More military personnel suicides than have died in action

[jdog]

Oh, I agree that there is a possibility you will have to. You will never be ORDERED to if your career field is not combat related. They do not deploy personnel/finance office people to combat. That would be a waste because, although they can technically fire a weapon, they are not trained in MOUT or anything similar. Although military personnel are merely numbers and who cares about numbers, the military spent quite a bit of money to train these people in their non-combat positions.

They might be deployed later on, after the combat has settled. That would be if that base needed that position on site. Then they would be in a secured location that is protected by other actual combat personnel, such as MP/Security Forces. They might be told where the gun locker is and that if the base was under attack it would then be self defense.

But they aren't going to send a lawyer or cook out with Spec Ops to infiltrate buildings and secure targets. They aren't going to hand a sniper rifle to a aircraft technician and tell them to go in behind enemy lines and take out some enemy officer from 500 yards out.

Get my point yet?

[raum]

Yeah, but i think in the navy, i have a different expereince. We DID have personnelmen on battlestations. we has mess specialist and yeoman too. (Pencil pushers and can openers.) They were are trained as well as we were, and we trained them when they got on board.

The kid who ran the ships store (3rd Class PO shopkeeper) was up on a stinger missile duty in general quarters (which is when those who would fight are called to battle stations and other report for damage control, medical assist or other duties, if people reading don't know.)

On a ship, I guess things are different. I had a general order packet on my ship that if our main deck was compromised, i was supposed to dispatch someone with a weapon to disable the radio, and my buddy cliff was an acceptable casualty that was our general quarters radioman. I liked the guy, but I can see how dangerous it would before a an ammo cargo ship with combat ability to be able to radio or listen to other ships. Fully loaded, our impact was measured in megatons.


Also, in the Navy, we have is called VBSS (Visit Board Search and Sieze) - wearing johnny cash blacks and riding in 12 man zodiacs, pushing up in abit of traning in san diego where seals learn to have flippers. Three ratings can apply - Yeoman, Mess Specialists, and Gunner's Mates. I volunteered from the day I signed up... still pissed they wanted to make me nuke. My A school was actually Yeoman. I was a pencil pusher going in; gonna save the environment in my EPA regulatory work, and kill bad guys when the sun goes down. I wanted VBSS, and was thinking later ebassy duty.... so going Yeoman and training with Marines in Meridian Mississippi made sense. I also liked the idea of being a few hours from my family... But after A School, when I got to the fleet, I was late coming in and the USO at Oakland was airport in california was closed.

I bought a cap to NSC Oakland and walked up to the Quarterdeck. I handed them my orders to serve as an administrative intelligence enlistedman on the ship, and They didn't have a place on the ship for me. So, the weapons officer was officer on deck that morning and the PO of the watch was John Lein, a guner's mate 2nd class. They liked the fact i wasn't afraid to walk from the front gate carrying full seabag (no cabs on base) and we had a bit of a talk... and he put me in his decision cause he needed bodies... , and they put me gunner's mate third division when I everyone woke as i was stowing my bags in my new rack with gun greasers.

So I actually see exception to your statements. They changed my role and I never once served as a Yeoman, because they felt like it and they needed bodies in 3rd Division. No shit. It could have been because i was VBSS, but I never did a single day of duty as a Yeoman after A School.

[jdog]

My point is still there.

I didn't join the USAF to kill anyone. I never had that intent. Thankfully I wasn't even put in that position.

Tens of thousands of former enlisted and officers have retired after 20 years without killing anyone either.

[Drew]

^ How do those points in any way conflict with Raum's original statement of "In order to be in the miltary, you have to be willing to kill"

No one is saying only people who want to kill people sign up...and no one is saying that everyone who joins will have to kill someone...

[jdog]

^ How do those points in any way conflict with Raum's original statement of "In order to be in the miltary, you have to be willing to kill"

No one is saying only people who want to kill people sign up...and no one is saying that everyone who joins will have to kill someone...

Because you DON'T have to be willing to kill to be in the military.

[raum]

Not if you are classified I-O or I-A-O, other than that, Orders COULD come to you. chances are they won't but they COULD... and that is in your contract; to follow the rules of engagement. The difference is you can trust that the Governement may not want to kill, or may not make you kill... but they can order you into an area or a scenario where that becomes necessary... for your own survival, military defense, or mission success.

So my opinion is you should find out if you ARE willing to kill or NOT. Then determine the conditons of that willingness, and then look into what role if any in the military you want to sign up. This is not the war of last decades. There is no frontline... I can't say how many people in a give post draw or fire a weapon, but if you are overseas, there is a potential threat within 1 mile of you at all times... even if it is smiling in your face and wearing a USA #1 T-Shirt.

The best part of a good military career is to recognize the threat early.

http://www.newser.com/story/91886/talib ... onvoy.html

These people were not ordered into combat. They were supply trucks.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/1 ... index.html


Every Marine is trained for combat, and non-combat roles in the army have been reassigned.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2 ... ides_N.htm

http://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-airmen- ... aq-1.26993


Here is a story of an army cook, who got to a post, where civilians do the cooking and he was put on post. and a driver who got put on a gun truck in the USAF.

[jdog]

Here is a story of an army cook, who got to a post, where civilians do the cooking and he was put on post. and a driver who got put on a gun truck in the USAF.

Driving a truck you aren't going to be killing anyone. Most likely you will drive the truck to and from whatever destination or become a victim to an IED. I was already well aware that they were deploying people to Iraq and Afghanistan for crap like TCN duty. I was almost deployed for that. Sick fact: In the military, you are just another number.

[raum]

He is not driving. He is a gunner. He WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DRIVING SEDANS:

Under the initial plan, the airmen would simply drive the supply trucks, Nodjomian said, which is why transporters like Young were picked. Later, the job expanded to driving the gun trucks, as well. “That further morphed into not just driving the [gun trucks], but being the guys who sat in the back,” he said.

That meant they’d handle not only the MK19, but other weapons, such as the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon and the M-240B light machine gun, weapons not ordinarily required for bus driving duties.

The airmen — Nodjomian refers to them as combat airmen — receive four weeks of training near Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, in such areas as combat life-saving, use of the weapons and land navigation. That’s augmented by four more weeks in Kuwait on the firing range, learning, among other things, close-quarters combat and how to fire from a moving vehicle.

Like I said, he is in the thick, and has training and orders to be on gunner duty for a supply route, instead of playing taxi driver at the base. And they have been doing this to thousands of servicemen in every branch of the military for over five years now. This article makes it souynd kinda new, but it was written in 2004.

And so taxi duty became combat gunner duty whether he liked it or not. Now, he has seen enemy fire, and had to return fire to enemy; despite that not being in his job description. All of that fire is potentially deadly. THEREFORE, he was put in exactly the scenario I said. Now, he has to be willing to kill in combat, despite it not being his intent when joining. Welcome to the true meaning of military service. But the reality is over 40,000 troops in the Air Force who had no combat role were reassigned from 2003-2007. Way more sailors had the same thing happen, and of the Army and Marines, Chaplains are the only real non-combatants now. Many have died, and alot were in technical roles and supply or administration. Alot get broken up because they were specifically trying to avoid combat ion the military, which is foolish. They were never supposed to see combat, from what their recruiter said. Decades ago, that might have been true. Since then, it has become so regular that USAF includes an extra three weeks of combat training for all airmen recruits.