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From Citizen-Soldiers To Global Mercenaries?

Black Pigeon Speaks had an interesting video published Saturday looking at the changing nature of the American military.

What I found interesting was the change to the military once conscription ended post-Vietnam. In Vietnam and prior, many of those in the military were drafted and forced into service. Even in World War II, the “Good War”, I was shocked to find that conscripts were nearly 2/3 (61.2%) of those that served, while only a little over 1/3 were volunteers. From popular culture you would think that everyone was lined up to get shot at by the Japs.

The mythology of the citizen-soldier runs deep, starting with the Minutemen of Revolutionary War fame who at a minute’s notice could leave the plow, grab his musket from over the fireplace and be ready to fight. In World War I and II, the draftees were young men from around the nation who were going about life like young men do until December 7, 1941 when they were called upon to leave their home, job and sweetheart to go fight in Europe or the Pacific, before returning home to lead lives of quiet anonymity. By the time we got to Korea and especially Vietnam the ranks of the draftee had expanded to include blacks in combat forces and in another surprise to me, according to the webpage of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 2/3 of those who served in Vietnam volunteered, which again is contrary to the image in pop culture. Of course at the peak of Vietnam, April of 1969, there were just over half a million Americans in Vietnam, while in World War II by the end of the war the total number serving was in excess of 12 million in a nation with 50 million fewer people than the Vietnam conflict. The citizen-soldiers came from all walks of life but especially the lower and working class, as at that time far fewer Americans were in college and able to avoid the draft that way.

After Vietnam, the U.S. went to an all-volunteer military. To meet their recruiting goals, the various services used (for the time) slick ad campaigns to get young men and women to join out of high school like the Army “Be All You Can” ads and this Marine Corp ad I still remember watching on TV, back when the Marines were still looking for a few good men instead of men that think they are women.

Being in the military was still a calling for many American young men, as they saw themselves as part of a noble tradition. These young men, mostly from the South and Midwest and generally raised in rural America, are now a dying breed as they see a military that doesn’t want them and a nation that reviles them. Replacing them are recruits that are dumber and fatter than ever, plus a growing number of foreigners willing to kill for Raytheon and Lockheed if it means a chance at citizenship.

Americans still volunteer to join the military, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, but now it certainly seems that they are joining as a career, for the benefits and training, rather than out of a sense of duty. Does that change the way we view our armed forces? I agree with BPS and believe it does.

When you voluntarily choose to enlist as a career choice, it is hard for others to not feel like “They signed up for this” when the military-industrial complex our nation sends them into a war zone. We still feel bad when they die and thank them for their service when they get back but something is definitely different now that everyone serving signed up for it.

Add in the “woke” crap that seems to have swamped the military seemingly overnight, and we find ourselves in 2023 with many of the most ardent supporters of the military having second thoughts and the once “anti-war” Left now cheerleading the military as an incubator of government funded degeneracy. Not to mention the U.S. already using mercenaries private military contractors like Blackwater and enlisting foreigners to serve in the military. No disrespect intended to any who served but how different is the U.S. military today and in the coming near future from the Russian Wagner Group?

It goes both ways. Not only is the new and improved diverse and woke military more likely to be willing to fire on American citizens on American soil but I suspect that many of those same American citizens are a lot more willing to fire on “our” military.

Changing the nature of the U.S. military might have some serious and unexpected ramifications for those that seem to be planning on using that same military to force American into compliance or boxcars. Americans 25 years ago might have been more likely to comply but today? No way I am letting Mohammad from Kenya get me into a boxcar, no matter what uniform he is wearing.

21 Comments

  1. Leo

    YewTube has a video from the US Army TV series, “The Big Picture” in which the US Army touts the NRA and the concept of an armed citizenry. It even has a brief spoken appearance from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wearing a distinguished rifle competition badge- something above and beyond what service members are ever required to do, and which allows them to rub shoulders with other services and shooters from (GASP!) the civilian community. The same video condemns attempts to legislate limits to the 2A- part of the Constitution that soldiers of the Army are duty-bound by oath to protect and defend.

    Fast forward 55 years or so and we have his current counterpart, and soon his replacement pimping diversity and inclusion, and sneering at the idea of that same armed citizenry.

    We’re under new management.

  2. DWEEZIL THE WEASEL

    Thank you! It is with a heavy heart that I will bid farewell to two of my former students who, after graduating HS in a few weeks, will be heading to West Point and Norwich. I have tried to beat it into their heads about how things were in 1969 when I drank the MIC’s purple Kool-Aid and went into the Army. I guess they will have to learn for themselves. It will be a rude awakening and I hope and pray they survive.

    • mike fink

      Norwich was UMass with Uniforms back in the 1980’s. The Cadets were permitted to have beer in the barracks and there was a liquor store right beside the campus. The drinking age in Vermont was 18 at the time. I knew 2 cadets who went there at the time and the code of conduct seemed a little less intense compared to my military college. I can only imagine they have become less spartan since then.

  3. Jaybo

    The military people in my family and friends families all want out. The recruiting crisis has not even started yet. And IMHO this is a dangerous time, if the ptb intend on using the military, they surely do NOT want a draft.

