Military Enlistment Processing Command(MEPC) is insane.

Tellner · Post by **Tellner** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:37 pm

Honor, if you are one of those people who thrives in the military, then by all means consider re-upping. Just "don't ask, don't tell" . What the hell, they don't throw the queers out during a war. They only do it during peacetime when they don't actually need the bullet sponges.

Alter alias · Post by **Alter alias** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:32 am

squidflakes wrote:
The extermination of the self though tracendental meditation is the only true path to enlightenment. -> extremely sexual.

Hint: This one probably means masturbation.

I will never quite understand how people find the urge to join the military, but for those who do, more power to you helping keep the slackers like myself safe.

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:25 am

Ghastly wrote:
swordsman3003 wrote:Ah Ghastly, you always have interesting stories. Why would they have a three strikes rule?

And also, if there are such slim pickings, how is the U.S. army going to make all their recruitment quotas?
The Three Strikes rule is because the Canadian armed forces has more people signing up than it can actually find placement for so recruitment generally gets to take the creme of the crop. They figure if you can't make yourself healthy in 3 tries chances are you're going to be too sickly a person to maintain your health in the long term even if you do get healthy.

wonder if they'd take Ed Gruberman ?

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:27 am

Honor wrote:
tellner wrote: It just raised the maximum age of first enlistment to 42 with plans to up it to 45.
*pounds head on desk* ...dammit...!

...every time I get near the cutoff line... they raise it...

it's inexplicably tempting to go back into the military... I don't...

...maybe the navy this time...

remember, "NAVY sodomy is the BEST sodomy"

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 7:39 pm

MNsane wrote:
Ghastly wrote:
swordsman3003 wrote:Ah Ghastly, you always have interesting stories. Why would they have a three strikes rule?

And also, if there are such slim pickings, how is the U.S. army going to make all their recruitment quotas?
The Three Strikes rule is because the Canadian armed forces has more people signing up than it can actually find placement for so recruitment generally gets to take the creme of the crop. They figure if you can't make yourself healthy in 3 tries chances are you're going to be too sickly a person to maintain your health in the long term even if you do get healthy.
wonder if they'd take Ed Gruberman ?

Well, they would be able to teach him how to beat people up.

Dmukya · Post by **Dmukya** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 6:41 pm

I didn't need to visit the MEPS when I comissioned. Guess things are different for officers.

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:18 am

dmukya wrote:I didn't need to visit the MEPS when I comissioned. Guess things are different for officers.

That, sir, is because officers do not enlist.

Prettydragoon · Post by **Prettydragoon** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:26 am

Honor wrote:
dmukya wrote:I didn't need to visit the MEPS when I comissioned. Guess things are different for officers.
That, sir, is because officers do not enlist.

Ah ha! I *knew* there was something not quite... right with officers. Maybe that's it.

Chaszmyr Mae'Val · Post by **Chaszmyr Mae'Val** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:32 pm

And yet according to my sister the RAF weren't picky; her unit (admittedly Catering Corps) had a dwarf and a lunatic straight from the asylum in it.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 3:01 pm

The Catering Corps? What's on their badge a crossed spatula and wisk? I wonder if they ever get to request odd resources to make large food items.. yes, we need one Rolls Royce turbofan to fluff the marangue for the 14th Infantry Division's annual year-end blow out.

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:08 pm

squidflakes wrote:
MNsane wrote:
Ghastly wrote: The Three Strikes rule is because the Canadian armed forces has more people signing up than it can actually find placement for so recruitment generally gets to take the creme of the crop. They figure if you can't make yourself healthy in 3 tries chances are you're going to be too sickly a person to maintain your health in the long term even if you do get healthy.
wonder if they'd take Ed Gruberman ?
Well, they would be able to teach him how to beat people up.

maybe they'd teach him BOOT TO THE HEAD

UgghTheCaveman · Post by **UgghTheCaveman** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:41 pm

tellner wrote: call bullshit.

The Army just announced that it was willing to take an extra 10% of all recruits who don't meet the minimum standards of intelligence or education. It just raised the maximum age of first enlistment to 42 with plans to up it to 45. The only reason the services aren't further behind on their targets is that they lowered the targets twice (or was it three times) in the last year and a half, won't let soldiers out when they finish their hitches, have squeezed the Guard and Reserves - even the so-called Individual Ready Reserve - past the point where you could get blood out of a stone, and have cannibalized everything from the ceremonial Color Guard to trainers. Even the (generous) Blue to Green program is having trouble finding airmen and sailors willing to switch over for money, no loss in seniority or rank and no need to re-take Basic.

In short, they stopped scraping the barrel and have kicked the bottom out of the sucker. There is a definite shortage of anyone qualified who wants to join the Army.

WHile all of this is true, it doesn't make what he's saying "bullshit", in the least, tellner...what you're missing is how much higher the standards were raised during the cutbacks during Clinton's two terms.

When I went in in 1988, they allowed anyone with a GED to join the Marines at any time, and allowed GED holding dropouts to join the Army and other services with waiver. This is no longer true...NOW they only allow GED holders to join the Marines twice a year, with waiver, and my understanding is it takes a double waiver to get in with a GED in any other service, plus a well over averagte ASVAB score.

