Oh man. I have no idea. It's such a polarizing topic, I have no idea how you even get someone to have an open mind.

Arrange for a family visit down at Walter Reed.

Maybe if he joins some non-combatant branch, like the Navy, it might not be so bad?

Compromise: he could join Old Navy?

Skip the ol' man. Work on your brother.

You know, in peacetime I wouldn't call this crazy; a couple of years of some kind of work experience under reasonably controlled circumstances isn't the worst thing in the world for a kid before college. Now? These pictures (scary, sad), make a pretty good argument against joining the military this year, and these are probably less persuasive, but should be more so.

I say you hire a girl to fall in love with your brother just long enough to keep him from enlisting.

7: Ah, the old Reverse Four Feathers manœuvre.

I didn't want to put too much identifying information in the post but they're specifically talking about the Marines.

For me, in the end it comes down to this: How much do you trust your fellow Americans to be careful with your (or your kid's) life? On recent evidence, you ought not trust them too much.

The risk of getting hurt is one thing, and that's up to your brother. But the risk of being put in a position where you're going to injure or kill innocent people to no good end at all, while it's present at any time someone joins the military, seems really unacceptable to me at this moment.

I think these are some good practical suggestions, but I'm really stunned that a parent would suggest this just now. Is your father a veteran? An ex-marine? Did he serve in wartime?

ROTC. It's a delaying tactic, sure, but an enlisted Marine? Jesus.

What about the coast guard? Speaking as a former naval officer, who is now a hardcore liberal, I think the coast guard's mission is ethically less ambiguous than the military's.

Ajay: The navy (and the airforce, for that matter) is a combat forces - it's true that in the current war, sailors and airmen are less likely to get killed than soldiers and marines, but don't kid yourself that they're non-combat.

Skip the ol' man. Work on your brother.

Right, and in particular work the knees; it's easy to do permanent damage there that should keep him out of the services for good.

13: That's not crazy, if your dad's hard to persuade. It puts off the 'having to kill people pointlessly and maybe get your own face melted' point for four years, by which point (god willing and the crick don't rise) at least this stupid war should be mostly wound down. On the other hand it's probably a longer time committment than enlisting before college.

ROTC involves a long-term commitment.

6, 11: LB is making sense, as usual.

This photo is less gruesome, but somehow it grabbed me in a way nothing else has.

It sounds like 'the military' is being held out as an option just because your brother isn't sure what he wants to do and he needs to develop direction, as opposed to a desire for having a son in the military.

And if that's all it is, maybe you can sell your dad on the idea of having your brother learn a trade for a year, on the grounds that he'll either take to it, and have a useful skill, or that he'll hate it, and want to study so as not to have to do it.

6 and 11 are completely right. During most times, peace or conflict, I'd think your father's idea a good one (in theory, although I'm not sure this isn't the sort of decision that is better to be made purely on individual motivation). There are worse things than risking injury or death. Some romantics might even say there are few things better. Character development and all that.

But not now. For reasons other comments have covered.

Over the dinner table, encourage him to enlist on the basis that the inheritance isn't big enough for the two of you anyhow. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, Becks. I don't know what would possess a parent to recommend the military now of all times.

You might want to talk to your father about what values exactly he's looking to promote. Assuming 19 is sort of right, would the Peace Corps or Freedom Corps or something like that work?

When and for how long you have to commit with ROTC depends on whether or not they pay for college. You can join ROTC and "play" for a couple of years without having to commit to anything. Even if you get the full ROTC scholarship where they pay for tuition and books and give you a monthly stipend, you don't have to commit for a year or two - which gives you the summers to experience the real military (not in a combat zone, though) and decide whether or not you really want it.

Coast guard is better than ROTC, IMO, there's no opening to be forced into the reserves in the CG. Manly virtues of the ocean, big ships, if bro has any talent for math and electronics, he'll have a place to exercise them.

Less specifically, redirection of the proximal impulse rather than full-on confrontation of the whole world-view seem best. Agree about as much generically as possible, but point out that any branch of the uniformed services is unlikely to be much of a learning environment because of the corrosive effects of incompetence at the top.

It's really like LB says. Who would want to be one of these soldiers? This wouldn't mature you or give you direction. It would ruin your life.

22: He can't get into the Peace Corps without a college degree, barring some particular skill which I'd really doubt he has (like, I was a volunteer with a no-college master auto mechanic, who found himself in the dubious position of teaching auto mechanics mostly on a blackboard, because the school didn't have a car to work on).

The reason the Marines is being pushed is because of his advanced Tae Kwon Do experience -- one of his team members joined up and was given a nice position upon enlisting with only a HS diploma and assigned to Special Forces. I think my dad's idea is that if he joined the Marines, he could have a fairly prestigious position to start, as opposed to going in as a grunt.

The McClatchy Iraq bureau blog has a lot of good posts which should serve as discouragement, too. I worry that this sort of argument would be taken as anti-military, though. But the 'you might get hurt' argument is the most anticipated one there is, and is arguably part of the character-building argument. There's no way around it: one good reason not to join the services is that you'd have to go to Iraq where you'd be ordered to commit atrocities, or at least to serve alongside those who have been.

This is really unpleasant. Back in the day people believed that military service "makes a man out of you". I run into a bunch of 60 year old guys around here who will never get over it, and with one exception they didn't suffer physical damage.

assigned to Special Forces.

Again, under the current circumstances, this only increases the possibility that he'd be put in a position of having to do things that in later life he will very much wish he hadn't. Some wars you have to fight, which means that some people will have to do things like that, and there's nothing to be done about it. But this isn't one of those wars.

I highly recommend the American Friends Service Committee's Youth & Militarism resources. They have a DVD called "Before you Enlist," a Thinking of Enlisting? handout, a list of alternatives to the military, and counter-recruitment tools and lesson plans.

Because they're a Quaker organization, they also have information about conscientious objection, but I don't think that's relevant to Becks's brother.

Special Forces is prestigious, all right, but probably more dangerous than almost anything else since it's combat shock troops.

2:I would be afraid that seeing wounded soldiers might inspire feelings of sacrifice, duty, etc. I think exposure to the destruction, collateral damage & waste might be more effective. IOW, what LB says.

The Marines are treating their guys better than the Army, but some enlightnment on the current evil treatment of Veterans could help.

Could he be convinced he's gay? Are there drugs around? Do you want me to mention him in a blog comment as part of my Blanquist bomb-factory?

(just kidding, feebies)

It really depends on the father's motivation here. After 9/11, I like, most single young men, thought of enlisting. I wanted to: I hated my job. Willing to die for one's country? Check. Willing to leave one's family? Check. Willing to kill? Well, in theory, if the cause were just. The cause, at the moment, seemed just enough, but I realized that if I signed on to be an infantryman for two years, I'd sign away my moral agency. It's not like I could say, "Sorry, sir, I find that order morally objectionable." I would have subordinated my conscience to that of the machine, and I didn't trust the machine, and neither should Becks' father. Not likely to convince him, perhaps, but it convinced me.

Ooh, great, Special Forces! That's where the action really is. Invading civilian homes, kidnapping people, torturing them, that really gives you some direction and experience that will help you to lead a happy and successful civilian life.

I've never met your family so I'm talking completely out of my ass here, but I suspect your mom is probably in the best position to stop this. "If I end up crying over a folded-up flag in a glass case, I will never forgive you (son) and I will never forgive you either (dad). Not for the rest of my life."

What are the personalities involved? Is Beck's dad someone who warms up in a conversation, or hunkers down and becomes contrarian? If the latter, I'd say go through the brother.

What motivates the brother, in general? Approval of dad? Indifference to college? If it's dad's approval, better to go through the dad.

If dad is a contrarian, and brother is motivated by dad's approval, Becks might end up in a real fix.

Take him to see Redacted.

A better strategy might just be listening to asking him what he thinks about it. Especially if it's turning into a fight between your mother and your father, he'll appreciate having you to talk to, and having someone who's not as caught up in the home drama, which is always about more than (in this case) life and death decisions.

If he's going to make the decision before the next time you can see him, you might not feel you can afford to just listen sympathetically. But if you can, it's probably worth it; if he feels that your agenda is helping him figure this out, he'll probably want to know what you think he should do.

Lots of good advice here. Find out what your dad is trying to accomplish, and offer other avenues that don't have such a high risk of ending with the loss of life, limbs and mind. And talk to your brother, but McManus is totally right that "and it's dangerous" is not the way to go with a young man; try "it's evil and you'll be used by evil people." Then, kick your dad's ass. Jesus.

