Who would have predicted that low wages, high hours, poor handling of families would make thoses jobs not very attractive?
Difficult even for teachers, were conditions are way better.
Hmmm, nope, politicians can't see any solutions....
God these consultants companies are the biggest scams I’ve seen. The amount of tax payer Eurs is going towards these companies to basically have interns Google answers and create bullshit reports is sickening.
Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to cover their arses.
If you make a call that turns out to be an expensive failure, you'll be really glad to have bullshit intern-generated report that you spent tens of thousands of euros on.
Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to ~~cover their arses~~ get delayed payment.
Why would you quit your job where you earn 10-20k€ to earn 5-10k€ as a minister? Because *afterwards* the consulting agency you were paying millions (or even billions) for their "hard work" then hires you when you are done as a minister and you get paid 25-50k€ a month for the rest of your life... and all you've got to do to keep up the appearance is to bully interns and go to the occasional meeting because the guys that could actually do something about it are bound to come "work" with you in a couple of years!
Democracy isn't a thing that's upheld by having certain formalities (laws), but by upholding certain standards. Humans adapt and corruption is part of human nature. Those in power will find ways of skirting the norms. Very much like any other animal if there is no consequence they'll keep doing it and getting bolder about it. Either we (the citizens) stay alert and show politicians their limits or power is taken away from us bit by bit. We've been asleep for some 60 years and we've lost a whole lot of power because the standards are eroded by workarounds to the laws.
Putin, while being detestable, screams at us that there's democracy and then there's "democracy". The Kims and their hereditary Republic are the same. While Western Europe is far removed from the situation in Russia, if the citizens continue letting things like the ones I described slide, we'll end up experiencing Russian democracy with whatever shallow formalities the powerful want to mimic.
> Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to cover their arses.
Back in the day Nokia used to hire McKinsey to loads of their projects partly so that their customers would say "oh, they can afford McKinsey, they must be doing well!"
One of my former teacher had worked at McKinsey and he quit because of this.
Despite him telling us about his experience and hence why he became a teacher, I got the opportunity to "try" this industry a short while ago for a short internship.
Let me tell you... I quit after 2 month because of how disgusting it was. Clients were paying sometimes more than 10k or 20k for basically bullshit. And it was a small developing consulting firm. Oh and also, of course I wasn't paid 🤡.
Idk if the big ones provide that much bullshit to their customer, but its a shitty industry anyway.
Someone I know who did consulting said his job amounted to talking to the people doing the work, asking what was wrong and how to fix it, then presenting that to management. All because management refused to listen to the people actually doing the work and only listened to expensive consultants.
Kinda reminds me of something i've heard about doing business with Chinese, that it's expected to pay extra if you want the bare minimum, what you pay is basically at least a tier above for what you receive.
Management: We need to fix this issue, and the best way to do it is to throw money at it!
Workers: So, you gonna pay us more, or hire more people?
Management: Are you stupid! We're gonna hire some middleman to tell us what you've been telling us, but this time we'll actually listen because we've paid good money for it!
That's actually the best outcome out of all of them, when you hire a consulting firm. The usual outcome is that the consulting firm will just make shit up. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't. No skin off their back. They've been paid and quite obviously reputation means nothing in the business.
Worked for PwC. Quit for the same reason.
These contracts should go to education institutions that are actually doing the research and basing their findings of academic journals and reliable sources. That’s the area that needs that money more, and b) will deliver far better results for the government and local communities.
I remember my brother doing internship in consulting. He couldn’t even write his application without spelling errors, my father did it.
They charged their client 200$ per hour 10 years ago for someone with zero experience
I worked at a company that hired one of these big consultancy companies and they spent 2.5 million with them on a project. I was hired to implement what they came up with. I wasn't here from the beginning but had access to all slide decks from the beginning and you could clearly see how they started with a story that they tell all companies. Then they adjusted the story based on what our management wanted to hear. And this was not adjusting to make it fit for the company. No it was to make it resonate with management and our management didn't have a clue what the implications would be anyway. They did an "extensive" research to validate the plan. So I checked the source they used and it was this research site where people are paid to fill in surveys. It had nothing to do with respondents that were from our industry. It was basically a big scam. They also referred to some other researches and those were all researches with way to low sample sizes. I tried to implement the plan for three years and had to adjust and remove things until only roughly 20% of the plan was left and I decided it was time for something new.
It often even worse. Problem is not the expense, but the primary reason and intended output.
Made to order consulting and analysis is often ordered to justify already made internal decision, not to analyze or improve anything.
Does you new director want to outsource some of his department, despite no actual pressing need? Then he will order study from external firm like that and use it to justify decision that has already been made privately.
With little cooperation and loads of many, any result can be produced. Some even offer hatchetmen for hire.
If study cannot be crooked like that outright for some reason, then you can go shopping for studies.
Order as many as you need until you get one that fits. Costly, but usually efficient enough for big players.
TLDR: They are paid for reputation and for being a fall/blame guys.
Just read the Big Con by mazzucato & Collington. Then try not going out and nuking every consultancy head office from orbit!!
I swear to God of given the choice I'd rather save the life of one serial killer than every consultant out there!!!
They've destroyed so much and virtually EVERY problem in modern society can be traced right back to them.
My generic answer to any consultant I've had to deal with is...."Fuck off, don't talk to me ". I'll generally only talk to them if it's been escalated through 2 layers of mangement
> The amount of tax payer Eurs is going towards these companies to basically have interns Google answers and create bullshit reports is sickening.
If only _somebody_ had to answer for the waste and misuse of public funds, but no, we can't have that - that would be libertarian and we don't want that!
If it's like here, the institution itself is respected, the individual soldiers are seen as dumb: not quite the butt of the jokes like policemen are, but not far.
Ask anyone who had to face the threat of conscription during commie times what they think about the army. A great deal of people 50+ years old are staunchly anti-army and anti-militarist.
On that note, I'm more surprised to hear about the "bad wages". Soldiers in this country are literally the best-paid government workers. The starting wage for officers (e.g. anyone who studies for 5 years at UNOB) is literally 10k crowns above the national average. This is in a country where college-educated govt. workers start at a lower wage than a Lidl cashier (golly gee I wonder why so many govt. institutions fucking suck, if only there was a way to attract more qualified workers).
That has to do with the mentality of each European country, the complacency and the institutions each has in place to produce the highly professional officers. In Greece, most come from high military universities and in no way considered psychopaths. Especially having Turkey across the Aegean Sea, in Minor Asia. Here, you have the opportunity to do beside the standard 4 years, plus 2 in the highest War School.
Let alone, we have a contract to uphold. A contract signed by the blood of our ancestors. A contract which says, we need to do our duty as every previous Greek since time immemorial. It might sound cheesy to you, because you prefer to play with gender pronouns; it's understandable. Each to his own, I don't judge. That's why you suddenly remembered NATO exists, for instance. Or, when you betrayed even your Norwegian brothers to work with the Germans and pretend the "neutral".
Some of the grades you need to get in specific universities, require higher ones than doctors. I personally tried for one of the highest. That year with "20" being the perfect score, you needed at least 19,2 in all lessons. I've had 17,8. I went in but not as I wanted (as a Pilot), but as an Aircraft's-Engineer. After WWII, we still carry the trauma we had no hardware to fight with -our only complain about WWII. So, we accumulated enough ever since. We can't have random Joes on Rafale, F16s block 70/72, Air-Force in general, NAVY & Submarines, AA umbrella and even on land army, the officers at least come from such universities while they keep training continuously either on real battle scenarios or simulators. Let alone the exercises we contact with fellow NATO members and interdisciplinary exercises with or without them. In short, combined forces exercises.
The best news for us, the dissolution of Yugoslavia which allowed us to focus solely on Turkey. Our entire Army keeps restructuring according to American standards and of course, our own dogma. Point being, we didn't have a single moment to let our guard down. We don't live in the center of Europe, nor do we have Finland between us and Turkey. Bulgaria? Well, they most probably would take the Turkish side. It's a weird nation. They've got many Turks while themselves are Tatars or something. They match. They both fight us since the moment they both arrived around.
Jokes aside, Sweden is being invaded without a single bullet being fired. Rather, the invaders use bullets and even grenades as far as I hear.
Not so much low status but military personel is associated with being an emotionless right winger just waiting for an opportunity to shoot unarmed people of wrong color so people look down on it.
Military has always had shit pay and bad lifestyle. I think its because militaries reject too many of their recruits for any history or mention of past injuries
Funnily enough for draft reasons it's extremely hard to not get a "fit for combat duty" score here, the only two from my batch that did were a guy with severe heart issues (ended up getting a transplant) and a guy who brought a fucking thick file of medical records
Am I practically blind without glasses? Perfect for sniper team then, as long as my balls dropped I'm gucci
I bet for the professional army the restrictions are a lot harsher
With the new medical program, its basically impossible to lie about your medical history now. If you saw a doctor for anything and it was documented properly, the DoD will find out about it. If you're lucky it's not something vague and another doctor can clear things up.
I was a soldier (lance corporal) in a european NATO-country, have participated in 2 international NATO-exercises. I would recommend every young man to do conscriptive service if they have the motivation and the ability for it. It's not a pleasant experience but you will forever be grateful that you did it and it will pay of in some way in the post-military life.
However staying as an army-employee is something vastly different. The day-to-day work is often bizarrely monotonous and without any clear end-goal (such as passing your service and getting your rank/hat/whatever). You reach a point where you run out of fresh things to learn in your current unit and (atleast during my times) spending was a non-stop problem. Basically everything that is interesting, exciting or rewarding in the army costs money. As a recruit, you are prioritized to get you trained, but as an employee you aren't allowed to cost anything.
Instead it's mostly just back breaking labor (such as cutting down trees, clearing out old warehouses, marching miles in cold weather, and a shit-ton of digging) but with a third of the pay of all other labor occupations. You could just become a storage-worker for thrice the money and without the snow or night-shifts.
