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Army morale and national service possibilities

hifinutt said:
well i looked after a wonderful 92 year old , he loved to tell me of the wonderful 2 years he spent in the RAF on National service and all his adventures . it gave him a real start and guide in life . I tried to get a family member into the army to give him skills for life but sadly it never happened . i think it gives huge strides in discipline and direction
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Are you ex-services yourself, Phil?

I think there are many different ways in which direction can be explored (rather than given, surely?) and the benefits of structure and discipline can be appreciated.

Anyway we digress from a crass headline. The proposal is that all 18-year olds must choose between a year in the forces or a weekend per month doing something voluntary/community. The proposal is definitely NOT that all 18-year olds do what those of a certain age would recognise as "real" National Service which "didn't do me any harm". Sunak's spin doctors clearly think a cheap trick like calling a weekend a month National Service will assure them the nontegenarian vote...
 
Pinched this from another site.


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😂
 
flatpopely said:
My Dad loved it. RAF posted to Changi. Saw the world and made good friends. Signed on for an extra year.
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However those who are of a mind to enjoy it *could* simply sign up after looking into it.

The point being to make it an *attractive* option with a good profile. However that would mean better pay and particularly *housing* for them and their families. Alas currently housing, etc, is an utter 'outsourced for cheaper' shambles. As is the recruitment part. Privatised to death.
 
gez said:
Well the "too many young people live in their own bubble" is true as far as I can see.
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Yes and no. Those same "young people" are also more aware in general of the really serious issues like Climate Change than old farts. They really do live in a different world, and even more so in future. But again, a dead cat on the table can help divert attention away from such minor matters.
 
gez said:
Well from what I see online and around me, many people under 25 are very self absorbed and narcisistic. I'm not saying there aren't politically etc engaged young people, obviously there are, but I feel many are disolusioned and/or self centred.

Anecdotal I know, but I recall watching a TV program once where they took 3 (could have been 4) unemployed 18 something year olds and got them to work (it was only for one or two weeks) in various jobs. One was a waiter in an Indian restaurant and another was an asparagus picker (can't recall what the other two did), and literally the whole program was them wining and complaining about how hard and difficult the work was and how they'd rather be back home laying on their beds on their phones. The asparagus guy, just stopped going after two or three days and even the guy working as a waiter in the restaurant was skiving off after a couple of days.
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The reality is that tasks like those may well end up being done by machines. Because they become cheaper and more effective, particularly in awful weather or though the night as well as day.

What we need is people who are 'upskilled' (dreadful term) with the ability to do the skilled jobs we sadly lack now and in the future.

Thus a recreation of genuine *apprenticeships* being supported and mandated to provide the capabilies we need and currently lack.
Thatcher and Blair between them trashed our previous apprenticeship schemes and FE. We now have to import what we lack, either in terms of finished products, or in terms of migrant workers. (Whilst whining about incomers!)
 
One of the other looming 'issues' we will have to face is that the ultra-wealthy may well be happy to use robots and AI to do many jobs - from veg picking to nursing to retail shop work, etc, etc. In a world where people are required to depend on work to get what they need to live this will become a big problem for most of us - unless we radically change how our economy works.

However the ultra-wealthy will be even keener than now to ensure they stay at the top. They don't work for a living. They use 'people' for that... and will switch to robots/AI as it suits them.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
One of the other looming 'issues' we will have to face is that the ultra-wealthy may well be happy to use robots and AI to do many jobs - from veg picking to nursing to retail shop work, etc, etc. In a world where people are required to depend on work to get what they need to live this will become a big problem for most of us - unless we radically change how our economy works.
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So far it looks like robotics and AI are more likely to replace office and warehouse jobs, leaving the dirty degrading and dangerous stuff for the humans to survive at to keep the rich happy.
 
myles said:
No, and I answer from a position of experience (22 years in the RAF). The fact is that National Service in any guise would not work, let alone the 'voluntary' service which is also available in the TA, RAF Reserve etc etc. This might or might not have been a success in the 50s but 18-30 year olds are a lot more savvy about life as a whole and the idea of service doesn't appeal to as many as it did. It does appeal to some though - enough to manage the natural churn though; I'm not sure.