Upon closer reading of the post: the first line of 38 is for your dad, the next two par.s are for your brother.

Tell your brother that the military is, in most cases, the most boring job in the world. My brother joined the Marines about two years ago, and this is the main reason he regrets it.

Tell your father that boredom and military-type dudes makes for terribly unrestrained alcoholism and barfights. My brother had plenty of these at home, but it has gotten unimaginably worse. The military for an unmarried, undeployed guy is a very, very bad environment.

I agree with all the posts above, but some of them seem beside the point. How would you convince someone who thinks it's a good idea [in 2007, knowing how the country and our foreign policy is going, knowing the horrible shape Iraq is in, etc.] for their kid to enlist that it's a colossally bad idea? No offense intended, Becks, but what's wrong with your dad? Is he a wingnut, or does he not follow politics one tiny little bit, or does he somehow have the idea that newly enlisted soldiers get to choose what capacity they want to serve in, or what?

But anyways, given what he thinks, I'd say the way to go is to suggest an alternative. Studying abroad as an exchange student, maybe. It might be hard to get into a program for the coming school year if the application process wouldn't even start until Christmas, but something like that. Or maybe even something less formal; an 18-year-old might not be up for hitchhiking across Europe, but there are more ways to see the world than by paying thousand-dollar registration fees. Or maybe working with AmeriCorps, unless they also have a college degree requirement? Or maybe some non-military career option that's also far away from home and really different and challenging. I read a blog somewhere about a guy who spent a year on the sea on fishing boat or something. I can't believe your father doesn't know about the risk symbolized by those pictures, but if he thinks your brother needs whatever-it-is so badly that it's worth the risk, then give him some other way, any other way, to get whatever-it-is.

I went through this same situation with my younger brother earlier this year. My dad thought it sounded great, my mom tried to steer him into the Air Force (much lower casualties), and I tried to convince him not to join up.

Ultimately, the winning strategy was to convince him, not that he shouldn't sign up, but to wait for about 4-6 months to make sure he really wanted to do something that was that big a commitment before enlisting.

Just like with your brother, mine didn't know what he wanted to do, i.e. was fairly indecisive in general. So the waiting period played on his nature allowing his more normal default response of indecision to kick in. Sure, he still isn't sure what he wants to do--he's working at a pizza shop and playing lots of video games right now--but after so much waiting he just couldn't commit to the four years he might have if he had followed through on his initial decision immediately.

E.g.: One of my brother's friends has "a knife problem." He has stabbed three of his friends in the last year, and not even in fights; he just likes to take out his knife and thrust randomly when he's drunk.

Americorps! That's a great substitute idea. Some of the programs don't require a college degree, e.g. this one.

Tell your father that it really is none of his business what your brother does with his life and if he succeeds in getting your brother to join the military you'll never speak to him again?

brother doesn't know what careers he's interested in

This is the case with, what, 99 percent of the people who go to college? Isn't that what college (in part) is for?

The reason the Marines is being pushed is because of his advanced Tae Kwon Do experience -- one of his team members joined up and was given a nice position upon enlisting with only a HS diploma and assigned to Special Forces.

The Marines do have people under the umbrealla of Special Operations Command now, but Special Forces typically refers to the Army, not Marines.

I think everybody who is highlighting the "directionless" issue is making really good points. The parents I know* who thought the military might be a good idea for their kids did it in more or less the same unreflective way that six-year-olds choose "firefighter" or "nurse" as their career preferences.

IOW, it's not that they've considered all the options and really think this is the best one, it's that they have a very hazy sense of what the options are. Nothing to do with being smart in general -- just that it's easy to be ignorant about these issues if you haven't had to think them through rigorously and recently.

*Who weren't from military families

The idea that Tae Kwon Do is remotely relevant to military service is also kind of odd. That's not a knock at Tae Kwon Do specifically, but the idea that any sport is particularly relevant in the modern high-tech heavily armed military seems ... strange. I suppose it shows some sign of discipline and hard work, mebbe.

Why can't he just work for FedEx or whatever for a couple of years? At least he'd make enough money to have an independent existence and some fun. The obvious danger is that, living among people that don't have big plans for the future, he would lower his horizons. But if your dad doesn't think that that would happen in the military, he's nuts.

E.g.: One of my brother's friends has "a knife problem."

My nephew who recently finished his military service (thankfully uninjured) has "a heroin problem."

Cyrus' 42 also seems useful.

The thing is, even if he had a direction, he'd likely change it during college anyway. I changed my mind like 4 times and almost did a few others. Of course, it seems as though he might be not interested in anything, as opposed to interested in a bunch of different things, but that is a different problem.

Anyway, isn't he, like, 15? Tell your parents to chill.

42: Is your family churchgoing at all? I have this vague belief that there are Peace Corpsy volunteer programs that a lot of different churches run, that might take a highschool kid.

Oh, and drug problems! A couple of the (ex) Marines I know developed habits while in the service.

I would think that a nice all-day screaming session over the Christmas dinner would probably do it.

I suppose scary tattoos don't count as a risk of service. But a Marine friend of a friend came back from Iraq with a list of dead friends of his two inches tall in Gothic lettering across his back, which struck me as terribly disfiguring for a very handsome guy. And of course the PTSD.

Have someone call your father to tell him that your brother was killed in a car crash.

After just a day or two, your father will probably come to recognize that he doesn't want his son killed. Then you can tell him the truth.

PS - this would also take care of the possible inheritance problem mentioned in 21.

I think my dad's idea is that if he joined the Marines, he could have a fairly prestigious position to start

Easy solution! Explain to your father the difference between officers and enlisted men. Not that this explains why he would want his son to be in some godawful place, but it might refocus his ambitions.

Without being facetious, how responsive is your father likely to be to the argument that the US military is currently doing very very bad things for a very very bad cause and that joining it is a pretty crappy thing to do, ethically speaking?

18: Take a look at the Rocky Mountain News coverage called "The Final Salute" for a less posed shot.

Perhaps this link will work. You'll spot the one I'm thinking of instantly.

http://www.poyi.org/63/30/all01.php

As for the kid, I'd go with a "Let's wait a bit, for the following reasons..." game. If he's even a little bit gung-ho then implying "You're an idiot" could very well backfire.

My dad's against Bush and against the war, although not to the degree of my mother and me, but enough that this seems strange. We have no family history of voluntary military service (both my grandfathers served in WWII but they were drafted. he didn't serve in Vietnam due to a college deferrment).

We also, unfortunately, aren't religious so there isn't a church-based group to join, like LB suggested, but that AmeriCorps link was good.

I have not yet read the thread but I throw this in anyway. A friend of mine joined the Army instead of finishing his dissertation. He had noble motivations and he is an excellent person. I talked to him between tours and he is very, very bitter about the Army, for what seem to me to be good reason; there is no way in hell he would re-enlist. (I can tell you more via email, Becks.) So tell your brother that at least some people who are like him in relevant ways did it and regret it. That is an excellent reason to do something else.

If he's talking to any recruiters, be very sure he undersatnds that they are lying to him.

The navy (and the airforce, for that matter) is a combat forces - it's true that in the current war, sailors and airmen are less likely to get killed than soldiers and marines, but don't kid yourself that they're non-combat.

Yes. Bit of army humor there, sorry. But there haven't been many navy killed in Iraq so far (26) , and they have been (I would bet) all either corpsmen (effectively Marine medics, Navy only for weird administrative reasons), pilots or Seabees.

Seriously I would definitely push "college first" - tell your father that a degree in something useful will make bro a better soldier if he still wants to do it after 3 years - languages, some sort of engineering, paramedical training. That at least buys you three years. And in that time maybe your father will change his mind. Or bro will. Or the war will end. Or you'll change your mind.

64: Right, and not just lying in broad, sweeping outlines about what it all means, but lying in detail about what he'll be doing and what benefits he'll receive. He should form no opinion about what the military can and will do to him if he signs up not based on review of his enlistment papers by a lawyer with experience in this sort of thing.

65: Or the horse could learn to sing.

33: The Walter Reed idea was more for the parents than for the brother. Yes, the kid might see it as noble sacrifice, but, noble sacrifice or not, no parent wants to be confronted with the possibility of grievous, life-altering injury to their child.

I would work on the parents from the "danger" perspective, and on the brother from the "its evil" perspective.

