being drafted

[dead0man]

Put me in the "depends on the war" camp. (normal/non-coward)

If it was a worthy war (and I was still of serving age), I'd have joined up long before they got to me in a draft.  But since I'm a bit of a pussy, I'd still join the USAF like I did here in real life.

[dead0man]

I definitely would serve if drafted, no question about it.  Heck, right now, if I have a hard time getting a job after college, I'd probably try to enlist in Officer Candidate School for the Navy or Air Force.  I've never hard any ethical qualms with respect to military service.

I'd probably try to volunteer as an officer. Actually one of the guys in my accounting classes was in the military and became a logistics officer. Apparently they like having CPA's in those roles. It seems like a relatively safe way to spend a war.

Doesn't that basically mean the army discriminates by socio-economic status? People wealthy enough to afford the right kind of studies get the safe desk jobs, while those who can't have to face death and injury daily.

I don't think its that simple. It's not like the safe jobs don't have grunts in them (who do you think is loading the trucks in the logistics department?) and the guys getting shot at have junior officers getting shot at too.

Yes accountants and engineers and so on get off easy, but you have to weigh that against the guy with a BA who's virtually guaranteed to wind up being an on the ground officer.

The Army (and the rest of the DoD) put many thousands of poor people through college every year...and then guarantee them a good paying job, with an early and good retirement.  Or they can do their time (I think it's 8 years, but there are variables) and take their degree out into the real world if they want.  Many of them go into REMF jobs.  And many higher on the "socio-economic" ladder go into infantry or flying fighters.  The military doesn't give two sh**ts what your socio-economic status is before service.  (well, you can't get in with mountains of debt, but you don't have to be poor to have mountains of debt)

[dead0man]

dead0, you obviously know better about this than most of us, so maybe you can answer this: why is it, then, that there are countless veterans living on the streets and why do twenty die by suicide every day?

(I'm going to assume this is an honest question and not loaded or a sh**tty "gotcha!")

bunch of reasons, a lot of it falls on the shoulders of the VA.  They just suck.  Bloated bureaucracy from hell.  If you (not specifically you) care about the vets, you should be for getting rid of the VA and letting vets just go to regular doctors, like regular people do, and then have the Feds cover the bill.  Sure, it SEEMS like if you had your own hospitals and doctors it would be cheaper, and hey, maybe it is cheaper than my idea, but who the hell cares if it's cheaper if it's a failure to 90% (guess, not fact) of the vets that try to use it?  We say we care about our vets, the actions of the voters and the politicians we vote for says otherwise.

Or I'd be up for other ideas too, the current system sucks and I don't think it can be cleaned up.

(not that it's failed me specifically, I don't use them, but I know friends and family that do, and to a man the VA has just sucked...nearly killed my cousin's husband)


and PTSD is a bitch, even with a perfect system we'd still have our men and women killing themselves.  War is hell, even more so if it's a messed up, no obvious bad guys in uniform to fight, randomly blowing up while driving down the street, no end in sight, no idea even how to possibly end it bitch of a thing.  I've been keen on putting more robots instead meatsacks in the field, but even those guys have issues post action (the operators, not the robots).  Which I suppose makes sense if you think about it.

And all of this is why our politicians should be very careful where they send them, and only do so if it's actually needed AND likely to help the situation in the long run.  Which is why active duty (and vets) don't really like Hillary or Trump (heh, just like the American voter).

[dead0man]

I am having a hard time finding official documentation concerning the military's policy about Asperger's, but it's pretty much a universal consensus on forums (when the question is asked) that revealing one's Asperger's diagnosis is an instant disqualifier (or any autism spectrum disorder) with respect to military service.  Since it's likely to get asked, it effectively bars someone with such a diagnosis from joining the military, which is too bad.   My kindergarten teacher apparently thought I had autism, but fortunately I was never taken to a psychologist for a diagnosis; hence, for all intents and purposes, I don't have it.

The military has gotten very picky.  You could probably get in, especially if you had a skill we lacked, but it would be a large red flag and it wouldn't take very many more smaller red flags to prevent you from enlisting.

[dead0man]

Out of curiosity dead0man, what are examples of "other, smaller red flags" with respect to military service?

Any arrest, lots of traffic tickets, lots of debt, minor drug use, being outside of the normal human size range, being too old (I think 26 is the highest you can enlist without a waiver, but the closer you get to that age, the less they want you), being too skinny and probably a few dozen other things I don't know about or can't think of.