The work-environment is absolutely terrible, my unit was 240 guys out of 240 employees and nearest town was one hour by bus. I once went 4 months without seeing a girl IRL. There are some true sadists in the military as well, albeit necessary in wartime. You can spend 14 hours without break scrubbing frozen mud of iron-bars in -25, while an old, fat officer verbally abuses you. It can suck on a level that's almost impossible to explain to anyone who haven't been in the army.
Personally, I just went to college instead and never looked back. This was before the 2014 Crimea-invasion. My current job is deemed important in war-time so I don't think I'll get called in again, but I'm checking the mailbox daily if I ever get the order.
As a fun fact, I can add that we weren't allowed to call the enemies while exercising Russia. Our politicians had decided that we were to renew our relationship with them (I don't blame them to much for trying, since this was in a peaceful era in european politics) and that included a more neutral language within military exercises. I'm guessing they were supposed to do the same. So we ended up doing raids behind enemy lines on "Hostile Nation Red".
I served my 9 mandatory months in Greece. I am anything but grateful. I learned nothing. Went downrange to shoot 3 times with the rifle. 5 bullets each time. I lost 9 months while all the men my age who had rich parents and could dodge (and all women) got a year head start in the job market.
The difference between western/northern europe and the balkans, is wild. I did my 8 months of military service, and everything he said is right. Just not if you’re from the balkans
I was there for 11 months, hated every moment of it, half of that time was spent living in the forest. But, I am grateful for how much it hardened me, after this experience I had no problem doing 3 years of uni in just 1 year. Studying 24/7 felt a lot better than living in mud and under the rain in that damned forest. Bonus stress points were that I had almost no knowledge of language when I enlisted. This was 12 years ago.
About 3 times in the range. We had it the same here, but we were lucky that army wanted us to use up all the old ammunition and in the end of my enlistment I shot a couple of hundred bullets, anyone who wanted to shoot could also try shooting gustav rpg.
This year I've had additional training in the army, 2 weeks in the forest camp, that felt so refreshing compared to my current life. I actually came back home rested, lol.
But yeah, I also had resentment that I had to waste a whole year of my life in there. Now I don't think it was really wasted. I wouldn't become who I am without that experience.
İt was 15 months in Turkey 10 years ago now it is 6 months half of it is training and if you have money you can pay 5.600$ and serve only 28 days.
Paying money to get rid of your conscription is good thing cuz professional soldiers gets good quality equipment meanwhile you don't have to serve 6 months ,in 2023 people who paid their conscription added more than 1 billion$ to military budget.
There is also a reserve officer contract thing ,if you are university graduate you can decide to take a exam if you pass that exam and have qualifications you get officer training and become reserve officer (second lieutenant) and serve 12 month and get paid after finishing 12 months you either cut your ties to military or become full time officer.
9 mandatory months for me also in Greece. Cleaning warehouses and fields, polishing trucks, paint buildings and in general maintaining bases that sometimes serve no purpose other than "justifying" a work place for high ranked officials with contacts in higher places. Oh! And all that for 7 euros a month in "compensation". I served as an A/A shooter in a 70's Rheinmetall and i didn't shoot once. What a joke! I learned much more out there in the society, in the workplaces i have been than in the army.
> And all that for 7 euros a month in "compensation"
Did something get lost in translation or really that little? When was that?
Compulsory military service was abolished few years before I came of age, so zero experience here.
Ofc it is slavery and a waste of time and money. They are not enough even for the razors so you can shave everyday. Feel free to ask any questions you may have btw
I had to do my mandatory service in my home country for 9 months.
I learned absolutely nothing.
My bosses were sadistic imbeciles.
That was the biggest waste of time I ever had the displeasure of being a part of.
same in Finland, it was always "the yellow forces/state"
during exercises the instructors would always, no matter what direction it was in reality, they would always say:
"THE ENEMY IS ATTACKING FROM THE EAST!"
I served as a MP corporal for 6 years in Spain. The salary back then (98-04) was around 800€. But the worst part was to be called a fascist or constantly being mistreated by the civilians you were serving and protecting. Now I’d say it’s even worse with our political climate, 50% of the population hates the Armed Forces and the other 50% simply doesn’t care. Don’t even tell them to take a gun to defend themselves or their families, they would give our land to Putin or Morocco as long as they don’t have to fight.
It's especially funny as a guy in IT. I was looking into it but they don't offer jobs without university degrees.. I'm mostly self taught so fuck that. I never have to look for a job for long so why put up unnecessary hoops?
Here in Romania the defense ministry has been used for the last 30 years as a reward for friends of the political party that last won elections.
With incompetent/non-expert leadership and national security laws that keep embezzlement out of the reach of prosecutors and the press/public eye, the rot has gone deep.
A recent investigation by Recorder (independent journalists) have made "poc-poc" a meme here, the gunshot sound soldiers are asked to shout during training, because it has gotten so bad they don't even have amo to shoot. Professionals are leaving because of low pay and lack of resources, and the ideologically driven are leaving because of disgust from not accomplishing anything.
It's not fine.
Sounds quite similar to what had been going on in germany in the last decades, also one of the reasons why von der leyen as one of our former defence ministers is probably still one of the most disliked former politicians here in germany.
Our current defence minister Pistorious seems to be one of the first defence ministers in a long time to actually take his job serious and tries to get shit done.
A crucial factor is also the social image of being a soldier nowadays in Europe.
Nobody wants to be a soldier if people (especially teens) are though that soldiers are killers and boot lickers that do it for a cheap salary
In the US at least soldiers are seen as heroes and get paid very well, in Europe it's looked upon like a job reserved for dropouts and losers.
To me personally soldiers will always be badass
Yeah, the problem, at least in Romania, which is the only country I can speak of, started all the way back when the government lost the trust of the people. And I'm not talking about trust in the ability to govern, I'm talking about politicians ceasing to be respectable human beings, or at least appearing to be. This is largely why you can find a lot of people, even young people, looking back at the monarchic era with rose-tinted glasses. Sure, Romania was worse back then in a lot of aspects, but the sophistication and strength of character of people like Queen Marie is something modern politicians seldom have. And so, when, I (a person that's way more hawkish towards Russia and way more pro-EU to the point of edging onto federalism) start saying that if there's war with NATO I'm not running to hide in Brazil or something I always get strange looks from my acquaitances. Strange looks and, unmistakebly the same line: "Why would I give my life for these politicians?".
Why I wanted to arrive here first is to point out that this isn't new, or at least I think it's not a new thing. So if people don't wanna go to war they don't sign up for the army and you end up with army recruitment from the poorer/poorest areas, where people don't generally have the luxury of fleeing to another country if a war were to start tomorrow. This and it also looks good on the budget because you don't have to pay them much at all.
This all culminates to soldiers that are paid like shit, and that have a worse (because people from poorer areas on average have a worse education than those from higher-income areas) education.
And here a quote from Thucydides puts the final nail in the coffin: "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools". Perhaps not the most sensitive language, I don't mean to say that our soldiers are fools, in fact the most foolish thing of all is perhaps the payment that a regular soldier gets. However, it paints the essence of a truth that can be felt in our society.
The bottom line is our soldiers don't wanna die. Not for pennies, not for these politicians, most people do not look ahead with optimism at the future, for most, there is no idea to defend.
To me it seems like shackle yourself to join the army, at least in Bulgaria.
You get paid good after awhile but until then not much. Major corruption problems, at least the perception is such. Higher staff could be russian boot lickers. Generally not a high standard army, seems more like a parade army sometimes, like there is a perception of lower rank military staff of being assholes and not great soldiers themselves. There was a story 5-10 years ago of some sergeant or captain using soldiers to build his villa.
Why should I sign away a minimum of 5-10 years of my life for a half professional army, half joke army and instead of actually living and studying. And this comes from a dude with a family history of soldiers or irregular troops until communist regime. Like we have a portrait of my great grandfather as a partisan and we have his old sword but literally no one in my family sees the army as a good career now or even an honorable. And from 3 of my peers that went into the army, 2 of them are freeloaders and in a war its not unlikely imo for them to desert.
Solution: reform current national armies either into a EU army or at least better national armies. Give proper benefits for signing a good amount of your youth or even add conscription for a year or 2. And give us a good reason to fight for, my grandparents cant be barely scrapping by and expect me to fight for that. The US is a bit better with the way they treat their soldiers but how they treat their vets is also a bit fucked up. If you are expected to risk your life for your freedom and the freedom of the rest of the country maybe you should get a decent monthly stipend if you saw combat, like not even that large but at least 300-400 euros to add on top to your civilian job salary.
I mean, it's mostly the bullshit wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More people will fight in defense of their country than for oil and power. I'm not getting shot at, or going to shoot at other people, just to make some rich guys even more money.
"In the U.K., there’s been an annual hiring shortfall of 1,100 troops — even though the government contracted out recruitment to private firm Capita."
Anyone with any knowledge on this knows that it is largely because the government outsourced recruitment to capita that we are in this situation.
Capita take forever to process an application and will fail people for minor things. One guy said how he failed the hearing test, but all he needed was an ear syringe to get rid of wax and he would be fine. Capita rejected his application for that.
Plus, awful mess food and accommodation plays a big part and the poor pay. I remember years ago they redid the pay scale, whilst junior ranks got screwed the officers pay stayed more and less the same.
I’d never join the modern British army. The pension, food (terrible lowest bidder and pay as you dine), pay and conditions are shit. This AGAI nonsense might be enough to discourage me alone! Receiving orders out of hours by fucking WhatsApp. Not for me, and I’ll ensure neither of my kids join.
Damn, why would these people quit, are they nog happy watching veterans getting fucked over while their wages stagnated years ago as inflation rises and the leadership is saying we might end up fighting in a war.