62: So wtf? Where's the angle?

63. Any chance your friend would agree to talk to the kid?

I'll ask.

I come from a long line of cowards and draft dodgers, but had a similar conversation with my depressed, ne'er-do-well younger brother a couple of years ago, after he had watched Black Hawk Down several times too many. I tried not to hector him, while simultaneously planning to inform the authorities that he was a homosexual pothead dependent on anti-anxiety medications and SSRIs (only the first part would have been a lie), but eventually he came around himself to the realization that "going to war" and "going to Iraq" were two different things.

69: I'm figuring it's blowback from all the 'support the troops' stuff we get. Whatever you think of the war, the troops are upright, cleanminded, noble, brave, honorable, worthy, and so on. If this is in the forefront of your mind, it might feel like a lot of status available to an undirected highschool graduate kid.

Another day on the job.

This one, especially.

Holy fuck, the Marines? Your dad is fucking insane.

Point out to him that enlisting carries a pretty substantial risk of permanent injury or death, and that once the paper's signed *you can't get out of it*. Do a little research on the frequency of PTSD for enlisted guys.

By contrast, getting a stopgap job while your brother "decides what he wants to do" is something he can always change his mind about. Ditto joining ROTC. Which for heaven's sake, if your brother is at all interested in a military career, getting a commission is the way to go. If your dad's concerned with getting a "good job" in the military, push the "commissioned officer" angle. If you want help doing this, email me and I'll put you in touch with Mr. B.

Some specifics on the GI Bill benefits, from the handout mentioned above.

Yet another sad part of this discussion for me is the idea that military service is something that we are essentially all* trying to steer our loved ones away from, at this point. Regardless of your feelings about particular foreign policy interventions, or the size of the military overall, I don't think it's a good thing for our country when the pool of people from whom we're going to draw military professionals is shrinking like this.

*Among the vocal participants in this thread.

I used to ride with a few ex special forces. To a man, they were messed up. Selection bias of course but damn, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. One of them hadn't had a decent nights sleep in years. Another one got mixed up in a crowd that moved a lot of drugs, got in a disagreement with one of them, and ended up killing two men sent to take him out in his apartment. He wasn't prosecuted for it, but he couldn't get over it. He told me it took away his last sense of seperation from that world. A third rode his bike into an abutment one day, I suspect on purpose.

These were all guys who served in actions most consider needed at that time (e.g. Afghanistan in the 80s). I can see the argument that some of the things these corps do are necessary, and some of the associated reintegration problems are unavoidable. To serve in an unjust war for a bunch of asshats really wouldn't help.

I don't think it's a good thing for our country.../i>

I think its a potentially a very good thing, if it forces the country to consider redefining the role and importance of the military. Part of the problem is handing an administration like the current one a toolbox with a big shiny hammer right on top.

The pic in 61 of (presumably) mom (girlfriend/wife?) camped out in front of the coffin to spend every possible last minute with a dead body fucking kills me. I can all too easily imagine being that woman.

after he had watched Black Hawk Down several times too many.

Besides the whole "it's a movie" aspect, those are Deltas doing the "cool" stuff. Delta, SAS in the UK, etc. are "best of the best" type outfits that in no way resemble the usual enlisted guys.

"going to war" and "going to Iraq" were two different things.

Maybe this is a good argument in the specific instance of talking someone out of enlisting *right now*. In general, though, I think it's a fallacy. Going to Iraq is pretty much the kind of thing that enlisting in the US military is all about.

I imagine that someone has raised the "Your son could die or lose body parts" point to your father in the past, since it's the obvious point to make. What does he say in response?

Maybe get at your brother from the angle that movies like BHD or Top Gun or whatever are given a lot of support by the forces (access to real military helicopters, professional advisors, etc.) because they know that they're useful recruiting tools? In other words, if he thinks that shit looks cool, he's letting himself be brainwashed?

79: I guess I'm much, much more pessimistic that that will happen. I pretty much see this as a vast winnowing down of the next generation of career military, far beyond even "just" combat troops and including the folks who do analysis and intelligence work.

Starting a terrible war can be done very quickly. Building a corps of qualified, trained personnel is like turning around the Queen Mary -- it's laborious and takes a long time. The next two or three administrations at least will be dealing with the ripple effects here.

I dunno; maybe you're right and the ripple effects will cause good reforms. I don't have a good alternative to propose; it's not as if McNamara and the bright young things in the administrations of the 1960s are what we should want to return to.

77: & 79: That gets us right back to the idea of the draft vs. the all volunteer military. What we have now is (or was) a big shiny hammer with little restrictions on its use. What we should have is a bigger hammer that's more finicky about what it hits.

Don't underestimate the appeal of the military to young men. It's got fuck all to do with video games or movies: for me, the appeal was doing something about these shitty times of ours. Hell, I still want a Spanish Civil War to get shot in.

Maybe this is a good argument in the specific instance of talking someone out of enlisting *right now*. In general, though, I think it's a fallacy. Going to Iraq is pretty much the kind of thing that enlisting in the US military is all about.

You think? I've got a certain amount of sympathy for the argument that in the world as it is, a country like the US needs to have some sort of military -- it's necessary for defense of ourselves and allies against military aggression from other countries -- and so there's no ethical problem with joining up. It's when we get into a situation where you know you'll be serving in aggressive wars that I get ethical qualms about it.

81: I think I made exactly that point to him, and added that, according to the few SAS books I've read, the ratio of "cool" stuff to just being a very hardworking, underpaid professional soldier subject to the same sort of discipline and difficulty but more so, by virtue of an exceedingly difficult selection process, is much exaggerated by the movies.

82: It was a practical point, rather than one of principle.

re: 87

The problem with joining the US army in that context is you're not joining the 'good guys'.

The Spanish Civil War analogy here would be joining the Franco forces.*

* it's a piss-poor analogy since the 'other side' aren't the 'good guys' either.

62

"My dad's against Bush and against the war, although not to the degree of my mother and me, but enough that this seems strange. ..."

Lots of guys have macho fantasies about military service which they may project on their sons.

90 Is there any military today that it would be ethical to join?

Maybe Becks's brother should join the African Union expeditionary force in Darfur.

You know, for someone who's thinking about the Marines, the relevant section of Jarhead might be the part where Anthony Swofford talks about burning giant cans of poop. Talk about getting a visceral understanding of the scut work of the military.

(I wouldn't recommend Jarhead the movie; I think it would tend to glorify things. Barechested men! Playing volleyball! In the sand! Or maybe that was just the previews.)

re: 92

Possibly. However, in our 'ethical table' of militaries, the US and the UK ought to appear quite low down.

Becks, what do you think is your brother's motivation for joining the Marines? Is it to test himself against a known paradigm, or some other self discovery type deal? Because there are other ways. And being an expert in a martial art won't help get you anything until after your first assignment, probably as a grunt. As for pointing out the "down side" of current military service, IME it is impossible to scare teenagers. They know better, just ask them.

I like the Coast Guard idea a lot, actually.

Cityyear is, it turns out, part of Americorps. I'd always thought that it was its own thing. In addition, I always thought of it as as something for people between highschool and college, but it turns out that they'll take you up to age 24. The important point for you is that they'll take someone at 17.

95: She hasn't said her brother's into the idea, just that her father's selling it to him.

90

"* it's a piss-poor analogy since the 'other side' aren't the 'good guys' either."

They weren't in the Spanish Civil War also.

73:Paddy's Americanization of Emily was I think a little earlier...umm, maybe about the same time as Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore" (+ several other even more vicious songs) and Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier"

I got into a long argument at ObsWi about whether & when it became a moral obligation to attack soldiers & soldiering with the purpose of saving their lives, even if they hate you. Spitting on soldiers might cause them to wonder "What's the point of fighting for these jerks?" The tactic (not spitting, didn't happen) might have helped end Vietnam.

Most people say "Never", and so we will have wars.

PS:The Quaker/Jesus/Buddha/Socialist/Angell arguments might make you feel better about yourself, but haven't worked so far. War is hell, by which Sherman didn't mean that people suffered, but that there were no good guys. If you are engaged, withdrawal is always a valid option in this vale of tears, but if you are engaged, you are not a good guy in time of war.

the appeal was doing something about these shitty times of ours.

That doesn't work when enlisting is essentially signing up to help make things worse.