On top of that, they have made the height/weight and physical health standards quite a bit higher than they were when I was in (when I joined, you had to be able to do 5 PROPER pushups, and pass the "knee drop" test, not have flat feet, puntured eardrum, and basically show no evidence of serious medical malady...dental checks were next to non-existant, and the phsyical standards were such that one guy who went in with me stood 5'7", and weighed 275#...and was allowed in)

None of this is any longer true...any history of neurochem/psychological issues, (like even ADD/ADHD that was chemically treated makes them look REAL closely before passing you) and you're denied..any issue with respiratory ailments (even allergy related), and you're under a microscope, probably disqualified (not talking asthma, here, just hay fever bad enough to lead to a history of mild bronhitis). Had a knee injury playing sports in high school? You're probably out. Ever been knocked unconcious? You're not getting in.

The "failure to release" isn't due to a shortage of soldiers so much as it is due to a shortage of active duty soldiers of the proper rank and MOS who are NOT exempt from a combat tour at the moment (unless they volunteer for one) due to having been rotated back from Afghanistan or Iraq in the last 12 months...you can't recruit spec 4's and sargeants...in the infantry, you hit that rank within 2-4 years, generally, if you're a halfway decent soldier...can't replace a squad or team leader with a buck private fresh out of basic, sorry, can't be done. You don't even want to replace him with one of the "fast track" recruits who comes in as an E-3 due to college credits or buddy system recruitment, and makes e-4 after 6 months AIT because he's motivated...he won't know the job well enough, nor will he be "broken in".

For multiple reasons, usually unclear to lifetime civilians, and sometimes unclear even to one-term soldiers, what he's saying is 100% true, DESPITE all the points you attempted to make.

BTW, long time lurker, first time poster...howdy, fellow perverts!

Lowky · Post by **Lowky** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:50 pm

UgghTheCaveman wrote: BTW, long time lurker, first time poster...howdy, fellow perverts!

I proper term is pervect thank you (Let's see who else reads these awfully punny books)

UgghTheCaveman · Post by **UgghTheCaveman** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:12 pm

But Aahz! I was just thinking that maybe Tanada and Chumley would like to take a bit of a vacation...back to jahk, or maybe to Imper...of course, we'd have to stop off at the Bazaar at Deva, first....

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:35 pm

fergit it boss, yer goin nowhere witout Nunzio & me, and thats on Don Bruce's sayso

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:37 pm

and in keeping with the military theme of this thread, i'm joining the Space Leigon tomorrow, gonna see if i can get assigned to that Omega Company led by Cpt. Jester (the "PHULE'S COMPANY" series)

MNsane · Post by **MNsane** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:45 pm

MNsane wrote:fergit it boss, yer goin nowhere witout Nunzio & me, and thats on Don Bruce's sayso

GLEEP

Moo Cow · Post by **Moo Cow** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:09 am

Hello, newbie!!! *glomps* enjoy your time here!!!

tellner wrote:Honor, if you are one of those people who thrives in the military, then by all means consider re-upping. Just "don't ask, don't tell" . What the hell, they don't throw the queers out during a war. They only do it during peacetime when they don't actually need the bullet sponges.

I saw this documentary "Before Stonewall" about the gay rights movement before... well, Stonewall in 1969. There was an interview with one of the lead women in the military and she told this story -

FDR wanted to make lists of all the homosexuals in the military because he didn't want them in it. He requested for this woman to come up with a list of people she commanded who she suspected were lesbians. She was forced to tell him something along the lines of "Mr. President, I'd be happy to comply, however, my name would be the first on the list."

~Sara

UgghTheCaveman · Post by **UgghTheCaveman** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:10 am

One thing I find highly amusing about the "gays in the military" thing in modern times is that we ALL seem to forget that it was not only condonced, but ENCOURAGED, so long as it was kept relatively quiet, up until WWI.

Granted, an officer would still be cashiered, if he were officially accused of such "ungentlemanly conduct" before these times, and being caught...en flagrante delectico...was grounds for cashiering ANY soldier (especially the young officer-gonna-bes in "The Colleges"), but that again required OFFICIAL recognition of the circumstances...so while the rule books said one thing, the permitted and EXPECTED practices were another thing entirely, and this was known, and accepted.

As a former grunt myself, I can understand WHY it's such an issue currently, being that most of the enlisteds in the military are lower to lower middle class kids looking to manage to "step up"...when you group a bunch of newly "adult" kids together who have soaked up the propeganda of their society, but not LIVED life long enough to form any serious and valid opinions of their own based on personal experience, there's going to be alot of preconceptions and prejuduices to deal with...this creates alot of friction as is (the reverse racism the military applies in an attempt to counter the overt racism fostered in many of these kids' upbringings makes the base racism worse, in all reality, but that's another issue entirely).

Personally, I thought the changign of the policy from "zero tolerance, to the point an accusation could destroy a carreer" to "don't ask, don't tell" was a GOOD thing...I'd RATRHER that the "official policy" be "what color does this soldier bleed? Red? Then they're a damned soldier, screw the rest of the crap, let them do their job!", but any progress is good progreess, and when rules at least TRY to reflect the realities of the situation, it's a good thing, even if not a PERFECT thing.

Moo Cow · Post by **Moo Cow** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:25 pm

*nods* I think it's an improvement, sure.... we've still got a ways to go though.

Question... if hypothetically there were a draft, and someone gay were drafted, could they just say "hey, i'm gay" and get out? or would the officer stick their fingers in their ear and go "la la la i can't hear you!!!" Or would they make the person prove it?

~SDara