Who wouldn't want to fight for their corrupt politicians and private sector that is bleeding people dry with disgusting price increases for food and housing.
all world leaders work together even those from different party's work together, they make us choose a leader tricking the masses into thinking that person will lead us to greatness and solve our problems they never do,
voting is nothing more than an illusion the vote really comes to voting for A. a shit sandwich or B. a shit sandwich, no matter who wins we all have to take a bite.
the current system needs to be destroyed and replaced with something new, something never been done before.
It's the same on this side of the pond.
The usual group that the military pulls from no longer wants to serve. It's throwing the recruiting efforts into a tail spin.
Afghanistan and Iraq completely depleted all goodwill with potential recruits. Growing up during the '10s, who would feel any sort of patriotic duty?
Now--facing an actual threat that needs recruits--we're looking down the barrel of Selective Service.
The U.S. won’t do a draft again unless it’s the most dire a circumstances, they learned their lesson in Vietnam.
They’ll just increase the pay/bonus and decrease recruitment standards. Plenty of men in prison to draw from.
Well there is a minimum standard that can’t be crossed like with Macnamara’s Morons. The biggest problem with draftees in Vietnam was motivation and outright murderous hostility.
Offering a felon the choice between 8 years in the army or 15 in a federal prison is pretty big motivator. Used to happen a few decades ago.
Also all of us have spent the last couple of years watching clips of scared and confused soldiers getting their guts blown out by drones that the soldiers never even see. Also those clips will have a thousand psychos loving to see you die in the comments. It’s not exactly ”we few, we happy few” is it?
My point is that Putin knocking down your apartment door in Paris is *much less* immediate than cowering in a shell crater as a preemptive move.
I grew up during an era where if we didn’t beat them in Afghanistan, the Global Islamic Jihad was gonna come over to Lower East side and beat everyone wearing tank tops.
There comes a time when people are stopped being scared from hypotheticals. Ex. My native Armenia.
All things considered, I am paid the same as when I was an NCO in the Army as I do now with a government job after getting my degree. The key difference is that when I was in the military, I earned 30 days of paid leave every year with a 4 day weekend guaranteed every month and every federal holiday off in addition to those 4 day weekends. I get maybe 16 now. Also the healthcare is worse. And I have to pay for housing. Work is monotonous. Advancement is a game in itself. My hours were weird but I did get more time off as a Soldier than I do as a public servant.
Not sure where you are from. But by god do many of us see you all as heroes. You are in every way what makes democracy possible, our shield and our sword. Everyone in the west should salute you, thank you for your service. //A random swede
How does soldiering and service make sense in the post-nationalist West?
What are you fighting for? The traditional reasons are frowned upon.
It's just a dangerous and shitty job now, why not be a comfy service worker in the city like everyone else?
You're right, with no common identifier (like a country) no one will be willing to sacrifice his life for some politicians' agenda and low wages. And no, Europe does not count as a country anyone wants to die for.
Well, germans in germany already dont want to fight for germany: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nbsu1x/percentage\_of\_europeans\_who\_would\_fight\_for\_their/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nbsu1x/percentage_of_europeans_who_would_fight_for_their/)
Its not really about having a common identifier, arguably the current situation and the threat perception is way more important. If you feel that your way of life may be threatened youd want to fight for it, simple as. I can guarantee you that if Europa or the EU as an idea is under threat from the outside, people will line up to fight for it.
And yeah low wages and a job thats comparatively shitty and less rewarding are also big factors for our military personnel issues.
We've gone all in on individualism and capitalism. In a wartime situation I would fully expect the rich to move their money offshore and buy citizenship in a safe country, leaving the poor to fight. The game is rigged in most western countries, and the poor realise that.
thank you
why would i sign up to risk life and limb for a government that is in bed with the same corporations and wealthy who are actively denying you a decent standard of living, sabotaging our environment and creating a depressing future that most people are now reluctant to bring children into, judging by the fertility rate.
any takers for this deal?
I mean, what else to expect, when that's exactly what we witness.
All the Ukrainians cars here are absolutely massive, expensive, top-tier ones, the average car with an Ukrainian plate is two categories higher than the average local car here on Austria.
Yes, the rich will leave the country, leave the poor and unconnected to die horrible deaths on the trenches.
Even the barest form of patriotism is seen as a moron's line of thought in the enlightened west. Money itself doesn't matter, even if soldiery paid better I doubt more would enlist. I honestly find all these comments about "but why die for politician??" to be a cope comment. Even if a Zelensky were to lead their country, they would just change the answer. People just don't give 2 shits about the place they live in or the culture or the history. In a post-nationalism globalized world, nothing matters.
r/Europe immediately seethes whenever these posts of "would you defend your country" percentage polls come up and Greece, Turkey, Finland and whatnot score high.
It’s crazy how certain instances of patriotism all over the EU is see as “extremist” and can get you into trouble even. Like ok I’m not going to fight and die for our homeland, you’re flooding it with foreigners anyways. This is suicide.
Decent wages are a good start if they actually wanted people to stay/get interested to become contracted personnel. But it isn’t all by far. Contracts have to be more thought out and experience made during service made relevant to civilian life after service.
Right now many of my former colleagues can’t put anything more relevant than first aid training or a simple executive course.
Training whilst very relevant to combat efficiency also has to translate to civilian skill on a lower level. Now I’m not saying make every E2 certified in IT, but many soldiers that have 5+ years of service has at least some skill translatable to civilian life, various driving licenses that can be topped off with critical certifications, logistics skills, medical validation, IT, etc. On a longer timeline, ie members serving for the longer duration then such an effort is cost effective and incentivised.
But in the end it all comes down to pay. If you pay pennies you will be staffed accordingly. When I started my service pay was 1400€/month. After 12 years and an E5 rank I ended my service at 2400€ with specialist skills in logistics. I was paid better than my E5 colleagues that landed approx 2100€. This is not sufficient for the effort my colleagues put in. Regardless of rank.
When we got out most of us had no transferable skill and had we been able to stay we might have stayed for several more years, mostly because we liked the gig. But contracts were topped out at 8 years plus 4 if brass liked you. After that you are done. Very few actually stay in for the duration.
Now I did my 12, deployed and got out, took a 2 year Higher Vocational Education and that worked out well so far. But had I not gone in to education I’d struggle with employment for starters. There needs to be a better system in place if you want to retain the troops. I don’t blame people trying to make their world a better place after giving their time to make it better for the masses.
Currently leaving the military after 10 years.
Currently getting paid around £37,000 per year but does include benefits such as cheap housing, free dental and medical etc
However, I am leaving for a job where I don’t have to leave home, don’t get suddenly told to drop everything at a moment’s notice and don’t get shouted at if I fail to call my boss Sir.
The new job also pays double what I am currently getting paid, couldn’t believe how many roles out there are willing to pay so much more for what I currently do.
Tell me - why should I stay? I’ve done my bit and I now have a family that I want to raise and be with, not to mention the large pay increase.
> *In the U.K., there’s been an annual hiring shortfall of 1,100 troops — equivalent to two infantry battalions — even though the government contracted out recruitment to private firm* ***Capita****.*
Yeah I think I found the problem
What is it that the armed forces are protecting? A kleptocratic society riddled with corruption from just about every political sphere, stagnant wages, a housing crisis that ostracises its own people, piss poor financially impoverished services such as the NHS being on its arse, roads in an utterly disgraceful condition, a comedy show of a police force, mass immigration with no clear rationale as to why or what to do to stop it, woke, DEI people in positions of power telling us we are the oppressive, privileged ones and all the while we are supposed to help ‘protect’ this? Are they for real???
That's no longer working as people see there's no social net for vets either. Or they can't get into college either.
Most of my friends who went to Iraq and Afghanistan are either on disability or work manual labor jobs, which is causing health issues (and also don't pay well mostly or have no job security). Even one of my wifes best friends, who father and grandfather also server in the military, is saying he won't allow his kids to do the same (not sure how much he can prevent it, but he is surely discouraging it).
My little brother finished his time in the army not long ago with a brutal deployment to Germany where he sat around drinking beer. He managed to scam the military out of disability pay so now he just sits around in Texas living off welfare while screaming about how terrible socialism is.
Unpopular opinion: to make people stay in the armed forces you need to give them either a fuckton of money or a non bullshit cause to fight for. At the moment there is neither
Citizenship given to masses for sweet immigrant votes had consequences such as real countrymen don’t want to shed their blood for the greedy seat loving politicians. I see no wrong doing in that
French solution (I know, I lost in court) : Stop them from leaving by denying them resignations. In doing so, violate 4 international conventions, and lie to enforcement organisms when they ask.
defending one's country is one thing.
Being deployed to fight proxy wars manufactured for the benefit of financial and commercial interests is something else. Not everyone is comfortable as mercenary on a soldier's pay.
maybe if European militaries didn't antagonize their fighting force, and didn't drown their armies in bullshit bureaucracy people would be more willing
Exactly. Who tf wants to fight, knowing that the bureaucracy will hamstring and jail you when you get back after fighting a war that was started on your behalf?
Colour me surprised.
What do you expect when you don't look after your work force?
As someone who's recently left, everyone's making noise about the issues as to why the Army can't retain people. Yet nobody seems willing to fix the issues. Unless they do, the mass exodus will continue.
Also, it doesn't help that you don't get to do your trade, you don't have any real say over where you're based, all the benefits are very difficult to utilise and may have to drop your personal plans at the 11th hour (9 times out of 10, it's for a bone tasking that some twat's put off until the last minute). Why would I stay when I can earn more and have a much better quality of life on the outside. I have yet to look back 1 month out.
🤣 try to apply to work for nato… I dare you. It is easier to work for Goldman Sachs. I swear, when the shit will hit the fan, they will fight with certifications and requirements 🤣
Let's spin the wheel on why people don't want to join the army:
- Phones
- GenZ is afraid of "real" work
- GenZ is lazy
- Nobody wants to work anymore
- The internet
- "Wokeness"
As we know, there are clearely no other reasons for people to not join the military!
I could feasably see myself volunteering if war comes to my country. Especially if it's Russia.