85: Sure, but I think we would objectively be better off if the armed forces were cut at least in half (assuming pre-IRaq functionality of the remaining forces, which we can't manage now). Giving them a decade or two of rebuilding to do might keep them out of a bunch of trouble, too. In other words, a vast winnowing down sounds pretty much like what we should be doing anyway. This post cold-war two fronts bullshit is actually just that: bullshit. Oh, and shutting down 500 or so foreign bases would be a good start too. You'd have to convince me that it will significantly detract from actual defense capabilities of the actual country before I'd see this as a bad thing.

96...Maybe not "a lot".

I sometimes wish I had considered it myself, though.

80: Wife. Go here to see the full Rocky Mt News coverage. Click on the rose and wait for the flash to load.

http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/news/finalSalute/

The picture we're talking about is in the "Sands of Iwo Jima" slide show.

It's powerful stuff, the whole series is worth looking at, it's not at all simplistic.

101: There's smaller, which might be good, and then there's all fucked up and demoralized, which isn't. I've heard stories about service in the immediately post-Vietnam Army which make it sound like a mess and a half; it improved a great deal over the ensuing decades, but I wouldn't be surprised if the post-Iraq Army is as screwed up as the post-Vietnam Army.

If the macho warrior thing has some appeal for your brother, another non-military option is fighting forest fires, especially if he's an outdoorsy type. He could spend the off-season getting the fuck out of the country, which would likely open his eyes to loads of other things he could do with his life.

a country like the US needs to have some sort of military -- it's necessary for defense of ourselves and allies against military aggression from other countries

And how often in the last fifty years has the U.S. military actually been used to defend the United States against military aggression, as opposed to expand and maintain its various spheres of influence? As the American military is a tool of empire, and not a legitimate defense mechanism, signing up is for suckers.

a vast winnowing down

I think we're talking about cross-purposes. I meant winnowing down of the pool of people who would consider military service, not winnowing down of the size of the military itself. My "Regardless of your feelings about...the size of the military overall" in 77 probably didn't communicate clearly that I would very much support a much smaller military.

I also think we don't have a clear national rhetoric (let alone direction) about what exactly we want the military to be doing. Policing? Civil affairs? Genocide prevention? Aggressive war? Protection of assets? Who knows!

If you want to do something then work on a political campaign. Or volunteer with an NGO. Or become a combat reporter or photographer. Or look into joining the Red Cross.

I think one of the toughest challenges to idealistic young people (and maybe men in particular) is to do the hard work of differentiating between one's desire to do something productive and one's desire to feed the adrenalin jones. I'd say to any young man who wanted to do something that one of the most important aspects of being A Man is making that distinction and recognizing that doing something *useful* means you have to know what you're doing before you go off half-cocked.

I think too many (military) guys learn this lesson too late.

27:

The reason the Marines is being pushed is because of his advanced Tae Kwon Do experience -- one of his team members joined up and was given a nice position upon enlisting with only a HS diploma and assigned to Special Forces. I think my dad's idea is that if he joined the Marines, he could have a fairly prestigious position to start, as opposed to going in as a grunt.

Without having read the rest of the thread, for what it's worth, my business partner's son left college (voluntarily) to join the military a few years ago -- in order to 'try to do some good in the world'. He's since been in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's a smart kid/guy (23, 24?) and wound up placing highly enough to train in so-called Psy-Ops, but not, of course, before an ordeal and a half involving physical training and bureaucratic nonsense. That said, after just a few years, he'll be heading to officer training school and is thankful he's been lucky and savvy enough to place out of front-line duty. He's had a lot to say about the idiocy that is this war.

I can check whether he'd be willing to talk about the reality involved to a young man considering enlisting. (In other words, work on the brother, not the father, to whom I'd say that it has to be the brother's decision.)

Whatever my partner's son would say wouldn't be guaranteed to dissuade.

about at cross purposes.

She hasn't said her brother's into the idea, just that her father's selling it to him.

Then let dad spout off all he wants. The kid is the one who gets to decide. And the Jarhead stuff mentioned above is very apt. Most of the time military life is boring, with lots of very petty bullshit that fucks with your mind. The rest of the time is potentially getting shot at, which does get your blood pumping.

105 gets it right.

He can listen to this to get him pumped up.

I think one of the toughest challenges to idealistic young people (and maybe men in particular) is to do the hard work of differentiating between one's desire to do something productive and one's desire to feed the adrenalin jones.

Yes, this is how I ended up in the Peace Corps. Why do you ask?

There's always Catch-22, All Quiet on the Western Front, that part in The Bridge on the River Kwai where the doctor sobs "Madness! Madness!" etc., etc.

There were a few kids at my high school who enlisted, and in some of their cases, it was a very good thing for them. Got them in shape, got them some discipline, and they all came out of basic training looking fit and confident.

If only there were a way to get that without the actual likelihood of being sent off to Iraq bit.

101: Yeah, this is the only sticky point. It could render them pretty ineffective. However, I'm not all the pessimistic. The main effect will be on the Army, which is the least useful force for most/all the plausible ethical requirements of the forces in the shorter term. In other words, if this renders the US incapable of more agressive war for the next 10 years, that's not such a bad price to pay.

They ought to be demoralized by this, they are part of a huge clusterfuck, part of the problem. It's tough on them that at some level, it's not their fault -- they were told what to do. However, part of it is training for the wrong things, following bad strategy, competently implementing incompetent tactics. We won't ever know if the Army gave this administration bad advice, or good advice that was ignored.

As long as the demoralization & fuckedupness isn't too paralysing, I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. The last thing we want is the Army to get comfortable with this sort of approach.

88: This is the crux of my disagreement with Mr. B. about military service. I continue to believe that *as it stands*, the US military is a force for domination. He agrees, but thinks that as a superpower, we have a responsibility to base our decisions on first-rate intelligence.

I can respect that point of view, which is why I can respect the work he's been doing ever since I met him. But I'd never join the service myself.

I'm also (not being an immigrant) a lot less patriotic about the US than he is.

There were a few kids at my high school who enlisted, and in some of their cases, it was a very good thing for them. Got them in shape, got them some discipline, and they all came out of basic training looking fit and confident.

I've got a law school buddy who joined up after graduating. She's a Major now, and has loved it, and it did wonders for her physically. As a JAG, she's also managed to be in the Army for eight years now and not get sent anyplace inconvenient, which means I wouldn't make any decisions based on her experience.

by casual observation, fighting for peace might not be directly analogous to fucking for virginity, but joining the army because you're bored and want to make choices certainly is.

another non-military option is fighting forest fires, especially if he's an outdoorsy type

I know someone who did this; let me know if I should try to get in touch.

another option, of course, for someone who wants to "get ideas about career choices before college" is to go to effing college. That's what it's there for. There's even apparently a load of mickey mouse "survey" courses there, specially designed to save the trouble of even choosing a degree subject. Talk about the definitive bad answer to a question nobody asked.

I hate a world in which shooting an 18-yr-old between the eyes or voluntarily getting dispersed around a bomb crater is ever a "good thing to do". Maybe a necessary thing, but it is never "good." I hate a species that valorizes & enobles such activity.

Hating motivates and liberates, even unto hypocrisy.

(hypocracy? Fuck, and I just spent some time on this great Fleurs du Mal site)

119: Oh, aren't you clever. IME, the teenage drive towards the military is more about lack of/fear of choices than anything else.

113: Thank god you fed the jones by doing something that was at least nominally constructive.

If only there were a way to get that without the actual likelihood of being sent off to Iraq bit.

Red Cross? Peace Corps? NGOs? Etc.?

122: "In all you do or say or think, recollect that at any time the power of withdrawal from life is in your own hands."

121: There are some unenlightened portions of the world in which college ain't free.

Directionless? Doesn't know what careers he's interested in?

I recommend philosophy grad school.

How to shut that down?

Photos of Iraqi children splattered with their parents' blood at U.S. checkpoints ... that would be a good start. I think googling "Tal Afar checkpoint" will get you in that direction.

If you the gadgetry & training and all the schtick around special forces, a rap-attack forest fire team is actually probably a good bet.

re: 126

Unless you live in God's Own Country [i.e. Scotland], it's not really free here either.

129: `If you' s/b `If you like'

Perhaps he'd be more drawn to fighting for freedom in Sweden. No justice, no peace!

I hate a world in which shooting an 18-yr-old between the eyes or voluntarily getting dispersed around a bomb crater is ever a "good thing to do". Maybe a necessary thing, but it is never "good." I hate a species that valorizes & enobles such activity.

