Army recruitment of unemployed youth

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

Here pigeons, have a cat.

According to the Express and Mail, Liz Kendall thinks that going into the forces would be a good idea for unemployed youngsters. Surprised this has apparently flown under the MN radar. I wonder where this is all going, she mused, with wide eyed faux naivety.

it has ever so been thus, with our disaffected youth.

Just not for the children of the "elite" 🤮

I don’t understand why unemployed young people is such a problem but unemployed adults in their 30s and beyond is seen as acceptable, even if they’ve barely ever worked.

Because many of the unemployed young people are also vulnerable and brain development relating to consequences and decision making isn't even fully formed. My issue personally, is when people who are vulnerable through life experiences/ poverty/ trauma are particularly targeted.

Here we go again! More rhetoric from liz kendal.too far right. My DS school had a recruitment drive,and the teachers complained and it was removed . The hipoiscrosy of this government sticks in the throat. How many young people are killed, injured or get PTSD?8

@Lavender14 - comparing forces recruitment to sex work & consent is a bit far fetched considering that there is actually a rigorous selecion process involved.

To me it's a government organisation that is actively looking at deprived areas, offering young people an alternative to a lifetime of low paid casual jobs or crime, drugs and sex work. This can only be a good thing.

If you think about it, how many people are actually in jobs they really want to do?
How many people go to university (and acquire a huge amount of debt) and then decide that the subject matter isn't for them? There's also some element predatory behaviour from universities and schools but that's OK, because it's university/ higher education.

Back to the Forces recruitment. Some of these young people might have no GCSE or other formal qualifications, again something that will make it nearly impossible to get a well paid job.

The Forces will give them their GCSE's, often leading to skills and training that is also valid in a civil life. There is a duty of care for therecuit, if someone joins at 16 there'll be several steps before they commit at 18. All the while getting paid! In the meantime, the university student will accumelate an average amount of 50k debt...

Agree
Its still deployment and I wasn’t suggesting that you are only deployed in areas you are trained in.
A pp on here was suggesting there were roles within the armed forces that meant you stayed permanently in the UK and never have to leave your desk.
Thats simply not what happens, everyone signs up to deployment as part of the contract ( except if there are extreme welfare issues )

They do @FreedomandPeace but to be realistic, some roles are vanishingly less likely to be in harms way than others. Some roles end up being the true front line, others remain far far behind the lines in very different living conditions.

DH likes to take the mick about the horrors of finding a lack of bacon being served at breakfast on a naval ship one morning - when talking to a good friend who served in the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq and lived in a very hot and dusty ditch for weeks at a time.

Agree
However I was referring to the notion by another that deployment never happens for some when in fact it does for all.

This comment is a bit of a kick in the teeth to the many men and women doing all sorts of jobs - medics, drivers, logistics, engineers, electricians, mechanics, security... etc etc etc on and on and on

I assume it's part of ongoing recruitment campaigns and why not? It's a steady career with plenty of benefits for the right person.

Rather than some leaving school with no qualifications or job, send them into 2 years of compulsory national service - works well in other countries. They would learn some skills and discipline.

My father was a driver in a transport unit from 1940 - 46

He had a normal 'work day' as you would in a haulage company.

His view on Conscription was that there was an awful lot of 'skiving' and 'make work' going on in the Forces and what concerned him apart from any other issues was that young people would spend the first two years of their employment learning bad habits

Some of my family are in the armed forces and they get treated very well. I wish I’d chosen it as a career.

My son went into the Royal Engineers as soon as he could. Like me, he had always been very sporty. After basic training, he went to Afghan 1. His peacetime role was as a Physical Training Instructor, and he loved it.
During his active service, communications between us were patchy. He came home on leave, and I hardly recognised him. A thin man, with perpetually hunted look on his face and what turned out to be chronic PTSD. He returned to where we had lived when he was a child, and took on lorry driving jobs. Sometimes, he would phone me and tell me he was on the top of a very tall building, and was thinking of jumping off. I managed to talk him down each time. He joined a church group, met the daughter of a high flying American Navy officer, married her, has three teenage children and has lived happily ever since.

I actually thought it was a good idea. I would have made it from 16 not 18 but in theory its. Great idea. Opens up kids eyes to the world and they give sow seeds thing to society

Most definitely.

My DH is currently serving in a different branch than I was, in a very different job role. When he deploys, he’s not going to be in the immediate thick of it like my job required - his job is a lot more mental gymnastics than a show of force like mine was. So he’s not going to find himself in a hail of bullets on a foot patrol, but frequently finds himself locked in a tiny room with some of the worst examples of humanity ever to exist.
Same with the super-smart computer geniuses the military like to employ for relevant roles.
It’s swings and roundabouts when it comes to how physically close people get to traumatic scenes. But I’d argue that those computer nerds watching things play out on high definition screens are exposed to hideous things that mess with your head on a way more regular basis than those of us actually out on the ground.

Another fair example of that from recent years is fighter pilots.
Their ptsd frequently manifests as “men without faces” - because they see pixelated footage of a body exploding into a million pieces. They may be a massive distance away from the actual event, but they have a way clearer digital view of what’s just happened than I ever had.

We need a military and need more recruitment, unfortunately there's been a lot of bad press in recent weeks which had really highlighted the need for immense changes to be made . I have started a petition to address these on change.org. I served for 15 years and 3 decades on the sexual harassment and assualts still go on I definitely would not want my kids joining up and I say that as someone who is proud to be a veteran because it was extremely difficult to serve at times .