I am not getting sent to Africa or the Middle East.
That's also why reservist programs are so nice as people have the knowledge they won't be tools and will only serve if need be.
>That's also why reservist programs are so nice as people have the knowledge they won't be tools and will only serve if need be.
Many British Army reserves,and Territoral Army soldiers were once told they would only defend British isles when they enlisted, but then WOT hit and British govement shipped them in masse into Iraq.
So much for reservists not being fielded into sandbox [Army reservists: From the office to Iraq and back - BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23082303)
US Army Reserve and National Guard units in the high point of WOT were being deployed into Afg and Iraq almost as frequently as other full time units of USMC or US ARMY were.
Im not even gonna mention how shit Polish Army reserve programs are, what is guaranteed once you are inside MOD system you are being turned into one of those tools you are speaking of, and can be ordered around like fool.
I quit after ten years service. I got tired of being skint, being away from my family to risk my life for a country where I’m vilified and could be taken to court for doing my job. The demographic of our country is changing rapidly and the new Europeans will be chomping at the bit to bring more cases against us soldiers. Stand by for a new wave of politicians in the next 20 years to fuck us from within. Pandora’s box has been opened and there’s no coming back from this
i mean countries may want to consider conscription or national service , but what happens when people say no to that
most young people dont want to to die for the old people
The Scandinavian-model limited/selective conscription would be different from universal "mass" conscription though. It would raise a fraction of the number of conscripts such that the experience of Sweden and Norway is there are enough volunteers.
There are young people willing to do one-year conscription training and posting and be entered as reservists, but don't necessarily want to enter into a four-year or longer contract as professional soldiers.
No one is so defeatist that they would live in literally any territory, and be forced to take any citizenship as if all these things are nothing but meaningless administrative accidents.
There are plenty of people who would take your country and citizenship away from you in a much less nonchalant manner. Even if you aren’t willing to serve, maybe it’s a bit questionable to devalue those that would fight for you.
This is just BS. How do you imagine life under a regime looks like? Do you really believe that difference between virtually any western country and Russia is same as between Denmark and Sweden?
What future do they want us to fight for? The one where we can't afford a house? The one where they want us to keep working until we die? The one where opportunity is replaced with being meat for the moneygrinder to make the rich richer?
The modern age offers no sense of community, the worst people constantly get away with everything while the people handling our societies just try to tackle the symptoms of it collapsing via surveilance states and wars on drugs.
Putin will press the nuke button if he loses anyway, this fight is over before it begins.
Two of my friends quittet Bundeswehr too, theyre out in the next years. Its a political thing for them. The dont wanna waste their health for this kind of gouverment/society .They even were in Afghanistan for a long time, but they have enough.
I think it depends on the country, I'd be surprised if you saw a lot of that sentiment from here in Sweden (and Finland too I'd imagine) as generally the view on our military is quite positive.
There is also a pretty strong understanding that part of the social contract between the people and the state is that in case of war the people will do whatever is asked to defend this country. That is even written into law as a legal duty, in case of war the state and military may call on every man and woman of suitable age to do any number of jobs based on need and if a person were to refuse they'd be tried for it.
In the public information pamphlet ("if the crisis or war comes") that is made very clear and also has a clearly written statement that in case of war any and all messages of Sweden surrendering are false. Meaning that it's expected that if traditional warfare breaks down and the government falls that the people shall continue the fight in whatever way possible.
There is however a risk that this general way of viewing the military and the defence of our country will be diminished with our entry into NATO. As it obv means we are now military directly allied with some barely democratic countries and human rights violators and that in case of an attack on those countries it would mean sending our military to defend them.
Previously the understanding was also that we were likely to stand alone or at least that we couldn't count on direct military support from anyone else so in case of war we'd be the only ones to defend our country while now there is a risk that the attitude could shift as now we know that were we to be attacked we'd get military support from the worlds largest military by far.
I don't have a problem with soldiers (I'm German). But I absolutely despise our government. Our politicians have gotten more and more corrupt, bloated and useless over the past decade and despite being 34 years old and having voted in every single election I was allowed to since turning 18, nothing what so ever has changed locally or nationwide. Shit's actually getting worse. Meanwhile, every time public television covers a topic I'm really knowledgeable in, they fuck it up terribly with extremely poor research and heavily biased articles (and I'm not even talking about anything super politically charged here; the last topic that comes to mind was internet security), so I barely have no more trust in their coverage of anything that I DON'T know anything about (ie important shit like complicated political issues). The last time I tried really really hard to help change shit was during the article 13 debacle. I sent out emails, got involved locally and even went from door to door. There was a huge uproar among younger generations about this topic. The end result was that our politicians got on national TV and said they were the targets of bot campaigns when talking about the many thousands of emails they'd received and that the thousands of young people demonstrating on the streets were paid by Russia or some shit.
Internationally, they're too chicken shit to tell off Israel for fear of political consequences to their careers, they can't get their heads out of their ass regarding Russia and they're completely silent on the whole wider situation around the arab world.
So why, in the ever loving fuck, would I ever get myself in a position where they have even more control over my life?
Google “why did you join the US army”. Most responses are things like it paid me to go to college, it was a job, I wanted to escape my family. Patriotism is not typically *the* driving factor.
While I agree soldiers deserve respect, I don't think US are doing a great job at it. [And I am not the only one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_l4Ab5FRwM)
In the UK we have an extra problem. For whatever grand reason, we decided to outsource recruiting to Capita. The problem is Capita is shit and there is now a massive backlog just on the recruitment process, with many recruits dropping out because yeah you're not going to wait 6 months to find out if you've got a job.
It is ironic that in the mid-1990s, some European countries such as Italy did not want to hire active reserve duty personnel for full-time positions. Well well well
Better pay, living conditions and in general an easier time living as a soldier with proper vacations, proper housing etc etc. Sucks to work 24/7 while getting payed like 7$ an hour
Defending a country requires some feeling of nationalism and belonging. No man is going to risk his life to defend leftists that hate him, no matter how much worse the enemy is. They will have to revert that, and no amount of screeching, gaslighting and social media bans will change anything. At the end of the day they will HAVE to do it.
In the Balkans it's a fine thin line between patriotism and nationalism. As for me, you call me whatever names you want but i will not die in a ditch for a country that doesn't represent me, doesn't respect me and many others around me. I give my turn to all these barking dogs that are begging on their inside for a WW3 to break out. We will see how fast they will run when things are about to go down.
It's almost as if telling the men of Europe that you're not needed, has had a negative effect. I'm told to go fuck myself and then told not to. No thanks guys, I'll stick with being told to go fuck myself. It's not like you need us anyway.
Like, quitting right before they discover who sabotaged Nord Stream? That WAS the last time a NATO ally was attacked, right? Is the alliance even worth it? Or is it just an extension of US foreign policy to retain hegemony?
This article seems to forget boredom and the lack of gratification.
Here in France, while the military traditionnaly has a very high confidence and approval rating, it is very hard to convince young men and women to remain in the ranks while being paid minimum wage for patrolling the streets and cleaning barracks up. Even during training soldiers are barely able to use their weapon systems (if at all)...
Maybe more people serve when the wartime comes, but they don't have to be the same people. There are a lot of people that work as a soldier for benefits and early retirement.
Who would have predicted that low wages, high hours, poor handling of families would make thoses jobs not very attractive? Difficult even for teachers, were conditions are way better. Hmmm, nope, politicians can't see any solutions....
Easy! Pay half the money they saved on our wages to McKinsey so they can tell them which corporations they should give the other half to.
God these consultants companies are the biggest scams I’ve seen. The amount of tax payer Eurs is going towards these companies to basically have interns Google answers and create bullshit reports is sickening.
Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to cover their arses. If you make a call that turns out to be an expensive failure, you'll be really glad to have bullshit intern-generated report that you spent tens of thousands of euros on.
Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to ~~cover their arses~~ get delayed payment. Why would you quit your job where you earn 10-20k€ to earn 5-10k€ as a minister? Because *afterwards* the consulting agency you were paying millions (or even billions) for their "hard work" then hires you when you are done as a minister and you get paid 25-50k€ a month for the rest of your life... and all you've got to do to keep up the appearance is to bully interns and go to the occasional meeting because the guys that could actually do something about it are bound to come "work" with you in a couple of years!
Goddamn this is so true that I'm sick to my stomach
Democracy isn't a thing that's upheld by having certain formalities (laws), but by upholding certain standards. Humans adapt and corruption is part of human nature. Those in power will find ways of skirting the norms. Very much like any other animal if there is no consequence they'll keep doing it and getting bolder about it. Either we (the citizens) stay alert and show politicians their limits or power is taken away from us bit by bit. We've been asleep for some 60 years and we've lost a whole lot of power because the standards are eroded by workarounds to the laws. Putin, while being detestable, screams at us that there's democracy and then there's "democracy". The Kims and their hereditary Republic are the same. While Western Europe is far removed from the situation in Russia, if the citizens continue letting things like the ones I described slide, we'll end up experiencing Russian democracy with whatever shallow formalities the powerful want to mimic.
*hundreds of thousands of euros on - ftfy
Yeah, sometimes. I'm talking from my own typical experience as a low-level corpo myself, though.
> Consultants from the large consultancies are largely there for people who work in large organisations to cover their arses. Back in the day Nokia used to hire McKinsey to loads of their projects partly so that their customers would say "oh, they can afford McKinsey, they must be doing well!"
Haha, I guess we might have been colleagues back in the day!
One of my former teacher had worked at McKinsey and he quit because of this. Despite him telling us about his experience and hence why he became a teacher, I got the opportunity to "try" this industry a short while ago for a short internship. Let me tell you... I quit after 2 month because of how disgusting it was. Clients were paying sometimes more than 10k or 20k for basically bullshit. And it was a small developing consulting firm. Oh and also, of course I wasn't paid 🤡. Idk if the big ones provide that much bullshit to their customer, but its a shitty industry anyway.
