There are some difficult decisions that need to be made if we are able to meet our military commitments around the world. Many soldiers will be leaving the military as soon as they are able and recruiters are unsure they'll be able to meet their enlistment goals. With the war on terror, it's more important than ever to keep a strong military. As a nation, we may want to consider some non-traditional ways of augmenting our military forces.
The other day as I was listening to a call-in show on c-span. (on xmradio) I heard a veteran call in to say he was disappointed that older people couldn't serve in the military. The shocking part came when he said his age, - 70. It dawned on me then that one way to increase the troop strength of our military is to take a good hard look at older soldiers. Not just retired soldiers, but older men who could make a significant contribution.
The maximum age of first enlistment for our armed forces is 35. There are some good reasons for this. Younger warriors are physically easier to train. Their bodies respond much better to the physical rigors of basic conditioning and subsequent combat. More importantly, younger men (and women) are easier to mold into loyal soldiers who will follow orders that may lead to their deaths. Since most new recruits are in their late teens or early twenties, their identities aren't completely formed. Their drill sargeant is able to finish that process. There is also the practical matter of helping the country get the most for their money. Younger troops can serve longer, therefore the value of their training is maximized. But older soldiers also have some advantages.
A middle aged man (or woman) has a stable identity. His family life is more likely to be stable. His personality has finally settled into the man he will become. Concepts like justice, freedom, and sacrifice are, for many middle-aged men, now more than just abstract ideas because they have the perspective of age. Physically, a middle-aged man will never equal an 18 year old at their physical peak. However, most middle aged men in good physical condition can sufficiently fulfill the duties of a soldier.
As far as training is concerned, many middle-aged men have already been trained and not at the cost of the government. For specialty areas like healthcare, engineering, personnel and civil affairs, this experience would be an asset. It would seem that an older enlistee would have some value for the armed forces, but there are some additional factors that keep this from becoming a reality.
Middle-aged men have families to support. They may be at the apex of their careers. They have house payments to make, a commitment to their employer, and kids to send to college. They can't afford to join the military where they will get only a fraction of the pay. Since they're older, they won't have the time to make the military their career. In terms of supporting their families, joining the military would be a financial disaster.
To solve this problem I propose,
1. The military allow older people to enlist for two year tours of duty in certain specialties for which they are already trained or, due to their experience, are easily trainable.
2. The federal government should mandate that employers retain these people and continue to pay them. (Only employees who have been employed at organization for a certain minimum period of time would be eligible.) The government would then re-imburse the employer for the cost of the employee.
I find it hard to imagine that any of these proposals will ever be taken seriously. It is a time-honored tradition in our military to train young men and women to be soldiers with the goal of building on that training throughout the remainder of their military careers. But when retention rates plummet and our nation finds itself with far too few soldiers for far too many commitments, maybe this will be an option considered.
What a great idea.
This is being done now in some military orgs (notably the IDF) and has actually been explored quite deeply in (believe it or not) science fiction writing.
"Starship Troopers" (among others)equated service with citizenship; without regard to age, health, disability, or gender...if you were willing to serve, they would find something for you to do.
You might be surprised at the available pool of bodies...kids grown, house paid off, prior service, working wife, and a desire to DO something to help.
Posted by: bjbarron at February 18, 2004 02:53 PMThe services already have this ability for the officer corps, and infrequently use it for medical professionals who come in on contracts, vice standard commissions and warrants. They are called direct appointments.
They are going to stand up another blue-ribbon panel consisting of former cabinet members and corporate CEOs and are going to direct-appoint them Major Generals.
You'd think they'd want to recall the retirees - except by definition, the retirees have more rank, and are actually harder to fit into the structure (and cost more). In that regard your idea has merit. Again, among the officer and warrant corps, they have the ability to recall people back at a lesser grade - but you can start to see some issues with that. Recall me to active duty as a Captain, for example, that takes away my VA disability, and I lose my civilian job - all of a sudden I'm taking just over a two-thirds hit in pay. Tough to get me to volunteer for that! If they need me bad enough that they're willing to do it involuntarily, I'll go - but I don't think I'd volunteer under those circumstances. And, as you point out - the need is really in the junior ranks.
There the law starts to get in the way. There would have to be some legislative activity to make that happen.
My other question revolves around deployability. Do you see these guys as freeing up the young ones to go fight/be deployed? I assume we aren't really talking about combat troops here, but support troops, right? What happens if we do that - all of a sudden the deployable ones spend all their time deployed, while the old farts do their jobs stateside. That starts being a retention issue.
Some things to consider.
Bottom line - the services can, and rarely do, have the ability to do what you are talking about, less the employer reimbursement aspect of it, for the officer corps.
It's more problematical with the enlisted ranks - and a much easier sell if you are going through a WWII-style mobilization and war, rather than this war-that-is-not-quite-all-out-war-looking-war. Even if our enemies are fighting it as if it is.
Posted by: John of Argghhh! at February 24, 2004 12:47 PMJohn,
Thanks for commenting on this. You know way more than I do about the vagaries of the military. I agree that there are definitely some problems that would need to be overcome by virtue of legislation if something like this were ever to be tried.
My main point is this: If I have civilian training and/or experience that would benefit the military, let's say in civil affairs or health care and the military needs more people in those areas, then why shouldn't they find a way to get me in there where I can be of use.
As an individual, the barriers would have to do with being unable to support the family with low military pay and being unable to leave a civilian career. By instituting a program legislatively that would allow a temporarily leave from their job for a period of say two years and by finding a way to keep the pay at a reasonable level, the military would be able to bring mostly-trained, experienced people into service within a relatively short time frame.
It sounds like the way they solve this problem now is by direct-commissioning people at an absurdly high rank. As a result, they only do this very rarely for certain unique niches. It seems unfair to the career soldiers and doesn't really solve a problem as far as the number of soldiers needed.
As far as retired soldiers are concerned, (yes I mean marines too) I can see where that would be a real problem. I don't see how you could fairly bring in someone at a lower rank and I don't have any answers for that one.
As far as deployability is concerned, I don't know enough about the military to make a very reasonable guess about this, but potentially you could bring someone in and have them be in a non-support position. The only real rationale for bringing in an older person is the need for someone to fill that particular specialty, therefore if you needed someone for to be an infantry grunt, assuming they qualify by virtue of having the right civilian experience, you would do so. To determine what rank at which to bring someone in you would need to figure out what rank they would reasonably need in order to perform in that specialty. It would seem to me that you could bring in an awful lot of Sergeants and Leutenants that way. Since it's only a two-year hitch and not a "career" position and since pay isn't an issue, the only real issue is that person being able to function in their area of expertise.
The whole thing hinges on some creative thinking in the way armies are raised and their role. I don't have a whole lot of confidence in any government entity's creative thought processes, but considering the types of roles that the modern military is being asked to fulfill it makes sense to me to consider a way of making use of people who traditionally would not be used.
Thanks again for the comment. It's great to have someone who actually knows what they are talking about put in their two cents.
-Jim.
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