h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In fact the armed services needs people so badly they are increasing their advertising spend to get the people it needs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/09/armys-200-million-ad-co_n_31321.html

http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,1820418,00.html

It is even concerned about people who were prviously regarded as unwanted in the forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1418932,00.html

What in an advert would have made you join up?

If you have signed up for the armed forces what made you want to take the plunge?

Why havent the previous adverts done the job of getting enough young people in?

one love

"If you have signed up for the armed forces what made you want to take the plunge?"

I ended up spending six years in the Royal Navy because it was raining one day... (And that's the truth!)



Grew up in a military family and despite the pressure _not_ to join the forces (which went something along the lines of "If you _really_ want to, I can't stop you - but if you go and join the army as a basic squaddie I'll shoot you myself!" from my Dad). Can't say there was one single thing that made me join - Probably a combination of seeing how it works from the inside, an overly romantic image from too many American War Films, a lack of 'interesting' jobs where I was living and the sense of adventure that all youngsters have in them...

And as to the 'it was raining' bit... I'd almost decided to join the RAF, but the day I was planning to go to the Recruiting Office it started raining while I was on the way there - so I stopped off at the RN recruiting office, basically to kill a little time until it stopped raining and see what they were offering...

They made me an offer I couldn't refuse

Oh, and in reply to...

"Why havent the previous adverts done the job of getting enough young people in?"

The adverts were working - up to a point... The problem is at the other end of the chain... It's not getting people to join up that's the problem, it's getting them to stay in once they're there...

The _real_ problem is that the services are leaking from the top end - the senior NCOs - corporals, sergeants, staff-sergeants etc. with 10 years + service who have just had enough of the stress caused by pennypinching and undermanning.

yep to what you said about retention and

at you joining the RN instead of the RAF... I went to join the RAF but the chappie was busy so the army chappie gave me a coffee... next thing I knew I was slogging my way around a wet and windy Catterick (is there any other type of Catterick)

and yep, I'm from a military family, and despite subsequent attendance (in full uniform) to both of my passing out parades, my dad was ready to have me locked up rather than join up.

oh and I meant to say: no amount of advertising would drag me in now. (and I loved my 6 years in the Army)

I'm not from a military family - and I find myself unmoved, unmotivated and frankly rather disdainful of modern military advertisements. It might just be my politics (and being still reasonably young I'm still working through a lot of stuff) but I seriously doubt I could ever be persuaded to joined the armed forces, and risk my life, least of all on the strength of an advert.

S'funny. I joined the RN 'cos the Army Recruiting Office opened half an hour too late.

I got an engineering apprenticeship of a quality that just doesn't exist in civvy street any more.

talking about quality, my dentist always calls her helpers, assistants, trainees and, frankly, any passers by who care to look to show them my fillings. They were done by an RAF dentist and are, apparently,of a quality only now seen in expensive Swiss clinics.

training and qualifications are the only reason I'd join now. My is highly appreciated by his employers because of his most excellent (army) training.

I can't imagine any advert that would induce me to join up. I'm too old now, anyway.

The general attitude has changed so much. There isn't the WWII spirit of patriotism to lure youngsters into the forces, nor the idea of getting good training. Teenagers are encouraged to aim for university & city salaries instead.
We've even veered away from man as the tough action man who gets his hands dirty with mechanics towards the IT deskbound family man who gets his hands dirty changing nappies.

Having said that, I think there's still an ethos in private schools where they have cadets as an extra curricular activity (mandatory for some) for school leavers to consider officerhood.

and state schools. My old school, a boys grammar school, had Army and RAF cadet forces. I, needless to say, joined amnesty international instead since marching up and down the quad for 2 hrs on thursday didn't seem like fun to me. Plus all the sporty types and bullies joined and got promoted asap so not really my sort of environment.

Nothing on earth would convince me to join up and I think, at 34, they wouldn't have me anyway now. If forced I'd probably go in as an MO. Actually, not joining up at all is probably not true. If a hostile force invaded then I probably would. But not as a grunt.

But my main objection is basically handing the rights to my life over to someone else. I decide when it is worth me laying down my life or putting it in peril, no one else.

I can't imagine *any* adfvert that would make me join up (as if the Armed Forces needed overweight 40+ year olds anyway ), but I can imagine *causes* for which I might be prepared to take the Queen's shilling.

