[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

It's actually more. You can do differnt things as civil service from working in old peoples homes to working in youth hostels to joining a volunteer fire brigade. There are lots of different options to choose from.

That's why I said "broadly" but as long as the system works that's all that matters.

I heard Australia can't even crew one submarine....is their pay so lousy?

I had to look it up and I found this: http://forums.military.com/eve/forum.../4270044522001

The article points out a number of issues besides pay, which appears to be good, esp for the cooks. Not sure why they have so much trouble exactly, but if a PMC can do it, the RAN should be able to as well.

That could be from a draft flyer. Does the reality look like that in the US armed forces?

Sometimes. We have good and bad NCOs and officers. The good ones lead by example and lead from the front, and their men follow them and take initiative on their behalf because they don't want to disappoint a good leader.

Poor leaders are constantly being stabbed in the back by their troops. The men will slack off or find some kind of mischief to cause just to get back at a bad leader.

Then we have lazy leaders, who lead by example, but use a poor example, and the men follow it.

The military is NOT above the law here (and neither in the States).
They have to respect safety rules just as any other company has to as long as they aren't in a war.

All I said was "laws are silent in times of war". The military is, of course, somewhat liable for training accidents, but since you sign what is in part a consent form when you enlist, lawsuits over faulty equipment are limited. Our main problem here is field-grade officers coming up with ridiculous safety precautions to safe-guard their own careers, or in some cases, out of an exaggerated sense of concern for the men. I can't really blame them for the latter, I suppose, I did the same thing.

Simple, if you single out one individual from the group to become their squad leader, he will be hated by the rest of the group (who have just as much service time and experience as that guy). However I forgot that one can become an assistant trainer and help training recruits. Though I believe that was only for soldiers who had decided to serve longer than just nine months.

Well yeah, if he's not the right guy. I remember during recruit training that we went through about 5 "guides" (platoon leaders) who were universally despised before settling on my friend, recruit Gafford (now an officer). The guy had it all, best in PT, good on the range, motivated and motivating. We all looked up to him and followed his example as best we could. As a result (along with some other factors) we were Kilo company's top platoon for most of the training cycle.

Finding a leader, even in a conscript platoon, is easy enough. There will always be one or two guys the rest like and look up to anyways. Get those guys in shape, give 'em some training and you've got yourself a good prospective NCO. He may well decide to stay if treated like that. My suspicion, based on what you mentioned above, is that the BW is doing it backwards. Selecting leadership, good or bad, simply because someone is a career soldier is going to generate resentment no matter how you slice it, and that's even if there's no inter-service rivalry between conscripts and regulars.

It's a bit of both. I won't deny that motivation is a factor.

And I won't deny that funding is a factor. All I'm saying is that the first recourse should not be to throw money at the problem.