Oh, mcmanus speaks truth.

126: I thought we were talking about the USA here, where there are loans available to finance higher education. If the young man in question is actually considering joining the Liberian Army, then we have clearly been talking at cross purposes.

the teenage drive towards the military is more about lack of/fear of choices than anything else.

That and the massive, massive propaganda (and actual money) behind making the military The option. How many kids who are looking to "find some direction" get told about the Red Cross or Peace Corps? How many have as good a picture of what that involves as they do the military? And can either organization offer to help pay for college the way the US military can? Etc. It's not a lack of choices per se; it's that there's so much fucking power working to funnel kids into the one choice.

It's said that it's impossible to make an anti-war war movie. Likewise, I think it's impossible to turn off a teenager to war by pointing out the bloodshed; either he think it's cool, or he'll admire those who died and were injured and they'll look noble, or he'll look at the Iraqi kids spattered in their parents' blood and think 'What an awful occurrence. People like me should join up so that sort of thing doesn't happen.'

136: Huh? There are a lot of teenagers who are pacifists.

It's said that it's impossible to make an anti-war war movie

All Quiet On The Western Front?

136. But those teenage pacifists weren't scared into their pacifism by pictures of wounded troops and dead Iraqi babies. Just like teenagers still drink and drive without seat belts. When one is seventeen death is impossible.

138: I think that is a good choice. For much the same reason that the new flavor of anti-smoking ads are so much more successful than the ones I grew up with (ie "I think people who smoke are real losers!") -- they tell the kids that these are big corporations! and they're fooling you!, much like AQotWF has its lunatic classics profs marching the kids off to war via Homer.

I think John Keegan wrote something about the impossibility of conveying, via cinema, either the phenomenology of combat, including the various smells, maddening fear and physiological responses, or the danger to combatants posed by the shrapnel of other combatants bones, teeth and other parts.

139: I don't think that's true. I think plenty of young people see images like that and read books like AQOTWF and/or Johnny Got His Gun and decide war's not cool, that the bodies of the injured are goddamn tragedies, and that the proper idealistic response isn't to join up to prevent those awful things happening but to be adamantly against the entire enterprise.

And *not* all teenagers drink and drive without seatbelts.

124: The Red Cross comes with boot camp?

136: There aren't a lot of adults that are pacifists, let alone teenagers, but my comment was about whether you can deprogram someone from liking war by showing them war pictures. I doubt it.

135: I wanted to join the Peace Corps when I grew up, bitch. And I still do, but they require credentials, the picky bastards.

Others haven't mentioned it, but a non-military option would be Job Corps. (Tends to be the choice of backcountry Oregon kids.)

There might be equally "manly" domestic-oriented jobs that you could orient your brother towards, such as police or firefighting. (Although it appears to me that FDNY/NYPD recruiting is highly competitive.) I also suggest (if your brother is into traveling) forest firefighting in the western states. Hard work, lots of boredom / training, good pay, lots of crap-your-pants action in the summer.

...whether you can deprogram someone from liking war by showing them war pictures.

Bill Mauldin wrote, in Up Front, that the quickest way to become a pacifist was to join the infantry.

There aren't a lot of adults that are pacifists, let alone teenagers

I'm not at all sure that this is a "let alone" situation -- teenagers trend idealistic as well as foolhardy.

We all watched All Quiet on the Western Front in high school. It didn't seem to change anyone's post-graduation plans.

As to the appeal of joining the military in war the Bard gets it right in King Harry's St. Crispen's day speech http://www.chronique.com/Library/Knights/crispen.htm . Being in the band of brothers is the appeal, while the rest hold their manhood cheap. You can't wish it away.

I tend to agree with Cala in #136, so I prefer arguments about why this military at this time is unlikely to offer the full compliment of benefits one might be looking for, rather than arguments based on broader critiques of the military or claims about the predictable bad things that might happen in the military. But whatever works, works.

143.1: Fire-fighting, then, if the boot camp is the main attraction. I'd be more inclined to appeal to the "do something!" idealism, which is why I cited the Red Cross (and for all I know, there are NGOs that do have basic training-type fitness programs before they send you off to help install plumbing or what have you).

I think that combat is inherently exciting: *obviously* there's going to be an adrenalin response to depictions of it. But I think that what one does with that response depends a lot on the context it's put in. Absolutely, I think, you can have still or moving images that show both the actual battle and its aftermath (and then broaden out to show the context in which the decision to fight gets made, or the effects on individual soldiers, or what have you).

I think what people mean when they say it's impossible to make war look unattractive in the movies is that it's impossible for battle scenes or pictures of carnage not to provoke a response, and that for a lot of people the adrenalin rush makes them want to fight (especially since pictures are, after all, not a real threat). But it's not as though that response takes place in a vacuum.

Nevermind all that, this thread is at least nominally about keeping Becks' brother safe. 23 implies that if you don't accept funding, 2 years of ROTC don't oblige you to do shit. So, 2 years of college and obligation-free ROTC for Becks the Younger. It shouldn't be hard to convince Pere Becks that, while BtY would make a damn fine infantryman, his talents would be wasted. Becks the Younger is destined for greater things.

151: It's not the fitness as much as it is the discipline. A lot of kids seemed to benefit from that.

To the latter part, sure, maybe the adrenaline rush doesn't happen in a vacuum, but an adrenaline rush that makes you want to fight is maybe not the best way to talk someone out of enlisting.

The Moral Agent

Great piece on Conrad in the Guardian via the Agonist today.

"Life knows us not and we do not know life - we don't even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth, and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow." ...JC superstar

"To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of it being made so."

Watched The Secret Agent the other night, that reproach to revolutionaries. Well, made me feel guilty, whatever the intent. Maybe Victory would cheer me up.

It doesn't really address what Becks Sr. wants, though, which seems to be a structured, productive environment for Becks Tertius to get a couple of years older before going to college. (Becks Sr. is a professor, IIRC -- some of this may be a 'Damn kids these days! My son isn't going to show up at college as irresponsible and undirected as these losers,' train of thought. Which isn't nuts generally -- there's a lot to be said for a gap year.)

Becks,

I'd pitch your father and brother Americorps NCCC. It's a program of a year of service; you travel around the country doing various jobs; and like the military it's a team environment and there are a lot of rules. I think it can be a great pre-college experience. Examples of jobs I know of include building houses with Habitat for Humanity, fighting fires with the national forest service, working with FEMA, and trail-building.

And *not* all teenagers drink and drive without seatbelts.

I'm sure that there are many teenagers who remember to "buckle up" after they get behind the wheel three sheets to the wind.

[link in 149 fixed]

McManus reads the Guardian. Figures.

See, it so much depends on the nature of the person(s) you're trying to convince. For some young men, for example, the idea of potentially dying in a cause sounds good (right up until about the time that it actually happens). Moreover, I think that in some cases, in the abstract, military life is actually good for people. It fucks some people up horribly, but for others, it gives them direction and discipline and a social toolkit that they may have lacked. My dad was a pragmatic, sensible person, very bright and talented, and he basically saw his time in the Marines as on balance a good thing (this was pre-Vietnam by a few years).

But at the same time, he had the same experience that a lot of smart guys have had in the US military at least since WWII, namely, that a lot of the guys running the show (both the brass and civilian leaders) are a bunch of amoral fuck-ups who are totaly careless about the lives entrusted to them. I heard a lot of interesting stories growing up about some of the officers he ran into...a few he trusted, others he was neutral about, but there were certainly some that he recognized were dangerous enough in peacetime and would have been an absolute horror in a shooting war.

Well, that situation isn't any better now, to put it mildly. This is basically how I'd approach it: that the people in charge at the moment don't deserve your loyalty or sacrifice. That there has been no Administration in the last fifty years which has been less supportive of the troops in many respects. It's very important that military people accept that once they join, the principle of civilian control is sacrosanct--which means it's all the more important to make sure that the people you're letting control your life are worthy of that responsibility.

I'd ask your brother this: would you keep going to a church if its pastor was a released felon who had been convicted of sexually abusing young boys and showed no remorse for his crimes? Would you give a known con man money to invest on your behalf? If you blew the whistle on your boss for fraud and embezzlement and the company kept him anyway, would you just continue to work for him?

That's what signing up for the Marines right now, today, amounts to.