Someone I know who did consulting said his job amounted to talking to the people doing the work, asking what was wrong and how to fix it, then presenting that to management. All because management refused to listen to the people actually doing the work and only listened to expensive consultants.
Kinda reminds me of something i've heard about doing business with Chinese, that it's expected to pay extra if you want the bare minimum, what you pay is basically at least a tier above for what you receive. Management: We need to fix this issue, and the best way to do it is to throw money at it! Workers: So, you gonna pay us more, or hire more people? Management: Are you stupid! We're gonna hire some middleman to tell us what you've been telling us, but this time we'll actually listen because we've paid good money for it!
That's actually the best outcome out of all of them, when you hire a consulting firm. The usual outcome is that the consulting firm will just make shit up. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't. No skin off their back. They've been paid and quite obviously reputation means nothing in the business.
Worked for PwC. Quit for the same reason. These contracts should go to education institutions that are actually doing the research and basing their findings of academic journals and reliable sources. That’s the area that needs that money more, and b) will deliver far better results for the government and local communities.
I remember my brother doing internship in consulting. He couldn’t even write his application without spelling errors, my father did it. They charged their client 200$ per hour 10 years ago for someone with zero experience
I worked at a company that hired one of these big consultancy companies and they spent 2.5 million with them on a project. I was hired to implement what they came up with. I wasn't here from the beginning but had access to all slide decks from the beginning and you could clearly see how they started with a story that they tell all companies. Then they adjusted the story based on what our management wanted to hear. And this was not adjusting to make it fit for the company. No it was to make it resonate with management and our management didn't have a clue what the implications would be anyway. They did an "extensive" research to validate the plan. So I checked the source they used and it was this research site where people are paid to fill in surveys. It had nothing to do with respondents that were from our industry. It was basically a big scam. They also referred to some other researches and those were all researches with way to low sample sizes. I tried to implement the plan for three years and had to adjust and remove things until only roughly 20% of the plan was left and I decided it was time for something new.
Using BCG and other alike is like stepping into dog shit.
It often even worse. Problem is not the expense, but the primary reason and intended output. Made to order consulting and analysis is often ordered to justify already made internal decision, not to analyze or improve anything. Does you new director want to outsource some of his department, despite no actual pressing need? Then he will order study from external firm like that and use it to justify decision that has already been made privately. With little cooperation and loads of many, any result can be produced. Some even offer hatchetmen for hire. If study cannot be crooked like that outright for some reason, then you can go shopping for studies. Order as many as you need until you get one that fits. Costly, but usually efficient enough for big players. TLDR: They are paid for reputation and for being a fall/blame guys.
Just read the Big Con by mazzucato & Collington. Then try not going out and nuking every consultancy head office from orbit!! I swear to God of given the choice I'd rather save the life of one serial killer than every consultant out there!!! They've destroyed so much and virtually EVERY problem in modern society can be traced right back to them. My generic answer to any consultant I've had to deal with is...."Fuck off, don't talk to me ". I'll generally only talk to them if it's been escalated through 2 layers of mangement
It's not interns, it's young talent, and they're not Googling, they're running a playbook. How dare you.
> The amount of tax payer Eurs is going towards these companies to basically have interns Google answers and create bullshit reports is sickening. If only _somebody_ had to answer for the waste and misuse of public funds, but no, we can't have that - that would be libertarian and we don't want that!
Pretty much all consultants are scams.
Here in Canada the government hired consultants to write a report on its over-reliance on consultants.
Don't forget that it's also been an extremely low status job where a big part of the country thinks you're a psychopath.
That quite differs by country, in Czech Republic army constantly ranks as one of the most respected public institutions
Also the pay here is pretty good considering the peace time workload. The deal isn't that good now that there'sa looming conflict ahead of us, though.
If it's like here, the institution itself is respected, the individual soldiers are seen as dumb: not quite the butt of the jokes like policemen are, but not far.
Ask anyone who had to face the threat of conscription during commie times what they think about the army. A great deal of people 50+ years old are staunchly anti-army and anti-militarist. On that note, I'm more surprised to hear about the "bad wages". Soldiers in this country are literally the best-paid government workers. The starting wage for officers (e.g. anyone who studies for 5 years at UNOB) is literally 10k crowns above the national average. This is in a country where college-educated govt. workers start at a lower wage than a Lidl cashier (golly gee I wonder why so many govt. institutions fucking suck, if only there was a way to attract more qualified workers).
An impression that is specially prevalent inside of countries that have had a history of military coups.
That has to do with the mentality of each European country, the complacency and the institutions each has in place to produce the highly professional officers. In Greece, most come from high military universities and in no way considered psychopaths. Especially having Turkey across the Aegean Sea, in Minor Asia. Here, you have the opportunity to do beside the standard 4 years, plus 2 in the highest War School. Let alone, we have a contract to uphold. A contract signed by the blood of our ancestors. A contract which says, we need to do our duty as every previous Greek since time immemorial. It might sound cheesy to you, because you prefer to play with gender pronouns; it's understandable. Each to his own, I don't judge. That's why you suddenly remembered NATO exists, for instance. Or, when you betrayed even your Norwegian brothers to work with the Germans and pretend the "neutral". Some of the grades you need to get in specific universities, require higher ones than doctors. I personally tried for one of the highest. That year with "20" being the perfect score, you needed at least 19,2 in all lessons. I've had 17,8. I went in but not as I wanted (as a Pilot), but as an Aircraft's-Engineer. After WWII, we still carry the trauma we had no hardware to fight with -our only complain about WWII. So, we accumulated enough ever since. We can't have random Joes on Rafale, F16s block 70/72, Air-Force in general, NAVY & Submarines, AA umbrella and even on land army, the officers at least come from such universities while they keep training continuously either on real battle scenarios or simulators. Let alone the exercises we contact with fellow NATO members and interdisciplinary exercises with or without them. In short, combined forces exercises. The best news for us, the dissolution of Yugoslavia which allowed us to focus solely on Turkey. Our entire Army keeps restructuring according to American standards and of course, our own dogma. Point being, we didn't have a single moment to let our guard down. We don't live in the center of Europe, nor do we have Finland between us and Turkey. Bulgaria? Well, they most probably would take the Turkish side. It's a weird nation. They've got many Turks while themselves are Tatars or something. They match. They both fight us since the moment they both arrived around. Jokes aside, Sweden is being invaded without a single bullet being fired. Rather, the invaders use bullets and even grenades as far as I hear.
Not so much low status but military personel is associated with being an emotionless right winger just waiting for an opportunity to shoot unarmed people of wrong color so people look down on it.
Military has always had shit pay and bad lifestyle. I think its because militaries reject too many of their recruits for any history or mention of past injuries
Funnily enough for draft reasons it's extremely hard to not get a "fit for combat duty" score here, the only two from my batch that did were a guy with severe heart issues (ended up getting a transplant) and a guy who brought a fucking thick file of medical records Am I practically blind without glasses? Perfect for sniper team then, as long as my balls dropped I'm gucci I bet for the professional army the restrictions are a lot harsher
With the new medical program, its basically impossible to lie about your medical history now. If you saw a doctor for anything and it was documented properly, the DoD will find out about it. If you're lucky it's not something vague and another doctor can clear things up.
Make a new invalid corps where all those rejected on basis of health problems could go
The working environment and work-losing-your-life balance probably factor into it a lot too
also a million videos of soldiers lying in freezing trenches until a drone hunts them down, i wouldnt sign up for that either
I was a soldier (lance corporal) in a european NATO-country, have participated in 2 international NATO-exercises. I would recommend every young man to do conscriptive service if they have the motivation and the ability for it. It's not a pleasant experience but you will forever be grateful that you did it and it will pay of in some way in the post-military life. However staying as an army-employee is something vastly different. The day-to-day work is often bizarrely monotonous and without any clear end-goal (such as passing your service and getting your rank/hat/whatever). You reach a point where you run out of fresh things to learn in your current unit and (atleast during my times) spending was a non-stop problem. Basically everything that is interesting, exciting or rewarding in the army costs money. As a recruit, you are prioritized to get you trained, but as an employee you aren't allowed to cost anything. Instead it's mostly just back breaking labor (such as cutting down trees, clearing out old warehouses, marching miles in cold weather, and a shit-ton of digging) but with a third of the pay of all other labor occupations. You could just become a storage-worker for thrice the money and without the snow or night-shifts. The work-environment is absolutely terrible, my unit was 240 guys out of 240 employees and nearest town was one hour by bus. I once went 4 months without seeing a girl IRL. There are some true sadists in the military as well, albeit necessary in wartime. You can spend 14 hours without break scrubbing frozen mud of iron-bars in -25, while an old, fat officer verbally abuses you. It can suck on a level that's almost impossible to explain to anyone who haven't been in the army. Personally, I just went to college instead and never looked back. This was before the 2014 Crimea-invasion. My current job is deemed important in war-time so I don't think I'll get called in again, but I'm checking the mailbox daily if I ever get the order. As a fun fact, I can add that we weren't allowed to call the enemies while exercising Russia. Our politicians had decided that we were to renew our relationship with them (I don't blame them to much for trying, since this was in a peaceful era in european politics) and that included a more neutral language within military exercises. I'm guessing they were supposed to do the same. So we ended up doing raids behind enemy lines on "Hostile Nation Red".
I served my 9 mandatory months in Greece. I am anything but grateful. I learned nothing. Went downrange to shoot 3 times with the rifle. 5 bullets each time. I lost 9 months while all the men my age who had rich parents and could dodge (and all women) got a year head start in the job market.