I'm always cautious of the impulse decision, though. My grandad lost his temper with his employer and stormed out into the street at the age of 15 only to sign up out of petulance (he lied about his age) and found himself on the Somme a couple of years later. I'm sure there's a moral there somewhere...

"But my main objection is basically handing the rights to my life over to someone else."

Actually, this is one area where I have a great deal of difficulty understanding all these 'bullying' scandals the Army keeps suffering.

Ok, maybe the Navy work things differently, but, far from handing your rights over to someone without recourse, the way the Navy works it is "Ok, you've joined up - these are your rights, this is what we can do, this is what _you_ can do - and if anyone goes outside these bounds, this is the process to follow"

You know _exactly_ where you stand, you know _exactly_ how to complain about someone and you can _never_ be stopped from taking a complaint to a higher authority.

In a way, you have more rights than a civilian employee - and they're all laid out in stone!

What I mean is the war situation you get where some bod in charge decides that doing X is a good idea even though it is basically suicidal. And you as a subortdinate have to do it. Disobeying orders being a pretty heinous crime as far as I understand. Is it acceptable to disobey suicidal orders?

**Outrageous drift alert**

This thread reminds me of one of my fave bits from "Futurama"

Bender > I cant go to war, I am a concientous objector

Fry > A what now?

Bender > You know, a coward!



Brilliant!

"What I mean is the war situation you get where some bod in charge decides that doing X is a good idea even though it is basically suicidal. And you as a subortdinate have to do it. Disobeying orders being a pretty heinous crime as far as I understand. Is it acceptable to disobey suicidal orders? "

Dunno - that's the other great advantage of the Navy - the guy giving the orders is quite literally in the same boat as the rest of us... Which tends to limit the number of potentially suicidal orders we receive

People do sometimes get suicidal orders in all sorts of walks of life not just military. see Chernobyl....

That doesn;t make it any more acceptable to me y'know...

There were the "statistically" suicidal bombing missions in WWII - I guess that's the basis for the book Catch-22, right? The rate of being shot down/injured/killed was such that by the time you completed your required number of missions you had a 100% chance of having been wounded/killed.

So not actually suicide (not guaranteed death) and not actually guaranteed, but pretty close.

To the original query, ... No ads or promos enticed me to don my country's uniform. It was a need of employment, simple and flat. And even if I wasn't without income or home at the time, I don't believe the "There's No Life Like It" ads would have been an attraction. I lived amongst the common school-kid s of the later 70s. Not too dissimilar to many that populate h2g2 today.

It was only after the first couple of years, with my own obstinate way of NOT accepting the "this is how it is, because it has always been this way" that I actually started to see some of the real world.

I know that the vast majority of the "western world" are folks that decry the need or want of any militaries. And if I could wear rosey tinted lenses all day, hide away in an office, a university, or parental home somewhere, safely behind a keyboard, I too might be happy to hope that all the nasty people of the world would just go away. Or at the very least, not come calling on my city or country.

But having seen some of that real world, I can only be relieved that there are still some, in every population measure, that can see beyond themselves. And be willing to face and do the inexplicable... Put themselves and their lives on the line, here, there, where-ever, so that the gentle people can continue to sit behind their keyboards. Safely.

Nick

what I wanted to come back and say is this: a lot of people seem to have the idea that the military - particularly the Army - is all about a bunch of idiots ordering you to do stupid/dangerous/pointless things all day. It's not.

Sure, there is a lot of "if it moves salute it, if it doesn't move paint it" when you're not on active duty - but even though I hated the painting/cleaning/sweeping leaves I could see that at some level there is a point to it.

And we had to clean our troop place of work because if we'd let cleaners in we'd not have been able to let them out!

But there are different ways of handling the Army (I can only speak from my own experience) and my view is that if you knuckle down and do the military stuff (runing, marching, polishing and all that jazz, including the first aid and shooting) then when you get to do your trade stuff as long as you are good and learn well you're fine.

You don't have to follow illegal orders, and there is now much less of the silly kid-officers giving stupid/dangerous orders due to the fact that:

a) Sergeants run the army anyway and generally they know what's what
b) everyone (yes, even the officers ) are trained so much better now than they used to be
c) other stuff that I don't know about

The sense of worth you can get as you do the job - and get better of it - the team spirit and comradeship that can come from the military is still indescribable. and I still managed to remain me the whole time (I can't say that for everyone, but the army does need grunts - there is no need to look down on them)

But I'm glad I left when I did - it changed too much for my liking