I started a thread about music in the Lair but just wanted to bring this out there.

As a huge Teddy Ballgame fan (as were my grandfathers and great uncles, who were also in the War) This pic of him and Yogi Berra made me smile.





"A Marine Corps Reserve aviator and World War II veteran, Williams had been recalled to active duty just over a year earlier and was now using all his considerable flying skill to nurse his badly damaged F9F Panther toward an emergency landing. Shrapnel had knocked out the fighter’s hydraulics, meaning Williams could not lower the Panther’s landing gear or flaps. Burning fuel streamed from the jet’s punctured tanks, threatening to turn the aircraft into a ball of fire at any moment.

"Capt. Williams was hit by North Korean forces during the mission and safely crash landed, walking away with only a sprained ankle. The next day, he flew again and took enemy fire over Chinnampo. Thirty-seven missions later, a bout with pneumonia and an inner ear problem led to Williams leaving the Marines in 1953."

And Yogi?

Well he was in the Navy. Seaman Second Class Berra served on a small landing craft support missile boat, which attacked the coast of Normandy during the massive D-Day invasion of 1944.

"When the battle commenced at 6:30 a.m., the LCS [landing craft support boat] sprayed bullets and rockets across the heavily fortified beach fronts before the troops landed," Tom Verducci recalled on Wednesday for Sports Illustrated.

"Berra, then 19, manned a machine gun mounted on a ball turret in his LCS and stood tall with a boy's wonder -- too busy marveling at the tremendous explosions of lights and sound to consider the danger that would end the lives of 2,500 of his fellow Americans. In an LCS, only the steel walls of the boat and the grace of God stood between a sailor and death."

"You better get your head down in here," the officer barked at Berra, "if you want it on."

Berra earned a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Unit Citation, two battle stars and a European Theatre of Operations ribbon during the war, and in 2009 he was granted the Navy's Lone Sailor Award. An announcement from the Navy Memorial at the time said he exemplified the Navy's core values.

Great men and American heroes and patriots. As is Pat Tillman a more recent American hero and patriot.

This is going to sound like a dumb question but When did men no longer have to serve in the military after high school and why?
I graduated high school back in the 80s and all I had to do was register for selective service but did not have to serve.

We haven't had a draft since the end of the Vietnam War. The draft ended in 1973.

Up thru the 1960's its been estimated about 1 in 10 at a family gathering would be prior service in the military. And every single one was trained on the primary combat arms of the day - which was likely a individual rifle, and also crew served belt fed machine guns used in the unit.

I've never met someone who served who didn't understand having to cycle a .50 BMG twice to load the first round. But I was IN and mobilized MP - who in the field are even more heavily armed that a Infantry squad. Good times.

What has happened since the move to the "All Volunteer" Army is that there has been a significant decline in those who serve. The odds now are 1 in 100 that a gathering of the extended family will have someone who did. That is a massive difference.

Basically, the population at large now has no reference for a lot of military concepts and experiences that previous generations were at least familiar with in conversations. America is basically clueless now and their impression is formed more from media soundbites rather than asking a family member. I noted it on my return from serving the first tour of GTMO - the general public attitude was shaped by extremist views of interrogation and prisoner conduct, not the reality it was mostly a tropical, high security county jail.

This has led to further deterioration in understanding other subjects and having no idea of how the press misshapes their reports. IE - fake news and photos of staged events. If you haven't stood in a crater in a demolition field, or watched 105's explode sending 1 pound chunks of hot steel bouncing off the view ports, then understanding the debris and results of actual dynamics from weapons is absent.

Goes to seeing cars flipped in the street from a "massive bombing" attack with the glass in them whole and the apartment buildings ten feet away with intact windows? LOL until you hear the uneducated whining about "war crimes." Show me the engine blocks sitting 50m away, the pools of dried blood, tires blown thru the side of buildings.

