Posted on 02/24/2005 1:22:30 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
The military could ease its manpower shortage by letting foreigners join up.
It is hard to pick up a newspaper these days without reading about Army and Marine Corps recruiting and retention woes. Nonstop deployments and the danger faced by troops in Iraq are making it hard for both services to fill their ranks. The same goes for the National Guard and Reserves. (The Navy and Air Force, which are much less in harm's way, have no such difficulty.)
Just to stay at their present sizes, the Army and Marines are shoveling money into more advertising, extra recruiters and bigger enlistment bonuses. And yet it's clear to everyone (except, that is, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) that the U.S. military is far too small to handle all the missions thrown its way. We need to not only maintain the current ranks but also to expand them in order to recover from a 1990s downsizing in which the Army lost 300,000 soldiers.
Some experts are already starting to wonder whether the war on terrorism might break the all-volunteer military. But because reinstating the draft isn't a serious option (the House defeated a symbolic draft bill last year, 402 to 2), some outside-the-box thinking is needed to fill up the ranks. In this regard, I note that there is a pretty big pool of manpower that's not being tapped: everyone on the planet who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I found a site: How to Join the French Legion where volunteers are requesting entrance into the Legion. One writes: "i would love to go behind enemy lines especially against terrorists".
Opinions?
I thought the U.S. military had always allowed foreigners to join. Is this no longer allowed? An honorable discharge used to be a accelerant to U.S. citizenship, no?.......
There's a book written by a French Foreign Legion veteran on what to expect if you join the FFL. I don't remember the name but an Amazon search on French Foreign Legion should turn it up. I've seen excerpts and it was pretty enlightening.
I wouldn't let foreigners into the regular armed forces, too much opportunity for espionage is created that way.
I'm not sure this is such a good idea... foreign troops are not likely to be as disciplined as US troops, or have the same level of sensitivity to what might become tomorrow's headline in, say... the LA Times.
That's the whole point. The military is turning away the vast majority of it's applicants but you'll never hear about it a newspaper. Come on everyone wake up! The military already does accept non-US citizens. Something we've seen a number of times on the Freerepblic are reports about soldiers being sworn in as citizens -- the military has been a great pathway for citizenship for decades.
There really should have been a megabarf warning on this POS.
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My roommate at Ft. Bragg was a Polish citizen. He was a good man an a great paratrooper.
You need to be a citizen or permanent resident. Signing up as a permanent resident can help with citizenship. Otherwise, you need to get approval from Immigration (e.g. an H1B visa). I'm in the U.S. from Canada on an H1B and, unlike my silly compatriots, I wanted to join the U.S. reserves after 9/11 and found I could not because I don't have a green card.
This reporter is an idiot. Foreigners already are allowed to serve. All you need is your green card.
I was reading two years of residency in the UK? or ownership of property therein?
My BIL was in the US military and he was a Canadian citizen with permanent residency in the US.
He became a citizen later, but that was after he was out of the military.
Just another Bush ruining the military attack article. Retention was far worse in the late 90's after X42's budgets diminished military pay.
Is everyone aware that US law requires illegal aliens to register with the Selective Service System? I'm not kidding!
For starters, how about raising the age for non-elite units? After 9/11 recuiters were deluged with inquries from American men in their 30s and 40's who were told, basically, "You're too old". For non-elite units, where max physical performance isn't at issue, a 40 year old man is a great choice for the military. Consider his occupational experience: if a transport battalion needs auto mechanics, for example, why take an 18 year old and train him when you can get a 40 year old mechanic who has 20 years experience? The same applies to almost all technical jobs; A HUGE willing talent pool is being overlooked here.
And of course, the more 40 year old mechanics, cooks, drivers, supply sergeants, chemical handler, electronics technicians, etc, you can recruit, the more young, fast 20 year olds are freed up for combat missions.
(I recall a poster -- I think it was sonserae -- who was appalled by the healthy, muscular men she saw working out at the gyms in Calif. while young girls were going off to war. She probably didn't realize that many of the men she was looking at, were ineligible due to age.)
Another thought: The Army takes 20 year old girls but not 40 year old men. WHY? Any normal 40 year old man is vastly stronger than any 20 year old girl. This makes NO sense whatsoever. If the girl can serve, why not the older guy?
Also, they need to reconsider their insane rejection of anyone who's ever been force-fed Ritalin, etc. The more normal, healthy, and intelligent a man is, the more boring school is to him; ergo, many of the BEST potential soldiers are drugged in school and thus excluded a priori from military service.
Where do I sign up?
ping to post 15... I mention you; if i misquoted you or if you weren't actually the person who said that, feel free to correct me.
Every ancient culture that has hired foreign troops to defend itself has dealt with this problem. That Americans are now considering foreign troops in its military shows that history will always repeat itself in any culture that is apathetic.
Foreign soldier enlistment in the armed forces of another nation is a strategy that has been used by many military commanders over history. There used to be a program whereby a legal resident, but a non-citizen, may serve in the US military, and the time (usually five years) counted toward residency requirements for citizenship. Recruitment from overseas sources was limited to only those who could enter the US under the quota system in place at the time, and were subject to the same background information checks as any other foreign immigration applicant.
I do not know if this program is still active, or if it is, what particular newer changes have been made.
Is it a good deal? Yes, if the applicant is otherwise a good prospect for US citizenship, but if the individual is trying to slip in as a fifth columnist, the program has great potential for mischief.
No way....gotta be a permanent resident or a citizen. I know from personal experience :(
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