I have a cousin in Special Forces (one tour in Afghanistan, two tours in Iraq), another who's a Marine (one tour in Iraq), and another in the Coast Guard (nowhere near Iraq).
All college grads, all officers, all love their jobs, and each had a dad who was an officer in the Marines or the Army. Coming out of a family tradition of military service, ROTC or a service academy was the way to go for them -- I don't think any of them seriously considered going in as enlisted.
If someone is trying to find himself, City Year (part of AmeriCorps) may fit the bill. The DC branch has a pretty good reputation, and volunteers don't need a degree. Probably have to work at something else part-time, though.

Thanks to everyone who has offered to put my brother in touch with someone who could share personal experiences. I'm hoping I can shut this down quickly and easily but, if it comes to that, I'll definitely get in touch!

To be contrary, several friends of mine have served or are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan via the reserve forces, and they all (apparently) enjoyed themselves immensely. Interesting job, bit of adrenalin, change from civilian life, etc. Downside: Iraq smells bad, and there are periods of boredom, so take a good book. But then reserves don't have to put up with the immense bullsht machine that is the peacetime army.

160: Excellent point, Tim.

I dunno. I've seen some very badly handled Americorps stuff. I second the recommendation above about fire-fighting. The key thing is to find something where there's small-unit camraderie, where your time is not your own and you're under someone else's command, where there's a clear mission to life. Heck, some kind of hard physical labor might do it--working on a salmon boat in Alaska, for example. Yes, often that kind of thing turns out to have all sorts of bullshit involved, but even the bullshit is a learning experience. The point is avoid permanent consequences or to avoid doing this when something about the work is unworthy or corrupt.

51: Not that it matters to anybody here, but occurs to me that "nephew" s/b "cousin". The age difference just makes me feel like an uncle.

if the boot camp is the main attraction

The main attraction: hauling yourself up a steep muddy mountain with a heavy pack in torrential rains for 7 hours, then not-sleeping, teeth chattering mind screaming unsheltered, atop that mountain in that rain, in 4 inches of mud, having tried to pick leeches out of your boots, thereafter suffering withering foot fungal infections, requiring injections, that have your skin peeling off such that you can't walk for a week. Or so I've heard.

Sissy!

Honestly, though, I imagine one appeal of the military is that your range of choices is highly circumscribed; it's a program just like high school in that regard, laid out for you, taking the burden of decision-making off you.

Ech. I'm cynical, so when I want to do good, I'll shovel my neighbor's doorstep. Couldn't hurt. Did it night before last and I haven't been yelled at yet.

The key thing is to find something where there's small-unit camraderie, where your time is not your own and you're under someone else's command, where there's a clear mission to life.

Tall ships!

I have several friends who served on tall ships as a response to period of directionlessness, and they all speak very highly of the experience.

I haven't been yelled at yet.

It doesn't work unless you're yelled at by a D.I., maggot.

"period" s/b "periods"

149: You can't wish it away.

Hell, the appeal doesn't quite go away even almost fifty years later. It's a life (and possibly death) that suits some people perfectly and has for thousands of years. Bitching about the morality of this particular clusterfuck hasn't changed human nature much.

157: Plenty of kids don't drink and drive. I was one of them.

I'm probably getting overly rigid about what I perceive as a dismissive attitude that "oh, teenagers are stupid, you can't tell them anything, it's impossible to get teenage boys not to want to join the military," etc. Yes, young people tend toward black-and-white thinking, towards idealism, and yes they have a lot of energy and are often very (overly) tolerant of risk. It doesn't follow that they lack judgment. They also tend, paradoxically, to be incredibly pragmatic.

169: I also know someone who worked on the Lady Washington for a while, if anyone wants someone to talk to about that option.

Why can't he just work for FedEx or whatever UPS for a couple of years? At least he'd have a union job with good pay and health insurance. The obvious danger is that he'd become active in the union, join Teamsters for a Democratic Union, and get whacked by Hoffa, Jr. But if your dad doesn't think that that would happen in the military, he's nuts.

(Hoffa has spies everywhere.)

Why can't he just work for UPS for a couple of years

Bonus.

worked on the Lady Washington

That's where my friends worked (that and a boat out of California that I can't remember at the moment), but I was trying to think of East Coast options.

I also thought of the Picton-Castle because it's relatively hardcore if you sign on for a trip around the world.

I HATE UPS

UPS drivers are hot because (1) nice calves; (2) they show up, they give you what you want, then they leave.

I'll endorse 172, forty years in my case.

And I like 155, for its imaginative, sympathetic realization of the despair for how a young man gets along today many of us older guys feel. The maturity gap compared with the girls in one's own cohort, to name just one factor, can be considerable, and the year or two off is often really important.

Clicking on the link about serving on the ship in 169, the cost of the trip is about $40,000. I'm sure at least a little bit of my dad's reasoning with the military solution is "I'm about to retire and want to make sure all of my kids are headed in a direction where they will be financially self-sustainable." There's no way they could afford to finance a gap year for him so any alternative would have to involve something that paid for housing + a minimal stipend to live on (which I think AmeriCorps does?) or involved getting a job.

The maturity gap compared with the girls in one's own cohort, to name just one factor, can be considerable,

I hate to respond to agreement with the reverse, but this can work both ways. Ovaries don't necessarily make you mature any faster.

Clicking on the link about serving on the ship in 169, the cost of the trip is about $40,000.

I totally want to have a midlife crisis and go do it, though.

165: Tim, I was going to suggest working on a salmon fishing boat, but it's kind of dangerous, not nearly as dangerous as going to Iraq, obviously, but you can lose your hands pretty easily. I knew someone who did that, a guy who was pretty driven. He majored in Physics, but, save for one course, he could have had a double concentration (not joint, but double) in Computer Science. He took 5 or 6 classes every semester at a school where 4 was the norm. His mom was a single mom, and except for the final summer before Senior year, he always worked summers on a salmon boat. There was nothing else for someone our age that could allow him to make that much money in that short a time period.

The other big problem with working on a fishing boat is that it's intensely focused for the season, but there's a lot of downtime. There are people who do it seasonally, and that works for them, but they wind up having a lot of unstructured time in the off season.

181: I'm *pretty sure* that the crew on those ships gets a stipend (and lives on the ship?). God knows my friend who did it did not have $40k lying around.

181: I'm *pretty sure* that the crew on those ships gets a stipend (and lives on the ship?). God knows my friend who did it did not have $40k lying around.

Complete Voyage USD $39,000

Send your dad this article. And perhaps some essays by Andrew Bacevich.

I also second what everyone said about the officers/enlisted men distinction. I didn't realize until fairly recently how rigidly separated the career tracks were (at least, in the army).

174: Huh, so do I.

(2) they show up, they give you what you want, then they leave.

In my experience, they show up when you're not there, leave you a note, you write on the note "Please leave the package here because I am absolutely never here at any time when you might possibly deliver it", they show up a second time, leave you a note saying "Third delivery attempt will be tomorrow between 2 and 5 PM", you go home from the office four hours early to be there before 2PM (in addition to having written on their previous note that they should please leave it there if you are not there to receive it), and they have already left a third note saying that it was the final delivery attempt and you must now drive to their dispatch center and pick up your package.

That's the last time I make any effort at all to actually receive one of their packages. From now on I'll go back to waiting for the week-long cycle of three futile "delivery attempts" to end so I can drive to their center and pick it up.

Everyone I know knows not to ship anything to someone's house via UPS, but sometimes we don't notice that the default method of shipping is UPS rather than the USPS. Particularly when certain people buy things from Amazon.com.

I'm probably less anti-military than a lot of the comments here, but a four-year enlistment in the Marines strikes me as a really good way to get all of the bad stuff about military service and little or none of the good stuff. Maybe just go spend a few days in a military town and try to absorb a little bit of the flavor of junior enlisted life? It isn't very appealing.

I like the Coast Guard idea, but be aware that it's not just the good SAR stuff but also a whole lot of war on drugs and immigration enforcement.

Complete Voyage USD $39,000

Gosh, I hadn't realized that (the person I know that served on the boat was paid crew rather than a trainee).

There certainly are boats out there that don't charge the trainees.

185: The person I knew who worked on the Lady Washington said that there were a core of crew who had a stipend, and a number of volunteers (typically for a shorter leg). I don't know if anyone paid for those trips, but she certainly didn't, and couldn't have.

UPS always treats me great, and leaves the packages on my porch when I'm not there. This is clearly something that varies between routes/neighborhoods/regions.