We had an explosives truck shot at during a trucker strike in the 80's, the round apparently - as best could be determined - hit the separate locker containing primers. There was a 30 foot crater across two lanes, the immediate site was almost clean of debris, a tire was found half mile away and the driver ID'd mostly from shipping logs and a spot of blood on a tiny piece of the engine block. Classic cast iron diesel doesn't stand up to 45,000 pounds of high explosive. Nope. We have explosive plants here, the transportation company was Tri State who shipped from the local Hercules plant, IIRC, which was later bought by Dyno Nobel.

It previously had a massive explosion - we heard it 20+ miles away, or at least my dad did - Korea vet. Looked up from lunch and had a serious concerned expression. Took an hour back then to get a radio newsflash explaining it. Vets hear explosions. It's their business.

Again, when you stand on the ground after watching a sheaves of artillery pound your position for 5 minutes - you get a feel and impression about what is real and what is not. But now, only 1 in 100 of us know that impression, and the 99 drown us out with their ignorance. Now we are dealing with 16 million new to guns owners and for the most part they are getting caught up in a lot of nonsense, spending money on the illusion of power but not understanding the substance.

I've found I get along with Veterans better than I do with those who haven't served, and have deeper relationships.

In my weekly handgun shooting group, there are 15 members and 8 of them are Veterans. 4 Army, 1 Marine and 3 Navy.

Don’t forget Jerry Coleman.

I think some of that “veteran in the family” thing is very regional.

I was talking about funeral arrangements for one of my friends, with my (now ex) girlfriend.

She grew up/lived in various major cities, around the US, and Europe.

She said she hasn’t had any friends die.

I started losing people shortly after high school.

Some of that is from the service, some of it was farming/industrial accidents.

I can’t imagine a Southern family, or rural American family, not having someone in the service, within the first cousin layer.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
This is going to sound like a dumb question but When did men no longer have to serve in the military after high school and why?
I graduated high school back in the 80s and all I had to do was register for selective service but did not have to serve.

When I graduated HS in 1968, it was universally believed that, if you didn't go on to college thereby obtaining an education deferment while you were attending school, it would only be a matter of months before you were drafted and sent to 'Nam. Some of my class joined voluntarily as it was believed that this would open up opportunities other than basic infantry in the service. Along around 1969, Congress initiated the draft lottery that mandated that precedence for the draft was set by calendar date of birth. The demands of the draft meant that numbers below about 220 (IIRC) were almost guaranteed to be selected, and over that, were effectively immune although the exact boundary varied from year to year, trending downward as the war wound down. They re-drew the numbers each year as a fresh class of 18-year-olds entered the system, but once you had your number, you had it forever. My number was up in the 300's so I was safe from the draft until we got near universal conscription. I seem to recall that the whole draft thing (except for registration) went away circa 1973.

I don't know how the draft is administered these days, but I suspect it is still in effect with some very low number of registrants being selected to serve. But I also think the Armed Services have made volunteering a lot more appealing, and perhaps, they no longer need to rely on a draft. Not being subject to immediate injection into a deadly shooting war undoubtedly has a subtle appeal as well.

I know of some people who never served because their dad had served, so they didn't feel obligated to serve themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I don't know how the draft is administered these days, but I suspect it is still in effect with some very low number of registrants being selected to serve.

Nope. There has been no draft in effect since 1973, period. Nobody is drafted today, not even a small number. It's a 100% volunteer force. But there's still mandatory registration for the draft (Selective Service), to maintain the national draft registry in the event a future draft becomes necessary.

There was briefly some initial discussion about possibly bringing back the draft in the early 2000s at the beginning of the War on Terror, but that never went anywhere.

The closest thing to "involuntary" (and I use that term loosely) military service nowadays is prior service members who have discharged or retired being called back up from the inactive reserves years later. Occasionally, someone who had previously served and who has a specific set of skills that's in extreme demand will get called back up from their civilian life and returned to active duty. For example, a few thousand prior service members with stuff like medical and language skills were called back up in the mid-to-late 2000s for the GWOT, some of whom had been out for many years. (I know of one dentist who was 50+ years old and had been out for more than a decade who got called back up... Must have been a lot of bad teeth in Iraq and Afghanistan in need of fixing.)

