The Marines have announced that they need to fill 1200 roles in the “global war on terror,” and they don’t have enough volunteers to do the job. So they are recalling inactive Marines who are part of the Individual Ready Reserve. The Reuters article I linked to explains a few key points.
- No one can say exactly what the global war on terror is, or how long it’s going to last, or exactly who it is we’re going to beat and how we’re supposed to do it. Now that seems to be the kind of fuzzy mandate that can eat up your volunteer pool and then some. Which leads to
- Some people call these callups a “back door draft.” Now, these Marines agreed to be available for recall as part of their contract. So this is part of what they signed up for. But it’s worth noting that the Marines look for volunteers from this pool of inactive Marines, and they couldn’t meet their needs. Which says something about how attractive service in the military seems right now, which brings us to
- Outside of the fact that being involved in a couple of difficult occupation/nation-building exercises is a bit of a turn-off, maybe this says something about our social priorities. I keep meanign to research and write a separate Policy essay on this, but my shorthand feeling is that if your job description is to possibly get shot and/or run into a burning building to save or protect my life, you really ought to be paid damn well for it. For a nation that believes in supply and demand, we don’t appear to be showing much demand for people to fill these vital but dangerous roles.