Be all that you can’t be

With an unemployment rate of over 14 percent here, and a snowballing anti-business attitude, it’s a safe bet that the job market here isn’t going to be robust anytime soon.

Fortunately, those who recently graduated from high school and are casting about for things vocational have more opportunities than ever available from the U.S. armed forces. The recruiters are hungrier than ever for live bodies.

Every service except the Marines, in fact, is short of their recruitment goals. It is, in other words, a seller’s market.

It’s easier than ever to get into the service. When I joined, they
wouldn’t admit communists or gays. Now, they’re happy to take either…and being both communist and gay will probably assure you a high political office in Washington D.C. eventually. What better way to start your government service than in uniform? “Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t accessorize.”

The best part of the modern military is, from a safety standpoint, that there’s no war to fight these days. The U.S.S.R., the folks we wanted to whip during the cold war, is now just a geopolitical cold sore. The modern soldier invades pathetic, third world countries and, as a “peacekeeper,” terrifies the living crap out of the civilians, half of whom are on the brink of starvation. It’s a pure jackboot and terror gig. What could be safer? Truck drivers have higher vocational fatality rates than modern soldiers do.

Still, in spite of all the benefits and the relative safety, folks in America aren’t joining up the way they used to. The economic boom times offer juicy pickings in the job market, so the military is simply a less attractive financial alternative. Kids know this much: Bill Gates didn’t get rich by doing pushups with the left side of the cerebral bell curve in a North Carolina mud-puddle. Heck, Mr. Gates could buy–for cash, paying full retail–the entire 101st Airborne division, along a wing of A-10 attack jets for air cover on bad hair days (I suspect he has a lot of those).

As for the bigger issues, the “who’s gonna’ defend the country?” question, there are a couple of points to ponder. Notably: the military isn’t really defending home and hearth, it is operating in far corners of the earth imposing the will of international politicians on helpless people. The national defense argument has worn too thin–only a handful of sour-faced dingbats living in trailer parks think otherwise, joined by an occasional senile veteran who is still relishing his glory days from the War of 1812, scratching himself constantly as a living reminder of what happens when trench foot spreads to the crotch.

As for a more practical observation, if folks are so concerned about having bodies in the military, then here’s an idea: Hire them. The French have their Foreign Legion, the British their Ghurkas, so why not raise a mercenary Army? There are plenty of hungry people in the world who would make adequate troops who would work for–and I mean this in the figurative and literal sense– mere peanuts. This would free up the cream of the American intellectual crop to make guest appearances on the Jerry Springer show and to support our vital pro-wrestling industry.

But if the TV isn’t working and you need a job, there’s always the Army. The new world order needs more lackeys to do its dirty work. Just sign on the dotted line, son.