  4. Jeffrey Zoar

    The idea that a less white military will be more likely to oppress AINO civilians is neither here nor there. Troops obey orders, including when it comes to committing atrocities, very reliably, no matter their color. Exceptions throughout history are few and far between. One can read up on how it went for civilians in Missouri and Georgia, (I’m thinking of Missouri here especially) in the Civil War, and bear in mind that those were all white folks on both sides. That stuff has kind of been swept away by history, it’s unfashionable to remember that anyone besides the blacks suffered.

    If it gets to the point where the military is turned against the civilians in this country again, by that time the ground will have been sufficiently prepped by regime propaganda so that the troops shouldn’t have much problem with it. We are kind of already there. Since we’re all scary white supremacists now. Booga booga

  5. Weather Underground Government

    They aren’t asking them yet if they would fire on Legacy Americans?
    Where did Obama start his political career?
    In the living room of Billy Ayers who wrote in the 1974 Prairie Fire Weather Underground manifesto that 25 million Legacy Americans would have to purged.
    Meanwhile Chicago Jesus is out lecturing about why can’t we have Australia style gun laws.

  6. Mahtomedi

    It’s no coincidence that the living-wage blue collar jobs went away when the draft ended. It’s their way of ‘conscription’, but with a smiley face.

  7. Mike_C

    I haven’t yet listened to the BPS video, but I can say this: Regardless of contractor status or lack thereof, NOT “global mercenaries”. A more fitting term would be Janissaries.

    That said, times change, the overlords are no longer Muslims. But be of good cheer, oh ye traditionalists! The cruel and contemptuous masters that the American Janissary ultimately serves are still associated with a non-Christian Abrahamic religion.

  8. pyrrhus

    The US has been using mercenaries at least since Vietnam…A HS friend of mine, badly wounded in ‘Nam, said that when his platoon took a pass on a near suicidal attack on an NVA machine gun position, the army brought in Cambodian-Laotian mercenaries, who were led by Foreign Legion officers…They took the position, but at a terrible cost….

    • mike fink

      Lots of hired help over the years. PRU’s, Provincial Recon Units in Vietnam. Apache Scouts in the old west and the first professional soldiers imported by the Plymouth Colony to drill their militia in 1636.

  9. Jack Shitlord

    If you want to be a mercenary, you can actually make big $$$$ as an independent contractor. Why bother to enlist & get your ass shot off for the MIC, Corporate FU$A & other “special interests.”

    • William Williams

      >>>Why bother to enlist & get your ass shot off for the MIC…

      Prior military experience is virtually mandatory, as the Company doesn’t want to run basic training facilities.

  10. Former 13D

    When I was serving (2007-2015), most of the combat arms were good ole boys whereas most of the minorities were in the support services. We knew we were going to war and volunteered for it (and this was before the GFC, where people who entered in after 2008/9 where looking for paychecks and health care benefits for their dependas’.). Those who were looking for training or a career did not enter the infantry, armor or artillery. They became cooks, fuelers, mechanics, commo, finance, etc. In my first unit, which was an airborne unit, the line companies were mostly white guys whereas G Company (support) where mostly urban youths….Even, you couldn’t depend on them for anything….I guess they knew that if they wanted long careers in the Army, do not volunteer for hazardous duty. And you can see that in the numbers who volunteer for airborne. Almost all senior NCO’s in the airborne were white whereas in the leg unit on base (part of 18 Fires Corps which is also based at Bragg), almost all the senior NCO’s were blacks.

    • Jack Shitlord

      Wagner Group provides on the job training. Many mercs are self taught or have been groomed from childhood to be soldiers like in Chechnya. It all depends!

  11. JL

    “…but I suspect that many of those same American citizens are a lot more willing to fire on “our” military.”

    Hundo P.

    If they want to act like jackbooted nazis, they should be treated as such.

  12. Arizona

    WHEN THE BRANCH DIVIDIANS WERE ATTACKED BY THE SCUM IN THE US GOVERNMENT,every person, in ALL the branches were over joyed to KILL them,and THE US ARMY TOOK point by flying around the roof SHOOTING THE CHILDREN WHO WERE ASLEEP ON THE TOP FLOOR,will the citizens fire on the MILITARY,in a new york second..AND they will be HUNTED TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH AND THEN HANGED FOR TREASON..THE US MILITARY ARE TRAITORS,AND MURDERING FILTH..AND ALL of them LIED when they took their OATH TO GOD,NOT one of them had intentions of Protecting america,their such LIEING FILTH THEY’D SHOOT THEIR LITTLE SIX YEAR OLD SISTER IF THEY WERE ORDERED TO KILL THEIR OWN FAMILY..ALL SCUM AND FILTH..thats the us military,and ALL government employees..GARBAGE “PEOPLE”..All of them….

  13. Jim Laffrey

    “We still feel bad when [U.S. soldiers sent abroad] die and thank them for their service when they get back… .”

    Not me. Since I learned true history, I never participate in that “thank you for your service” crap. The U.S. military, including all the soldiers, has NOT served us White Americans nor benefited us at all since the war with Mexico. The war with Mexico got us some land that Whites were able to settle. Since then, including two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, all the wars around Israel, etc., have all been for the purposes of killing Whites and everybody else EXCEPT jews (proving the jews are in control), and for massive profiteering on materiel sales, and for overthrowing of governments not kneeling for jewry (such as Hussein’s Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libya), and for producing refugees and rapefugees to flood our White countries, and as excuses to pretend there are resource shortages so that we can be even more heinously robbed.

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