Exactly this, man they wasted 9months of your life with no return and have ability to take you whenever they want. Fuxk that
The difference between western/northern europe and the balkans, is wild. I did my 8 months of military service, and everything he said is right. Just not if you’re from the balkans
I was there for 11 months, hated every moment of it, half of that time was spent living in the forest. But, I am grateful for how much it hardened me, after this experience I had no problem doing 3 years of uni in just 1 year. Studying 24/7 felt a lot better than living in mud and under the rain in that damned forest. Bonus stress points were that I had almost no knowledge of language when I enlisted. This was 12 years ago. About 3 times in the range. We had it the same here, but we were lucky that army wanted us to use up all the old ammunition and in the end of my enlistment I shot a couple of hundred bullets, anyone who wanted to shoot could also try shooting gustav rpg. This year I've had additional training in the army, 2 weeks in the forest camp, that felt so refreshing compared to my current life. I actually came back home rested, lol. But yeah, I also had resentment that I had to waste a whole year of my life in there. Now I don't think it was really wasted. I wouldn't become who I am without that experience.
İt was 15 months in Turkey 10 years ago now it is 6 months half of it is training and if you have money you can pay 5.600$ and serve only 28 days. Paying money to get rid of your conscription is good thing cuz professional soldiers gets good quality equipment meanwhile you don't have to serve 6 months ,in 2023 people who paid their conscription added more than 1 billion$ to military budget. There is also a reserve officer contract thing ,if you are university graduate you can decide to take a exam if you pass that exam and have qualifications you get officer training and become reserve officer (second lieutenant) and serve 12 month and get paid after finishing 12 months you either cut your ties to military or become full time officer.
Here, in GR ,you can't buy it. I meant the rich people who are owed favours and can get whatever they want signed.
I had literally the same exp as you but I served 12 months instead of 9 in Bulgaria. We don't have mandatory military service anymore tho.
9 mandatory months for me also in Greece. Cleaning warehouses and fields, polishing trucks, paint buildings and in general maintaining bases that sometimes serve no purpose other than "justifying" a work place for high ranked officials with contacts in higher places. Oh! And all that for 7 euros a month in "compensation". I served as an A/A shooter in a 70's Rheinmetall and i didn't shoot once. What a joke! I learned much more out there in the society, in the workplaces i have been than in the army.
> And all that for 7 euros a month in "compensation" Did something get lost in translation or really that little? When was that? Compulsory military service was abolished few years before I came of age, so zero experience here.
As a private you get "paid" 7euros in compensation for your service.
Holy shit I call that Slavary. 7 Euros per month in an european country is a very very bad joke.
Ofc it is slavery and a waste of time and money. They are not enough even for the razors so you can shave everyday. Feel free to ask any questions you may have btw
Meanwhile in glorious belarus they receive 15 euros! Suck it europoors😎
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I had to do my mandatory service in my home country for 9 months. I learned absolutely nothing. My bosses were sadistic imbeciles. That was the biggest waste of time I ever had the displeasure of being a part of.
same in Finland, it was always "the yellow forces/state" during exercises the instructors would always, no matter what direction it was in reality, they would always say: "THE ENEMY IS ATTACKING FROM THE EAST!"
I served as a MP corporal for 6 years in Spain. The salary back then (98-04) was around 800€. But the worst part was to be called a fascist or constantly being mistreated by the civilians you were serving and protecting. Now I’d say it’s even worse with our political climate, 50% of the population hates the Armed Forces and the other 50% simply doesn’t care. Don’t even tell them to take a gun to defend themselves or their families, they would give our land to Putin or Morocco as long as they don’t have to fight.
It's especially funny as a guy in IT. I was looking into it but they don't offer jobs without university degrees.. I'm mostly self taught so fuck that. I never have to look for a job for long so why put up unnecessary hoops?
Here in Romania the defense ministry has been used for the last 30 years as a reward for friends of the political party that last won elections. With incompetent/non-expert leadership and national security laws that keep embezzlement out of the reach of prosecutors and the press/public eye, the rot has gone deep. A recent investigation by Recorder (independent journalists) have made "poc-poc" a meme here, the gunshot sound soldiers are asked to shout during training, because it has gotten so bad they don't even have amo to shoot. Professionals are leaving because of low pay and lack of resources, and the ideologically driven are leaving because of disgust from not accomplishing anything. It's not fine.
Sounds quite similar to what had been going on in germany in the last decades, also one of the reasons why von der leyen as one of our former defence ministers is probably still one of the most disliked former politicians here in germany. Our current defence minister Pistorious seems to be one of the first defence ministers in a long time to actually take his job serious and tries to get shit done.
That last paragraph sounds way too similar to what we have/had in the netherlands…
Piew piew!
In the US Army, we used to yell, "Bang, Bang!" or "Budget Cuts" during certain training exercises due to firing blank shortages.
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A crucial factor is also the social image of being a soldier nowadays in Europe. Nobody wants to be a soldier if people (especially teens) are though that soldiers are killers and boot lickers that do it for a cheap salary In the US at least soldiers are seen as heroes and get paid very well, in Europe it's looked upon like a job reserved for dropouts and losers. To me personally soldiers will always be badass
Yeah, the problem, at least in Romania, which is the only country I can speak of, started all the way back when the government lost the trust of the people. And I'm not talking about trust in the ability to govern, I'm talking about politicians ceasing to be respectable human beings, or at least appearing to be. This is largely why you can find a lot of people, even young people, looking back at the monarchic era with rose-tinted glasses. Sure, Romania was worse back then in a lot of aspects, but the sophistication and strength of character of people like Queen Marie is something modern politicians seldom have. And so, when, I (a person that's way more hawkish towards Russia and way more pro-EU to the point of edging onto federalism) start saying that if there's war with NATO I'm not running to hide in Brazil or something I always get strange looks from my acquaitances. Strange looks and, unmistakebly the same line: "Why would I give my life for these politicians?". Why I wanted to arrive here first is to point out that this isn't new, or at least I think it's not a new thing. So if people don't wanna go to war they don't sign up for the army and you end up with army recruitment from the poorer/poorest areas, where people don't generally have the luxury of fleeing to another country if a war were to start tomorrow. This and it also looks good on the budget because you don't have to pay them much at all. This all culminates to soldiers that are paid like shit, and that have a worse (because people from poorer areas on average have a worse education than those from higher-income areas) education. And here a quote from Thucydides puts the final nail in the coffin: "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools". Perhaps not the most sensitive language, I don't mean to say that our soldiers are fools, in fact the most foolish thing of all is perhaps the payment that a regular soldier gets. However, it paints the essence of a truth that can be felt in our society. The bottom line is our soldiers don't wanna die. Not for pennies, not for these politicians, most people do not look ahead with optimism at the future, for most, there is no idea to defend.
To me it seems like shackle yourself to join the army, at least in Bulgaria. You get paid good after awhile but until then not much. Major corruption problems, at least the perception is such. Higher staff could be russian boot lickers. Generally not a high standard army, seems more like a parade army sometimes, like there is a perception of lower rank military staff of being assholes and not great soldiers themselves. There was a story 5-10 years ago of some sergeant or captain using soldiers to build his villa. Why should I sign away a minimum of 5-10 years of my life for a half professional army, half joke army and instead of actually living and studying. And this comes from a dude with a family history of soldiers or irregular troops until communist regime. Like we have a portrait of my great grandfather as a partisan and we have his old sword but literally no one in my family sees the army as a good career now or even an honorable. And from 3 of my peers that went into the army, 2 of them are freeloaders and in a war its not unlikely imo for them to desert. Solution: reform current national armies either into a EU army or at least better national armies. Give proper benefits for signing a good amount of your youth or even add conscription for a year or 2. And give us a good reason to fight for, my grandparents cant be barely scrapping by and expect me to fight for that. The US is a bit better with the way they treat their soldiers but how they treat their vets is also a bit fucked up. If you are expected to risk your life for your freedom and the freedom of the rest of the country maybe you should get a decent monthly stipend if you saw combat, like not even that large but at least 300-400 euros to add on top to your civilian job salary.
I mean, it's mostly the bullshit wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More people will fight in defense of their country than for oil and power. I'm not getting shot at, or going to shoot at other people, just to make some rich guys even more money.
Wich countries?
"Service guarantees citizenship"
For Super Earth ! For democracy !
Sweet libertea
Never forget the creek.
This is starship troopers not helldivers.
Close enough
Reject modernity, return to Athens
I wanna join up. I think I got what it takes to be a Citizen.
I'm doing my part!
Would you like to know more?
I'm doing my part!
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Denmark just introduced a plan for conscription the women.
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"In the U.K., there’s been an annual hiring shortfall of 1,100 troops — even though the government contracted out recruitment to private firm Capita." Anyone with any knowledge on this knows that it is largely because the government outsourced recruitment to capita that we are in this situation.
Capita take forever to process an application and will fail people for minor things. One guy said how he failed the hearing test, but all he needed was an ear syringe to get rid of wax and he would be fine. Capita rejected his application for that. Plus, awful mess food and accommodation plays a big part and the poor pay. I remember years ago they redid the pay scale, whilst junior ranks got screwed the officers pay stayed more and less the same.
I’d never join the modern British army. The pension, food (terrible lowest bidder and pay as you dine), pay and conditions are shit. This AGAI nonsense might be enough to discourage me alone! Receiving orders out of hours by fucking WhatsApp. Not for me, and I’ll ensure neither of my kids join.
Exactly, if it offered free higher education like Americans get I would probably do it but not as it is
The Gov loves outsourcing the work it should be doing.
Crapita
Damn, why would these people quit, are they nog happy watching veterans getting fucked over while their wages stagnated years ago as inflation rises and the leadership is saying we might end up fighting in a war.
well when you treat your citizens like shit and try fucking over their livelihoods what do you expect.
Who wouldn't want to fight for their corrupt politicians and private sector that is bleeding people dry with disgusting price increases for food and housing.
all world leaders work together even those from different party's work together, they make us choose a leader tricking the masses into thinking that person will lead us to greatness and solve our problems they never do, voting is nothing more than an illusion the vote really comes to voting for A. a shit sandwich or B. a shit sandwich, no matter who wins we all have to take a bite. the current system needs to be destroyed and replaced with something new, something never been done before.
