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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 09/02/2008 : 22:16:45 [Permalink]
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Do they have some kind of intelligence standard you have to pass to enter service, or do you get placed only depending on the score?
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There is a standardized test that measures some knowledge and aptitude levels. When you get the scores you have a range of potential specialties to select from. Not wanting to be on the shooting end of anything the military has (I could have taken a high tech specialty on down to infantry) I selected medical. Ended up driving a field ambulance for a couple years. Not the worst job, by far, and would likely never have required me to shoot anyone.
The lowest level specialty is infantry, and you have to score well enough on the test to get into the infantry before the military will accept you.
In recent years they have lowered the standard a bit, not greatly due to the high tech nature of our military now, but they have been much more generous on things like criminal records. Some crimes that once would have barred you from volunteer service no longer prevent enlistment.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2008 : 09:41:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
At least there are not charging the crowd and there has been no deaths.
It happened a few years ago (I think it was 2000 or so) in a G8 meeting in Italy that a demonstrator was beat up to death... |
Simon, just because it could be worse doesn't mean what happened is in any way acceptable. People have a constitutional right to peaceably assemble. Why do you think charging people with nebulous crimes like "planning to incite a riot" in order to disperse them is appropriate behavior for the police to engage in? Because that seems to be what you are defending. |
I do understand your point and it makes a lot of sense.
But I still think that in such a potentially highly volatile situation, locking the people that may look like troubles for a day, may not be that big a deal.
Sure, in the absolute, it's a shame, but you have to be pragmatic there too.
As for the debate about Mab and the crew, I think there might be some cultural factors going on.
Mab is European, as I am, but, having lived in the US for several years now, I think the situation is different.
In Europe, you see, a relatively lower number of people are in the military and a lot of them are... not so good. Many (at least the average private) are not too highly educated and they more often are not are very conservative, with quite a bit being on the far right (like the French National Front). People, more often than not enter the military and spend their whole career there.
The situation is different in the US for several reason, for example, a larger proportion of the population is in the Military.
Also going to college cost a lot of money (it's free in Europe) and the military will pay it for you after finish your contract.
And, with the low minimum wage in the US, being in the military is actually quite a good job that pays pretty well.
Furthermore, in the case of immigrants, serving in the military is a way to receive the US nationality.
So, a lot more people go in the military, especially among the poorest minority groups and you end up with a quite ethnically diverse army composed for the most part of people that want to spend their 4 years and then used the experience to move on to something else (for example, to go to college).
In Europe, you have a mostly white group, that is willing to spend their own career there and, sometime, joined because they wanted to be soldier and go to war.
It's quite different.
*Edit -Fixed the link thanks to Mab's input. Thanks mon, you are the bestest evar... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
| Edited by - Simon on 09/03/2008 11:35:45 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9696 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2008 : 10:39:53 [Permalink]
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The link isn't working because the '(' & ')' isn't standard URL characters.
They have to be replaced with their respective URL-codings: %28 and %29
National Front (France) |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2008 : 13:33:08 [Permalink]
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| More worrisome to me is the preventive arrest of activists reported here |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2008 : 12:30:53 [Permalink]
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Police actions at RNC are being investigated.
NYT article, so you may need to login to view it.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Republicans arrest peace activist
