“Generation Z is failing to join the military like my generation did” Warns former British defence secretary Ben Wallace
by Matthias556
“Generation Z is failing to join the military like my generation did” Warns former British defence secretary Ben Wallace
by Matthias556
41 comments
> too hooked on smartphones to sign up as submariners.
this point of view is increadibly disrespectful and wont help you fill the gap.
we grew up in a post 9/11 war on terror world. we dont want to die to make rich men richer.
Previous generations fought for sovereign nations. We have economic zones. It’s not worth breaking a fingernail over.
Many reasons for this.
It’s not smartphones. It’s: “We don’t want to die in stupid rich boomer wars, while trying to survive in a world they have created for us, where we are treated as money-earning slaves”.
Isn’t that obvious?
Good
Join the military to go and kill some people in Asia or Africa? Enlist to invade, occupy or bomb a foreign country? He should blame his own generation for all the crimes they have committed across the world.
If there is an actual eminent threat to the nation and their loved ones, people will fight. Just look at the Ukrainians. A few years ago, they would also not have wanted to join the army and they would also have been enjoying life with their smartphones and internet.
Imagine dying for the current state of Europe
Some ~40% of young men are incels, they don’t care
this conservative-traditional world has not existed for at least 30 years
When the pay is shit compared to hours worked, superior’s abuse is the norm with few exceptions, and suicide rates are some 50% higher than gen pop… why would the average person do it?
A career in the military, even a limited 1-4 years to go away from a bad situation at home, is attractive to very very few people.
Can’t say I blame them. I’m 43 and in my lifetime Britain has only fought 2 wars that could be considered “just” or even legal and that was the Falklands and the first gulf war to liberate Kuwait. You could argue Kosovo but the peacekeepers had their hands tied and couldn’t do much.
Iraq and Afghanistan was bullshit and Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives.
It needs to be paying more. Military has always been about money for a lot of people who join. Also the only way to escape poverty for some.
Maybe because you’ve given their country away to foreign invaders…you actually had a country to call your own. A country that was safe, stable & free from this virus of multiculturalism. But your generation decided to open the borders and give their rightful inheritance away to the third world. Why in god’s name would they ever want to go die to protect what was stolen from them & given to others, while they continue to be disenfranchised? & you expect your new foreign arrivals to join your heretical military? HA! Keep dreaming.
Choosing not to do something isn’t the same as failing, last I checked.
They aren’t failing. The pay is shite and at least in the UK you can spend over a year on the process of joining. I spent 18 months waiting, gave up, then went to university.
You can’t expect people to just put up with a shotty recruitment system ludicrously low pay and all the other nonsense besides.
Capita runs the medical assessments, and has routinely lost records.
Let the politicians fight, why should kids risk their lives for shit they disagree with.
The west has nothing to offer for military service. Veterans affairs always tell you that your mental or physical health problems aren’t service related.
Housing and everything is too expensive for a military salary. To be treated like scum, if you’re a woman you will be assulted and eventually work in the same area as your assulters.
The military is a horrible experience doesn’t matter what nation you’re from.
Reasons I didn’t join the British Army, despite being absolutely obsessed when I was younger:
1) Afghanistan happened. What a waste of time I thought.
2) Iraq happened. Fuck we really are the bad guys aren’t we?
4) I saw how men were being thrown into Afghanistan/Iraq under strength and under equipped. “Mobile coffins”, trying to control Helmand with basically a handful of guys, trying to control huge areas without adequate resources etc.
5) I realized that I don’t want to be a warmongering boomers gun toy. I don’t want to be the one to help unnecessarily ruin the lives of thousands of people.
6) Oh yeah, and all those perks you used to get, like a pension after 20 years service, heavily subsidized accomodation, free food? Gone.
Gen Z (and others) are quite busy trying to just survive in peacetime, thank you very much.
130 years go Kipling penned the poem [“Tommy”](https://www.poetry.com/poem/33632/tommy) and it is even more apposite now – there are more opportunities to earn the same as in the army, without the privations, the harsh conditions, the lack of support. If the UK wants a decent armed force, the UK must pay for it.