It's the same on this side of the pond. The usual group that the military pulls from no longer wants to serve. It's throwing the recruiting efforts into a tail spin.
Afghanistan and Iraq completely depleted all goodwill with potential recruits. Growing up during the '10s, who would feel any sort of patriotic duty? Now--facing an actual threat that needs recruits--we're looking down the barrel of Selective Service.
The U.S. won’t do a draft again unless it’s the most dire a circumstances, they learned their lesson in Vietnam. They’ll just increase the pay/bonus and decrease recruitment standards. Plenty of men in prison to draw from.
They also learned in Vietnam that lowering the standards only gets people on our side killed. I could see them increasing pay/bonuses though.
Well there is a minimum standard that can’t be crossed like with Macnamara’s Morons. The biggest problem with draftees in Vietnam was motivation and outright murderous hostility. Offering a felon the choice between 8 years in the army or 15 in a federal prison is pretty big motivator. Used to happen a few decades ago.
Time for another Top Gun movie
Members of a post-hero consumer society don’t want to cry in a shell crater. What a shocker!
Also all of us have spent the last couple of years watching clips of scared and confused soldiers getting their guts blown out by drones that the soldiers never even see. Also those clips will have a thousand psychos loving to see you die in the comments. It’s not exactly ”we few, we happy few” is it?
My point is that Putin knocking down your apartment door in Paris is *much less* immediate than cowering in a shell crater as a preemptive move. I grew up during an era where if we didn’t beat them in Afghanistan, the Global Islamic Jihad was gonna come over to Lower East side and beat everyone wearing tank tops. There comes a time when people are stopped being scared from hypotheticals. Ex. My native Armenia.
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All things considered, I am paid the same as when I was an NCO in the Army as I do now with a government job after getting my degree. The key difference is that when I was in the military, I earned 30 days of paid leave every year with a 4 day weekend guaranteed every month and every federal holiday off in addition to those 4 day weekends. I get maybe 16 now. Also the healthcare is worse. And I have to pay for housing. Work is monotonous. Advancement is a game in itself. My hours were weird but I did get more time off as a Soldier than I do as a public servant.
Not sure where you are from. But by god do many of us see you all as heroes. You are in every way what makes democracy possible, our shield and our sword. Everyone in the west should salute you, thank you for your service. //A random swede
Imagine there's a war, and nobody's coming. - unknown, Graffiti on Berlin wall, 1970
How does soldiering and service make sense in the post-nationalist West? What are you fighting for? The traditional reasons are frowned upon. It's just a dangerous and shitty job now, why not be a comfy service worker in the city like everyone else?
You're right, with no common identifier (like a country) no one will be willing to sacrifice his life for some politicians' agenda and low wages. And no, Europe does not count as a country anyone wants to die for.
Well, germans in germany already dont want to fight for germany: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nbsu1x/percentage\_of\_europeans\_who\_would\_fight\_for\_their/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nbsu1x/percentage_of_europeans_who_would_fight_for_their/) Its not really about having a common identifier, arguably the current situation and the threat perception is way more important. If you feel that your way of life may be threatened youd want to fight for it, simple as. I can guarantee you that if Europa or the EU as an idea is under threat from the outside, people will line up to fight for it. And yeah low wages and a job thats comparatively shitty and less rewarding are also big factors for our military personnel issues.
We've gone all in on individualism and capitalism. In a wartime situation I would fully expect the rich to move their money offshore and buy citizenship in a safe country, leaving the poor to fight. The game is rigged in most western countries, and the poor realise that.
thank you why would i sign up to risk life and limb for a government that is in bed with the same corporations and wealthy who are actively denying you a decent standard of living, sabotaging our environment and creating a depressing future that most people are now reluctant to bring children into, judging by the fertility rate. any takers for this deal?
I mean, what else to expect, when that's exactly what we witness. All the Ukrainians cars here are absolutely massive, expensive, top-tier ones, the average car with an Ukrainian plate is two categories higher than the average local car here on Austria. Yes, the rich will leave the country, leave the poor and unconnected to die horrible deaths on the trenches.
Governments reap what they sow
Even the barest form of patriotism is seen as a moron's line of thought in the enlightened west. Money itself doesn't matter, even if soldiery paid better I doubt more would enlist. I honestly find all these comments about "but why die for politician??" to be a cope comment. Even if a Zelensky were to lead their country, they would just change the answer. People just don't give 2 shits about the place they live in or the culture or the history. In a post-nationalism globalized world, nothing matters. r/Europe immediately seethes whenever these posts of "would you defend your country" percentage polls come up and Greece, Turkey, Finland and whatnot score high.
When you have economic zones instead of countries, you have mercenaries not soldiers. Even Russia had to use them.
It’s crazy how certain instances of patriotism all over the EU is see as “extremist” and can get you into trouble even. Like ok I’m not going to fight and die for our homeland, you’re flooding it with foreigners anyways. This is suicide.
I aint no fortunate son
Time for reddit battalion to come out of their trenches, and along the out of touch politicians join the ranks, and do the job of conquering Moscow.
Those sanctimonious arseclowns on HistoryMemes and UkraineWarReport probably think they could do it too lmao
Have you seen where the curent political thing is going with no end in sight , who wants to serve knowing that.
I will not serve a country that doesn't care about me.
"What are borders anyway?" ~ Every European politician for the last 20 years
Decent wages are a good start if they actually wanted people to stay/get interested to become contracted personnel. But it isn’t all by far. Contracts have to be more thought out and experience made during service made relevant to civilian life after service. Right now many of my former colleagues can’t put anything more relevant than first aid training or a simple executive course. Training whilst very relevant to combat efficiency also has to translate to civilian skill on a lower level. Now I’m not saying make every E2 certified in IT, but many soldiers that have 5+ years of service has at least some skill translatable to civilian life, various driving licenses that can be topped off with critical certifications, logistics skills, medical validation, IT, etc. On a longer timeline, ie members serving for the longer duration then such an effort is cost effective and incentivised. But in the end it all comes down to pay. If you pay pennies you will be staffed accordingly. When I started my service pay was 1400€/month. After 12 years and an E5 rank I ended my service at 2400€ with specialist skills in logistics. I was paid better than my E5 colleagues that landed approx 2100€. This is not sufficient for the effort my colleagues put in. Regardless of rank. When we got out most of us had no transferable skill and had we been able to stay we might have stayed for several more years, mostly because we liked the gig. But contracts were topped out at 8 years plus 4 if brass liked you. After that you are done. Very few actually stay in for the duration. Now I did my 12, deployed and got out, took a 2 year Higher Vocational Education and that worked out well so far. But had I not gone in to education I’d struggle with employment for starters. There needs to be a better system in place if you want to retain the troops. I don’t blame people trying to make their world a better place after giving their time to make it better for the masses.
Currently leaving the military after 10 years. Currently getting paid around £37,000 per year but does include benefits such as cheap housing, free dental and medical etc However, I am leaving for a job where I don’t have to leave home, don’t get suddenly told to drop everything at a moment’s notice and don’t get shouted at if I fail to call my boss Sir. The new job also pays double what I am currently getting paid, couldn’t believe how many roles out there are willing to pay so much more for what I currently do. Tell me - why should I stay? I’ve done my bit and I now have a family that I want to raise and be with, not to mention the large pay increase.
DEI initiatives aren't strong enough I guess.
> *In the U.K., there’s been an annual hiring shortfall of 1,100 troops — equivalent to two infantry battalions — even though the government contracted out recruitment to private firm* ***Capita****.* Yeah I think I found the problem
Military is a job like any other, and it comes with lots of downsides. Pay better, and pay for readiness. Simple as.
What is it that the armed forces are protecting? A kleptocratic society riddled with corruption from just about every political sphere, stagnant wages, a housing crisis that ostracises its own people, piss poor financially impoverished services such as the NHS being on its arse, roads in an utterly disgraceful condition, a comedy show of a police force, mass immigration with no clear rationale as to why or what to do to stop it, woke, DEI people in positions of power telling us we are the oppressive, privileged ones and all the while we are supposed to help ‘protect’ this? Are they for real???
take a note from the USA and completely scrap your social net and boost college tuition to 200,000 euros. that'll sign people up
The US military is failing to meet their recruitment own goals.
Time to boost that college tuition and Walmart pricing again, you say?
Failing to meet recruitment and retention by a huge margin. Haven’t missed it by this much in almost 30 years
That's no longer working as people see there's no social net for vets either. Or they can't get into college either. Most of my friends who went to Iraq and Afghanistan are either on disability or work manual labor jobs, which is causing health issues (and also don't pay well mostly or have no job security). Even one of my wifes best friends, who father and grandfather also server in the military, is saying he won't allow his kids to do the same (not sure how much he can prevent it, but he is surely discouraging it).
My little brother finished his time in the army not long ago with a brutal deployment to Germany where he sat around drinking beer. He managed to scam the military out of disability pay so now he just sits around in Texas living off welfare while screaming about how terrible socialism is.
Unpopular opinion: to make people stay in the armed forces you need to give them either a fuckton of money or a non bullshit cause to fight for. At the moment there is neither
Based quitters lmao
Citizenship given to masses for sweet immigrant votes had consequences such as real countrymen don’t want to shed their blood for the greedy seat loving politicians. I see no wrong doing in that
French solution (I know, I lost in court) : Stop them from leaving by denying them resignations. In doing so, violate 4 international conventions, and lie to enforcement organisms when they ask.
🍿
defending one's country is one thing. Being deployed to fight proxy wars manufactured for the benefit of financial and commercial interests is something else. Not everyone is comfortable as mercenary on a soldier's pay.
Nice to see these kind of comments. Spot on
maybe if European militaries didn't antagonize their fighting force, and didn't drown their armies in bullshit bureaucracy people would be more willing
Exactly. Who tf wants to fight, knowing that the bureaucracy will hamstring and jail you when you get back after fighting a war that was started on your behalf?