How will it be taken by the regulars? Well, the national service intake will, as someone already said, largely be REMF (Rear Echelon Mother Fxckers) and not suitably trained to deploy anywhere at any time. What this does mean though, is that all the jobs that need to be maintained in the UK (or non-deployed areas around the world) can be backfilled - and this means more regular deployments for the regulars. These REMF jobs will end up being transitioned into reservist jobs and regulars will spend more time away from their families and friends. This has always been a complaint of squaddies in particular (as they deploy most often).
The way a service career is regarded now is stay in long enough to develop the core social skills that are rumoured to be in short supply in civvy street, as well as build a strong trade portfolio. Techies for example are in demand, be it Cyber, aircraft, engineers of all sorts. Once upon a time the pension was the target as it was for me - perhaps wrongly - because getting out at peak recruitability (not a word) could afford you a full and lucrative second career and a bigger pension than the Armed Forces pension.
I'm still more than happy with my time in the RAF. It is still a good opportunity for young people to get a decent trade, some experience of the world and get out before you are threaders with the whole thing - which I still wasn't at the end!
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Thank you.
 
davidsrsb said:
So far it looks like robotics and AI are more likely to replace office and warehouse jobs, leaving the dirty degrading and dangerous stuff for the humans to survive at to keep the rich happy.
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Thus far. But as robots and AI get cheaper and 'smarter'....

In essence this is the apothiosis of the 'wealth extraction' model as 'growth' runs out of steam as it degrades things. Future form of ancient Greece or Rome. Servants kept as a form of more 'wealth'... or left to subsist.

A few magicians around to help the machine/AI to develop.

Alas, no sign of Asimov's "Zeroth Law" being inbuilt.
 
Maybe a compulsory year's national service for anyone entering the country as a new migrant? Or is this proposal only for 18 year olds born here in the UK?
Maybe a more effective and lower cost deterrent than Rwanda... ;)
Had this discussion with some Swedish work colleagues a couple of years ago...where national service is still a thing.
 
robs said:
Maybe a compulsory year's national service for anyone entering the country as a new migrant? Or is this proposal only for 18 year olds born here in the UK?
Maybe a more effective and lower cost deterrent than Rwanda... ;)
Had this discussion with some Swedish work colleagues a couple of years ago...where national service is still a thing.
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I've often thought that one model would be an equivalent of the Foreign Legion. There you have to sign up for 5 years, and I think you become eligible for French citizenship after three - unless you're wounded on active service, in which case it becomes immediate. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dire circumstances that followed, I believe the Legion was inundated with Russians, all wanting an EU passport.
 
TheFlash said:
Anyway we digress from a crass headline. The proposal is that all 18-year olds must choose between a year in the forces or a weekend per month doing something voluntary/community.
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This, of course, is what happens in Switzerland - 12 months' military service or 18 months' civilian service, both spread over a number of years. NCOs and officers do more. Of course the situation is different - Switzerland has no regular army, apart from some professional specialists.
 
When you think about military national service it is essential to understand the reasoning about its introduction. At the end of ww2 so many men were demobbed ( quite rightly so) and young men in that era until 1960 were conscripted to supplement the armed forces.

The recent proposals are very unlikely to take place which is true of 40 new hospitals and the Levinson report just like so much that evolves from our less than trustworthy politicians.
 
I guess my point here is that reading beneath the attention-grabbing headline will quickly disappoint those of a certain age and disposition who expect it to be purely about an armed forces commitment, and quickly reassure those who think that’s the last thing we need.
 
Bringing back national service is one of those policies that are made by a party that has no chance of being elected, but where they know it'll be popular with a section of their support (fascist pensioners in this case) that they want to keep on-board to try and retain as many seats as they can. Very, very few of those same fascist pensioners will ever have served themselves (as national service or otherwise) but likely see it as a way of getting younger/poorer people (who they generally hate) to serve them. Bringing back slavery would probably appear almost as much but is perhaps too politically incorrect for even this Tory party.

From a forces perspective (and, while it's been a while, I did serve) there are much, much better ways of spending what national service would cost, especially as these days many, many forces roles are quite specialist and wouldn't be well served by reluctant conscripts who're only there for a short time.
 
If he is going to bring stuff back from the past, he might start with bringing back free higher education.

I've no opinion on national service being good or bad, other than rememembering a French friend I knew having to cut his holiday short to go and do it. The though of having to do that for a year filled me with utter dread at the time. And contempt for the authorities that would interfere with my life in such a way.
 
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