> For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
>But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
Maybe because they see what their militaries are mostly used for, and they see what they are not used for.
The current younger generations have largely been given a worse lot in life due to no fault of their own. Education is being defundend everywhere. Whatever you learn in university is outright dismissed by the older generation in favor of comfort in ignorance. Jobs are paying less, apartments are unaffordable and entire ecosystems are being destroyed so 50+ year old share holders can live a life of extravagance without having to pay any consequences.
Why oh why aren’t the young willing to put their lives on the line for this system?
Then sign your generation up again
Holy shit this thread is filled to the brim with commies leftists and enemies of the west.
Why would people want to die for a country that they mightn’t benefit much from? Housing out of reach, cost of living, slave wage jobs with barely enough to cover bills. Why would you fight to preserve a system like that if you hardly benefit from it? Let the people high up in society who cause all this conflict, fight their own wars and if they’re lacking manpower then they can sign up their family members and friends.
Given his party are behind all the large scale post cold war cuts (Options for Change and all that bollocks) and stagnating pay / conditions, plus outsoucing recruitment to “save money” to Crapita err Capita then he has a bit of a brass neck saying this imo.
This man is an idiot so detached from reality that the best thing he should do is shut up. And he’s not the only one. The current political elites in most of the Europe are to old or too rich to understand younger generation.
Nobody wants to go work for a military for a 300 euros salary (in Serbia for example) and to be a lackey for officers.
Pay the people some proper money and give them a chance to have some benefits like state housing or lover mortgages for homes and you’ll see people lining up to join.
This is not 1800s. Nobody wants to die so that some old fool can win in a dick measuring conquest or that Shell CEO can buy another yacht when you are sent to Africa to “bring democracy”.
You will never get reserves up considering your only offering £58.99 per day for privates. Minimum wage at bars pays better than the military, what did you expect exactly?
The British military appear to have gone woke and don’t want cis white men to join the ranks, thats why. The forces suffer as a result of their own foolishness.
I’m British and I’m considering joint the reserves to learn artillery or drone operating in case a European war with Russia breaks out.
Conscription is not dead in 2023, I think a lot of young people will be surprised if a war ever breaks out. Better to be prepared than be conscripted as cannon fodder on the front lines.
TBH there likely are enough to atleast stabilise the numbers willing to join, its the recruitment process atm which kills it. Capita needs to be dragged out from the process kicking and screaming and it reverting to how it was over a decade ago.
…Maybe give them a country worth fighting for?
I wonder why ? Could it be that it requires a lot and doesn’t provide that much in return ?
Are his 3 children in the military?
The UK is not under attack, I wouldn’t want my kids going off to die in the sand either
When you can’t recruit enough people and it’s a job where you provide the training, there’s only one reason – pay.
Why should the generation Z defend boomer apartments and houses?
They can’t even buy an apartment without a 30-year loan.
I’m not Gen-Z but I’m not surprised at all by them. What do they have to fight for? For perpetual work and no prospects for a level of wealth similar to that of their parents? It makes no sense
Looks like compulsory service is on the horizon then. Much to be said for an all volunteer military but if people won’t volunteer then service should be compulsory. Military service should not be the only option but everyone should be required to perform some service as they are capable (medical, military etc.) … NO EXCEPTIONS (e.g. bone spurs) .
People dont want do blow other peoples limbs apart for oil to be 5 cents cheaper – how dare they
After the desasters we call Afghanistan and Mali (etc) I can’t imagine why people don’t want to join the military.
I’ve listened to War Pigs by Black Sabbath Ben. Fight your own pointless wars.
remember kids. they can’t be any war if no one joins the army
This is what celebrating 50 years of social decay gets you.
I considered joining and that year there was a headline about people in Afghanistan getting their p45s. The government do not look after those who join.
Doesn’t help the fact it has been cut to the bone.