189: In our case, the UPS driver tweaks the buzzer so lightly, like a tender caress, lest we hear it, and sprints for his truck, so that when we race down the five flights of stairs to get the package, he will be safely in his truck and driving down the street. Or he will leave the package in the entryway of the building without ringing the buzzer and the package will be stolen.

Becks, if your brother works for UPS, be advised that shivbunny will have it in for him.

187: What an awful article -- that is, not the article, but the story recounted.

UPS BAD; USPS AWESOME.

Surely there's got to be an awesome volunteer/stipend-paying organisation that would appeal to your brother, Becks. Brad Pitt is building houses in New Orleans; maybe he and his lovely girlfriend would like to adopt your brother.

UPS always treats me great

Snarkout, you may want this statement clarified.

leaves the packages on my porch when I'm not there

This is my experience as well.

Information about volunteering on Lady Washington.

According to this WaPo article the Kalmyr Nickle (which I know nothing about) is an east coast ship with a colunteer program.

You don't get full crew straight off the bus from seattle. You have to do shit jobs for a while, even if they're on the boat or ship or whatever they call it.

This is clearly something that varies between routes/neighborhoods/regions.

I am fairly familiar with the operating practices of parcel delivery (don't ask), and I can assure you that UPS would rather leave the package on your porch (or front step) than leave a note. Writing the note takes time, the redelivery attempt costs them money, and to top it off you'll probably call the 800-line and burn up a couple of minutes of a call center agent's time. The extra expense associated with all of this is why they have a "residential delivery surcharge" over and above the standard ZIP-to-ZIP rate.

The only time they don't leave the package behind is if (1) the sender has requested a proof-of-delivery signature; or (2) it's a high loss-risk neighborhood. FWIW, FedEx recently changed its policy so that you have to check a box to request proof of delivery signature; it used to be the default, but that was costing too much money.

I've tried but failed to get them to leave the package on my step at three different addresses in this city. I guess they're all in high-theft neighborhoods.

Maybe it would work if I tried to call them after the first delivery attempt to tell them not to make the other two delivery attempts. Then I could just go and pick it up the next day instead of waiting a week. That would be equivalent to what the post office does.

"Ma'am, the tracking system says the package was left at the front door."
"I live in an apartment building. On the fifth floor."
"Oh. That shouldn't have happened."

Since it was an online purchase, I immediately was able to make the disappearance of the package the vendor and the credit card company's problem, but damned if I'd ever send anything valuable through UPS. It may just be this idiot driver, but I couldn't take the chance.

All I know is that UPS also charges you $40 if they transport crap across the border; USPS just hands it over to Canada Post, and you wait an extra week or seven, but you don't have to pay some bullshit handling fee.

201, 202: Score another point for suburban living.

Frankly I never really considered that my packages might get stolen, because they are never very valuable. But I guess that's a concern.

Really, the most annoying part is the THREE inevitably-doomed delivery attempts. I'll try to see if I can get them to skip the second and third attempts.

God Canada Post is slow. And customs can be a bitch. I sent shivbunny a package once that took six weeks to get there. There was no problem with the package, but customs forgot to remove their part of the form, so when it arrived at the local post office, they sent it back to the border, who looked at it, couldn't figure out what was wrong, and so returned it to the post office, who sent it back to the border.

So, the idea is to send Beck's brother to Canada via USPS (not UPS) so he doesn't get stolen?

I'll try to see if I can get them to skip the second and third attempts

If you use the invoice number on the slip they leave instead of the package tracking number on the online tracking system there is an option to have them hold it at the center.

Since it was an online purchase, I immediately was able to make the disappearance of the package the vendor and the credit card company's problem,

Ouch. One reason my bookshop declines to ship via UPS.

206: There is something strange going on there, but I'm not sure what it is.

USPS -> Can Post is almost always slower that Can Post -> USPS for me, mutliple direcitons. But the USPS->Can Post direction seems to be consistently slow, wheras the Can->US direction is occasionally very,very slow, while usually faster.

Once a computer I'd ordered by UPS showed up as delivered on their tracking screen but had not, in fact, shown up at my house. I freaked out for a little bit, then thought for a little bit and rode from my house on California Avenue to the house with the same number on California Street, where I saw a box sitting invitingly on the porch. Oh well, maybe delivering packages isn't their core competency.

Re the UPS/FedEX thing, I've always just had them ship to work if I wasn't living in an apartment with an office that would sign for packages on my behalf....

211. Maybe your town fathers named the streets in a deliberately deceptive manner, the better to claim lost packages and wandering tourists.

200 is a tissue of ties. Why, Knecht, why?

I'm probably getting overly rigid about what I perceive as a dismissive attitude that "oh, teenagers are stupid, you can't tell them anything, it's impossible to get teenage boys not to want to join the military," etc. Yes, young people tend toward black-and-white thinking, towards idealism, and yes they have a lot of energy and are often very (overly) tolerant of risk. It doesn't follow that they lack judgment. They also tend, paradoxically, to be incredibly pragmatic.

PK is still young. Just you wait. These words will haunt you. I know, I have a teenager.

I'm often surprised at what gets left on my porch - I definitely live in at least a plus-crime neighborhood (we lock down our porch furniture), but stuff gets left all the time (including once a big printer - in its bright blue Samsung packaging!). But maybe it's USPS. Because I know I've had to deal with the UPS doomed delivery dance.

I think FedEx Ground (which used to be a local company) has become the default for a lot of shipping, but as long as I get the box, I don't notice who delivered it.

Oh, and my wife also had a thing for the UPS guy at her old office. Odd seeing the twinkle in her eye when she mentions "Brown."

and to top it off you'll probably call the 800-line and burn up a couple of minutes of a call center agent's time

Not any more! I used to call them pretty regularly to have packages I'd missed redirected to my office, but now the system for changing the delivery address is all automated. And of course you can only give them a street address OR a building name and number, but not both.

200 is a tissue of ties.

Was that a typo or a joke I don't get?

211: from my house on California Avenue to the house with the same number on California Street

Naming streets clearly wasn't someone else's core competency.

I hate that kind of thing. In Fort Lauderdale, the numbered streets come in sextuplicate, e.g., 36th Street, 36th Terrace, 36th Way, 36th Avenue, and 36th Court, and 36th Place, several of which intersect with one another. WTF??!!

I campaigned there in 2004, and it was a nightmare to find addresses. I swear we could have won Florida if I had been able to find those damn houses.

Queens does sets of three or four, I think -- 28th St., 28th Rd, 28th Lane... I don't understand it at all.

Sir Kraab ran for office? Cool. I could tell by the way she generated votes for her glasses that she was a natural politician.

On the veldt, all the streets had the same name.

Queens addresses make me insane. I've figured it out a little bit, but I make sure to look everything up before I go anywhere, lest I be confusing Aves, Rds, Sts, etc. Some of them are not a big problem, since you've left yourself only a block away, but the other day I was deeeep in Queens and a woman asked for an address that was clearly in Astoria. She'd gotten the Ave-St thing backwards. She cried, as I would have.

Huh, I thought my neighborhood was kind of bad, but that's a whole 'nother level of bad.

At least in American cities people don't keep the same address after they've moved.

I know people love the midtown grid thing, but seriously, having numbered streets crossed with numbered streets is a recipe for disaster with tourists and newcomers, and is a thousand times worse in Queens. (In Brooklyn, our grid is opposite the Manhattan one--numbered Aves go up to the east, numbered streets go up to the south. Not too difficult.) In Kansas City, the numbered streets run east-west and the named streets run north-south, and when you cross the state line from Kansas to Missouri, all the N-S streets turn into tree names. Nice!

221: Sir Kraab ran for office?

Yeah, on the Fearsome Sea Scavengers ticket:

Vote Kraab & Shark!
We'll Clean Out the Rot

Naming streets clearly wasn't someone else's core competency.

Better than the island of Upulu.

This is from the Great Package Race, a parcel delivery competition organized by Georgia Tech.

We sent packages to:

Apia, the only city on Upulu, one of the islands comprising the country of Samoa, in the western Pacific Ocean. Upulu has no street addresses.
Florianopolis, an island off the coast of southern Brazil just above Uruguay; considered by the carriers to be a "remote area"
Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, which is currently experiencing hyperinflation and political unrest
Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussein and a center of Sunni insurgency in Iraq
Yangon, until recently, capital of Myanmar, one of the most isolated countries in the world. The city was formerly known as Rangoon, Burma.

