On Feb 29, 10:29 pm, CL <flot...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Kevin Gowen wrote:
> > On Feb 28, 10:17 pm, CL <flot...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Kevin Gowen wrote:
> >>> Tough break for all of those sons who volunteered. No one ever cries
> >>> very much for the commercial fisherman or electricians who have a
> >>> higher job mortality rate than the military.
> >> In the current war, it isn't just sons who volunteered.  Lots more
> >> husbands and fathers than any time since 1941.  Have you checked out the
> >> average age of the casualties?  In Vietnam it was 19 years, but it is
> >> well over 25 for Iraq.
>
> > I am sure you can explain to me why the age of anyone is relevant.
>
> Yes, I can.

I'm all eyes.

> > That having been said, are the Vietnam causalities worth less to you
> > now that you know the average age was 23, not 19?
>
> Number of dependents.  Number of children left fatherless.  Number of
> loans and credit commitments left uncollectable.  Number of families
> left financially unsupported.  Check out the financial leveraging of the
> average combatant versus the general population and you'll find that the
> families of troops stationed in combat zones rely on credit more often
> and to a greater degree than the general population for daily survival.

Ok, so your position is that it's better that our cannon fodder be
young. Thank you for clearing that up.

> Total impact on economic well being and, eventually, productivity and
> lots of other things that would benefit from social and economic
> stability.
>
> Unfortunately, US Republicans think that you can replace anyone in a
> position lower than sycophant with a Mexican or Central American illegal
> so, just keep 'em coming -- much like Japanese mangers and engineers who
> believe that you can invent a robot for any use and need.

I think you'll find that American employers will hire the cheapest
labor they can get regardless of their party affiliation. Of course, I
don't know if I understand what that has to do with my point, which is
that I don't owe a member of the military anything more than I owe a
doctor or a construction crew.

> >> Statistics are funny old things aren't they.  Strictly speaking, the
> >> mortality rate for humans is 100%.  And as far as more commercial
> >> fishermen and electricians dying than military personnel -- which I
> >> would guess is a percent of all registered or something similar, if
> >> you're comparing like with like --  it just shows who has the better
> >> safety and training program, doesn't it?
>
> > It may show that. It may show that the military has a smaller
> > percentage of people in harm's way. It may show more than one factor.
>
> So, which did you have in mind when you used the example?

A job in the military is less dangerous than being a commercial
fisherman.

> >> As long as we're on the subject of statistics, anyone want to hazard a
> >> guess exactly what percentage of military service personnel are in
> >> actual combat assignments and what percentage are "support"?  Another
> >> one that amazes people who don't know anything about it -- Which branch
> >> of the US military service has the highest percentage of post-BA and
> >> post-doc degrees among their active duty members -- a stat that is
> >> roughly 4x the American population?
>
> > I give up. What percentage, and what branch?
>
> The military "used to" teach its officers that a maximum of 20% of its
> total forces are direct combat, including intelligence operations and
> intel interpretation, at any one time.  Hence, Declan's question in a
> previous post can be answered that the troops who repair and maintain
> the Global Hawks are combat support while the people who fly, take the
> photos, select the targets, aim the ordinance, and look at the photos
> and tell the planners what they see are combat troops.

Only 20%? That doesn't sound very impressive to me to learn that at
least 80% of the people are never going to have to storm a beach or
secure a hill or hang from that part at the bottom of a helicopter.
(you know that part?)

> Of course, the current civilian masters (sic) may have screwed things up
> so badly trying to pay off so many of their corporate "supporters" at
> one time that those numbers may no longer be valid.

Wow, you really hate corporations, huh?

> The most highly educated branch of the US military in terms of BA and
> higher degrees per service member is the Marine Corps.  The Marines also
> have the highest pass rate for GED recipients (versus the total number
> of enlisted accepted without high school diplomas but considered
> trainable) of all service branches, as well.

Golly, that's something. It seems that times are not so good in that
respect these days:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/01/23/army_recruits_with_diplomas_hit_25_year_low/

"The percentage of Army enlistees who joined the service with a high
school diploma went from almost 84 percent in 2005 to less than 71
percent last year, according to the analysis by the nonprofit National
Priorities Project."

> > P.S. how can one "guess exactly"?
>
> I dunno.  It's a term I heard a Republican Administration spokesman use
> on television and thought that's the way Americans talk nowadays, now
> that "paradigm" has been beaten to death and had gasoline poured on its
> corpse.

I bet you wish you could blame Republicans for the "19"'s in Vietnam,
huh?

> > Don't you find it ironic that you are poo-pooing education now, but in
> > the immediately preceding paragraph, you were bleating about post-BA
> > and post-doc degrees to talk up a military branch?
>
> No, I'm not.  You're just being petulant.  I'm poo-pooing how some
> people mistake going to school for being smart.  This isn't the case
> with the military as the system is designed to marginalize and weed out
> those types.  But, maybe you'd have to see it to understand.

Tee hee I burnT your butter pretty bad with that one. If the military
is so good at weeding out, why does it proudly proclaim that one does
not even need a high school education to sign up?

> I will grant that the military stacks the deck by testing and evaluating
> potential enlistees for the ability to learn and the willingness of the
> individual to accept training before accepting people who lack the
> proper education certificates.  So, they place a much higher emphasis on
> finding people with a desire for self-improvement than the general
> employment population.

Self-improvement? I thought that LIVES WERE AT STAKE. I think it's
pretty inappropriate to be trying to improve yourself when LIVES ARE
AT STAKE. Jack Nicholson said that I rise and sleep under a blanket of
protection that he provides, and I want the people doing that to be
top-notch already, not high school dropouts who are on some self-
indulgent quest.

The fact is that they place an emphasis on finding suckers dumb enough
to sign. That's why they have to have to many high school dropouts.

> Admittedly, there are, at the far margins of asocial behavior, people
> who can manipulate such tests to their own ends and the system does not
> find and eliminate all of them from the candidate pool.  But, you're not
> going to get away with flogging that dead horse as your thesis.

I have seen ASVAB questions. I was not impressed. I do not know what
their was to manipulate. Besides, I think the idea of shooting
whomever you are told without question and then getting a medal for it
appeals to an antisocial personality.

> > But no, I know I would have been a handsome genius even if I had never
> > set foot inside a school.
>
> Uh huh.  Riiiiiight.

Life is easy when you have a Mensa brain. Am I rite!

- Kevin