But even then, it's not truly "involuntary", because being subject to inactive reserve callup is something that you agree to as part of your voluntary military service.

Great Grandfather - Civil War Vet.
Grandfather - WWI Vet. Used to show me shrapnel taken out of him!
Father - WWII Vet.
Me- Vietnam / Cold War.
In my family, military service was an expectation. My son may break the chain.

I know in 2001-02 there was talk of drafting people with special skills. My guess is they got the people the military needed without it.


The Commies, under Obama, kept trying to push the idea of some kind of mandatory indoctrination camps, but that seems to have died out.

Last I heard, less than 1% of the population chooses to serve. That’s sad and disappointing.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
When I graduated HS in 1968, it was universally believed that, if you didn't go on to college thereby obtaining an education deferment while you were attending school, it would only be a matter of months before you were drafted and sent to 'Nam. Some of my class joined voluntarily as it was believed that this would open up opportunities other than basic infantry in the service.

There's some truth to that belief, but it's not completely true. I went to an Army recruiter in 1966 and he told me the same thing, that if you were drafted, you'd be infantry, if you joined you could pick some other MOS (job specialty). They actually could tell if you were drafted or not back then by the prefix to your service number. Let's say your service number was 12345, then if you were drafted, your number would be US12345 and if you joined, your number would be RA12345.

I told the recruiter I didn't believe him and I believed if you scored well on the tests, you could get anything you wanted.

So I let them draft me and scored well and got the school I wanted and the duty station I wanted, twice.

The same was true of a number of other people I met in the Army. Score well, and you got what you wanted. Score poorly and you were likely to be 11B (infantry).

As troubling as the lack of military service within families is, it is even more troubling that so few members of Congress have served. At one time more than half of all male members of Congress had served in one military force or another. I believe the number now is less than 3%. Frankly, IMO, a male serving in Congress should have put in a couple of years in the military. If you're going to make laws and decisions sending troops off to war, then you'd better have some idea of what it is you're sending them to.'

flashguy

What percentage of the military age population could the military make use of and afford to pay for? This is especially true given that womem are in the mix, and would be for a draft. What percentage would be physically and attitudinally suitable for military service?

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Last I heard, less than 1% of the population chooses to serve. That’s sad and disappointing.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Last I heard, less than 1% of the population chooses to serve.

The oft-(mis)quoted statistic is actually that there is less than 1% of the US adult population currently serving.

Whereas around 7% of the current US adult population has served in the military.

That's down from a height of about 22% of US adults in the 1970s, the peak of the US veteran population due there being such large numbers of WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Cold War veterans still living at that time, at the tail end of an era of large scale wars, big standing armies, and military drafts from 1917-1973.

(But keep in mind that of those 22%, not all "chose" to serve... Many were drafted.)

The US military has shrunk post-Vietnam with the advent of the leaner all-volunteer force, and combined with the death of most of the large veteran populations from WW1 and WW2, the natural result is the veteran population percentage continues to shrink as well.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
As troubling as the lack of military service within families is, it is even more troubling that so few members of Congress have served. At one time more than half of all male members of Congress had served in one military force or another. I believe the number now is less than 3%.

It used to be well over half.

In 1953, about 74% of Senators and 62% of Representatives were veterans. In 1973, it was even higher at around 80% and 72%. And in 1993 it was still at 70% and 48%.

It drops off dramatically from there, to 37% and 27% by 2003, to 20% for each in 2013, and then to just 17% for each body of Congress today.

So still much more than 3%, and about 2.5X the veteran percentage of the overall US adult population, but now nearly the same as the percentage of NON-veterans in Congress in the 1970s.

Personally joined in 1968.. service number started with RA... those that were drafted started with US ............ National guard and reserves started with NG(?)........ and back then there were a lot of enlistees were given the choice by a court judge of joining the military service or going to jail...... but nowdays almost any record they do not want you. ..... .................... drill sgt.