Queens does sets of three or four, I think -- 28th St., 28th Rd, 28th Lane... I don't understand it at all

It's simple. Streets run north and south. Avenues run east and west. And the addresses generally tell you exactly where you are. For example, 133-55 20th Avenue would be 20th Avenue between 133th and 134th Streets.

Roads, Places, Lanes etc. exist only in the rare instances where there is an extra street that disrupts the basic grid by, for example, cutting a block in half. (and yes, they can be confusing)

PK is still young. Just you wait. These words will haunt you. I know, I have a teenager.

Barf. I'm sure there will be difficulties, but I actually was a teenager myself, and I happen to know a lot of teenagers personally and have worked with them quite a bit.

What, precisely, is going to haunt me about saying that teenagers are impulsive risk-takers, yes, but that that doesn't mean they're irrational?

But the Miami system (I gather Ft. Lauderdale is identical) is rational! St, Dr, & Terr run east-west; Rd, Ave, & Ct. run north-south. Dr & Ave are major thoroughfares occurring every 16th and 10th number, respectively (they also get names - Howard Dr., Palmetto Ave.). Every 4th St. and every 5th Rd. is semi-major. Terr. and Ct. are generally intermittent (which is common in FL due to canals and such - "Does xyth St. go through?" is a common question). Street numbers are in the good format where the first digits reflect cross-street. I'll admit that it's unclear where, say, 7820 occurs relative to 78th Ct, but you know damn well that it's between 78th & 79th Sts.

I might add that the system is so clear that I can explain it even though I lived there for just 7 years, over 20 years ago, when I was under the legal driving age.

You want a crazy - but rational - system? Check out Iowa.

428: Better than the island of Upulu.

And they misspelled it, yet -- it's Upolu. But there are at least some street addresses in Apia, and beyond that you find places by going to the correct village (in the city they're more like neighborhoods) and asking -- a village is only going to be a couple hundred yards in any dimension.

Roads, Places, Lanes etc. exist only in the rare instances where there is an extra street that disrupts the basic grid by, for example, cutting a block in half. (and yes, they can be confusing)

Aren't there patches where they go Road Place Lane Street Road Place Lane Street for at least a while, not just here and there?

a minimal stipend to live on (which I think AmeriCorps does?)

It does. Probably. For the regular Americorps, you find your own place to live, or work with your sponsor to do so. Stipend for living isn't actually guaranteed; it depends upon how much money the program has, but I think you're quite likely to get the stipend. Plus you get paid for work, albeit very little.

NCCC is different. You live with your team, usually 7-12 people, and it's paid for by the program. The team also shares a vehicle. You're paid almost nothing, and have to pool together for food, but it's quite doable. NCCC members have little free time between work, required additional volunteering, and group activities. Not a program for someone who doesn't want to be busy.

Woohoo! I've got another interview for a job I was interested in, and that I'd received a 'thanks, but no thanks' letter from after my first interview, apparently in error.

Yay! Good luck, LB!

Yay LB!

What, precisely, is going to haunt me about saying that teenagers are impulsive risk-takers, yes, but that that doesn't mean they're irrational?

PK will rationally make the decision to get a haircut and join the Marines, to save what is left of the world for democracy. Seriously, B, I was mostly teasing about teenagers, but they are notorious for thinking that bad stuff only happens to others and that they personaly will live forever. ZOMG forty looks like practically dead, not the prime of life.

The midtown grid makes sense to me because the streets really are, mostly, laid out on a grid. What makes Queens addresses so crazy is that they've imposed a gridlike numbering system on something that is not a grid. (And many Queens streets used to have non-number names like Maple Lane and etc...).

Go LB! W00t!

Way to go, Elbie!

234: Yay LB! I'll keep my fingers crossed.

238: Maple Lane was the juvenile detention camp where my dad worked for a little while before I was born.

237: Apparently I think the same way, what with this smoking thing and all.

Elbie. Heh. But good news.

And they misspelled it, yet -- it's Upolu.

Should have known better than to comment about Samoa with LB around.

You want a crazy - but rational - system? Check out Iowa.

Another bizarre, but rational scheme is the city of Mannheim. The streets do not have names, as such, but each block is identified by a sort of cartesian coordinate system, with the house numbers going around the block.

Yay LB!

the numbers on numbers on thing is one thing when there are 10 avenues and 200 streets, & entirely another when there's not. And yeah, I can barely keep it straight in Brooklyn; just forget about Queens.

In theory it makes sense to make North-South "Avenue A, Avenue B" etc. the whole way across Manhattan. In practice, I have no trouble keeping things straight in Manhattan but can never for the life of me remember which is which in D.C., and when you add in those stupid quadrants, oy.

Chicago has the most idiot-proof navigation of any city I've encountered, with its longitude & latitude system.

woo LB!

Thanks, everyone! (And I like 'Elbie'.)

234: Yah, LB !! You want to use us as references?

Already am, kind of -- I got the initial interview through Seth Farber at The Talking Dog, and am out of the closet about blogging. Which means probably somewhere between less and no commenting from work.

You want to use us as references?

I was thinking that she could mentally prepare for the interview by invoking, "By the power of the mineshaft . . ."

Dang, I was hoping to be listed on someone's resume as "References: Bitch."

I can't help but put the stress on the first syllable when I see "Elbie" -- which makes it sound like a pet name for someone called "Elbow"!

Woo Elbie!

Congrats and good luck, Elbie.

Good luck, el Bí

Knock 'em dead, LB!

Anecdote: my older brother really really wanted to join the Marines for a good part of his youth and teenagerhood. Then, after he got kicked out of our (private) high school for getting failing grades, he begged to be sent off to this Marine Military Academy, and my dad thought it was a good idea to "shape him up." He did shape up while he was there, although it was back to the same old same old when he returned.

But the point of the story is that after that year, he never ever ever talked about wanting to be in the Marines ever again.

But then again, all my family members are naturally lazy.

So far down in the comments that it'll never be seen, but I actually wrote a bit about this once.

Check out my writing in:

Advice for the Newly Enlisted.
http://www.varroa.biz/rant/rant038.htm

Nope, we're still reading, and it's an interesting piece.

ZOMG forty looks like practically dead, not the prime of life.

And ifsince they're right about that, what else might those wacky teens have got right.

Thanks for posting that, Bruno, and I did see it!

It's targeted at people considering applying for CO status, but I expect that the CCCO would have some helpful information about the risks of enlisting.

My father wanted me to join the Army during Vietnam, but he hated me; for example he pointed a loaded gun at me two or three times when he was drunk - well he was always drunk - and he hit me thousands of times before I got big enough to hit him back. But I'm told that is not typical in families. Does your father hate your brother?

Don't know your brother's or family situation. With that caveat, I'd offer the military isn't necessarily a bad option for someone who isn't really sure what he or she wants to do in life. Military service will instill some positive benefits such as discipline and responsibility. It will also challenge him or her and allow exposure to different people and places.

OTOH, the military isn't the place to go if you're merely looking for a couple of years of post-HS babysitting. One should have a general plan as to how to maximize his or her time in the military in terms of life preparation; this may mean taking advantage of educational or training programs and the like.

I know this is probably hard to hear, but you may need to have your father committed.

OK, so I wrote some more. Something a little more in line with the idea behind the thread.

On Joining the Military in a time of Incompetence

http://www.varroa.biz/rant/rant050.htm

Thanks for the update, Bruno!

Bruno, I was intrigued by your update. Kind a reverse chickenhawk. And I must say that is where you lose me. It is not up to the grunts to decide which wars are worth fighting or which leaders are incompetent. As a young man or woman thinking about joining the military the current situation should not enter into your decision making process, mostly because peace is just a time between wars, and competent leadership is rare. Go in with eyes open certainly, but know that any specialty within any service will put you in harms way, in peace or war. You either want to serve your country in uniform, or you don't.

I guess my point in a nutshell: If you die fighting for a noble cause, your death has honor. If you die for THIS cause, and you can choose now to join or not, your death is tantamount to suicide, as those who make the decisions feel no compunction about throwing your life away.

Is a reverse chickenhawk a new sexual position? I guess that I'm older than I thought...

Posted by: Tassled Loafered Leech: "....into your decision making process, mostly because peace is just a time between wars, and competent leadership is rare. "

When I'm fantsizing about getting a time machine, and going back with a list of people whose early deaths would improve our world, many times mil-sf writers would feature prominently. If fewer people thougt things like "peace is just a time between wars", the world would be a better place, IMHO.