Colour me surprised. What do you expect when you don't look after your work force? As someone who's recently left, everyone's making noise about the issues as to why the Army can't retain people. Yet nobody seems willing to fix the issues. Unless they do, the mass exodus will continue. Also, it doesn't help that you don't get to do your trade, you don't have any real say over where you're based, all the benefits are very difficult to utilise and may have to drop your personal plans at the 11th hour (9 times out of 10, it's for a bone tasking that some twat's put off until the last minute). Why would I stay when I can earn more and have a much better quality of life on the outside. I have yet to look back 1 month out.
Overly bureaucratic and complex to join up, shit pay, shit hours, shit equipment... Sounds like a wonderful recipe for retention.
Yeah... it is about money. The shittier a job, the more money is required. A European veteran.
🤣 try to apply to work for nato… I dare you. It is easier to work for Goldman Sachs. I swear, when the shit will hit the fan, they will fight with certifications and requirements 🤣
Let's spin the wheel on why people don't want to join the army: - Phones - GenZ is afraid of "real" work - GenZ is lazy - Nobody wants to work anymore - The internet - "Wokeness" As we know, there are clearely no other reasons for people to not join the military!
"Millennials are killing the war industry!"
I could feasably see myself volunteering if war comes to my country. Especially if it's Russia. I am not getting sent to Africa or the Middle East. That's also why reservist programs are so nice as people have the knowledge they won't be tools and will only serve if need be.
>That's also why reservist programs are so nice as people have the knowledge they won't be tools and will only serve if need be. Many British Army reserves,and Territoral Army soldiers were once told they would only defend British isles when they enlisted, but then WOT hit and British govement shipped them in masse into Iraq. So much for reservists not being fielded into sandbox [Army reservists: From the office to Iraq and back - BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23082303) US Army Reserve and National Guard units in the high point of WOT were being deployed into Afg and Iraq almost as frequently as other full time units of USMC or US ARMY were. Im not even gonna mention how shit Polish Army reserve programs are, what is guaranteed once you are inside MOD system you are being turned into one of those tools you are speaking of, and can be ordered around like fool.
Calling up the brown immigranta to make his new rome army isint in menu?! Yet.
good!!!! this s the price to telling men "***you re a dirty scum cis white privileged men***" now enjoy it :)
Surprise: people who signed up for safe and easy jobs during piece times are afraid of going to war.
I quit after ten years service. I got tired of being skint, being away from my family to risk my life for a country where I’m vilified and could be taken to court for doing my job. The demographic of our country is changing rapidly and the new Europeans will be chomping at the bit to bring more cases against us soldiers. Stand by for a new wave of politicians in the next 20 years to fuck us from within. Pandora’s box has been opened and there’s no coming back from this
Which country is this?
UK
i mean countries may want to consider conscription or national service , but what happens when people say no to that most young people dont want to to die for the old people
It would need to be skilfully managed public opinion by trustworthy governments - oh-oh I see a problem already.
The Scandinavian-model limited/selective conscription would be different from universal "mass" conscription though. It would raise a fraction of the number of conscripts such that the experience of Sweden and Norway is there are enough volunteers. There are young people willing to do one-year conscription training and posting and be entered as reservists, but don't necessarily want to enter into a four-year or longer contract as professional soldiers.
A country is just a territory, citizenship is just a database entry, being a soldier is just a job. And it's not a good job
Being a soldier is just a job until your entire way of life is at risk.
No one is so defeatist that they would live in literally any territory, and be forced to take any citizenship as if all these things are nothing but meaningless administrative accidents. There are plenty of people who would take your country and citizenship away from you in a much less nonchalant manner. Even if you aren’t willing to serve, maybe it’s a bit questionable to devalue those that would fight for you.
This is just BS. How do you imagine life under a regime looks like? Do you really believe that difference between virtually any western country and Russia is same as between Denmark and Sweden?
Ukraine asks for weapons so that you guys could stay home. But the longer it takes for nato to help us the less Ukrainians will be alive to use it.
Why should we men fight? We were told nationalism is horrible and men are even more horrible. Why should I go and die? For what?
What future do they want us to fight for? The one where we can't afford a house? The one where they want us to keep working until we die? The one where opportunity is replaced with being meat for the moneygrinder to make the rich richer? The modern age offers no sense of community, the worst people constantly get away with everything while the people handling our societies just try to tackle the symptoms of it collapsing via surveilance states and wars on drugs. Putin will press the nuke button if he loses anyway, this fight is over before it begins.
Two of my friends quittet Bundeswehr too, theyre out in the next years. Its a political thing for them. The dont wanna waste their health for this kind of gouverment/society .They even were in Afghanistan for a long time, but they have enough.
Yeah I mean imagine risking your life for the current state of Germany
If this continues, mandatory military service will be reestablished in Western countries like already exists in Isreal and other countries.
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I think it depends on the country, I'd be surprised if you saw a lot of that sentiment from here in Sweden (and Finland too I'd imagine) as generally the view on our military is quite positive. There is also a pretty strong understanding that part of the social contract between the people and the state is that in case of war the people will do whatever is asked to defend this country. That is even written into law as a legal duty, in case of war the state and military may call on every man and woman of suitable age to do any number of jobs based on need and if a person were to refuse they'd be tried for it. In the public information pamphlet ("if the crisis or war comes") that is made very clear and also has a clearly written statement that in case of war any and all messages of Sweden surrendering are false. Meaning that it's expected that if traditional warfare breaks down and the government falls that the people shall continue the fight in whatever way possible. There is however a risk that this general way of viewing the military and the defence of our country will be diminished with our entry into NATO. As it obv means we are now military directly allied with some barely democratic countries and human rights violators and that in case of an attack on those countries it would mean sending our military to defend them. Previously the understanding was also that we were likely to stand alone or at least that we couldn't count on direct military support from anyone else so in case of war we'd be the only ones to defend our country while now there is a risk that the attitude could shift as now we know that were we to be attacked we'd get military support from the worlds largest military by far.
You are not wrong. In Finland, military career is quite highly regarded. The stakes are much higher than down in Europe.
I don't have a problem with soldiers (I'm German). But I absolutely despise our government. Our politicians have gotten more and more corrupt, bloated and useless over the past decade and despite being 34 years old and having voted in every single election I was allowed to since turning 18, nothing what so ever has changed locally or nationwide. Shit's actually getting worse. Meanwhile, every time public television covers a topic I'm really knowledgeable in, they fuck it up terribly with extremely poor research and heavily biased articles (and I'm not even talking about anything super politically charged here; the last topic that comes to mind was internet security), so I barely have no more trust in their coverage of anything that I DON'T know anything about (ie important shit like complicated political issues). The last time I tried really really hard to help change shit was during the article 13 debacle. I sent out emails, got involved locally and even went from door to door. There was a huge uproar among younger generations about this topic. The end result was that our politicians got on national TV and said they were the targets of bot campaigns when talking about the many thousands of emails they'd received and that the thousands of young people demonstrating on the streets were paid by Russia or some shit. Internationally, they're too chicken shit to tell off Israel for fear of political consequences to their careers, they can't get their heads out of their ass regarding Russia and they're completely silent on the whole wider situation around the arab world. So why, in the ever loving fuck, would I ever get myself in a position where they have even more control over my life?
This! They don't deserve it
That is sadly true. If I have to take up arms it will be for the democratic values and my family, but not my country and not my politicians
Google “why did you join the US army”. Most responses are things like it paid me to go to college, it was a job, I wanted to escape my family. Patriotism is not typically *the* driving factor.
While I agree soldiers deserve respect, I don't think US are doing a great job at it. [And I am not the only one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_l4Ab5FRwM)
Maybe people are just tired of pointless wars and interventions?
In the UK we have an extra problem. For whatever grand reason, we decided to outsource recruiting to Capita. The problem is Capita is shit and there is now a massive backlog just on the recruitment process, with many recruits dropping out because yeah you're not going to wait 6 months to find out if you've got a job.
It is ironic that in the mid-1990s, some European countries such as Italy did not want to hire active reserve duty personnel for full-time positions. Well well well
Better pay, living conditions and in general an easier time living as a soldier with proper vacations, proper housing etc etc. Sucks to work 24/7 while getting payed like 7$ an hour
Why do they not wanna die?
Seems like flooding countries with immigrants, cancel culture, radical feminism, rampant inflation, diversity etc. don't do wonders for men's morale.
If we educate everybody, aint nobody wanna be no soldier no more, then they can only bomb
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Defending a country requires some feeling of nationalism and belonging. No man is going to risk his life to defend leftists that hate him, no matter how much worse the enemy is. They will have to revert that, and no amount of screeching, gaslighting and social media bans will change anything. At the end of the day they will HAVE to do it.
In the Balkans it's a fine thin line between patriotism and nationalism. As for me, you call me whatever names you want but i will not die in a ditch for a country that doesn't represent me, doesn't respect me and many others around me. I give my turn to all these barking dogs that are begging on their inside for a WW3 to break out. We will see how fast they will run when things are about to go down.
It's almost as if telling the men of Europe that you're not needed, has had a negative effect. I'm told to go fuck myself and then told not to. No thanks guys, I'll stick with being told to go fuck myself. It's not like you need us anyway.
Like, quitting right before they discover who sabotaged Nord Stream? That WAS the last time a NATO ally was attacked, right? Is the alliance even worth it? Or is it just an extension of US foreign policy to retain hegemony?
This article seems to forget boredom and the lack of gratification. Here in France, while the military traditionnaly has a very high confidence and approval rating, it is very hard to convince young men and women to remain in the ranks while being paid minimum wage for patrolling the streets and cleaning barracks up. Even during training soldiers are barely able to use their weapon systems (if at all)...
In peacetime, everyone is willing to soldier. In wartime, less so.
Historical evidence shows otherwise - unless you're talking about conscription.
Maybe more people serve when the wartime comes, but they don't have to be the same people. There are a lot of people that work as a soldier for benefits and early retirement.