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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30042 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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The issue for the US's current recruitment woes comes from how the generational transition has matched to politics. The 9-11 recruitment cohort is dead, dead, dead. If you look at age averages, the vast majority of US service members were born after 9-11. If you joined just after 9-11, you are that tiny minority of people who serve a full 20 (for a pension) or go beyond. That means people who joined during the Bush years, have gradually and progressively lost during the Obama years / saw the Trump years / are back in the Obama 2.0/Biden years. There's any number of things that could justify a feeling of disenchantment, from perceptions of futility of the wars, to the progression culture war aspects into military culture/life, and so on.

AARGH. I have lived longer since 9/11 than I had lived before 9/11. I am OLD. I will DIE. NOOOOOO. Why did you have to point this out?

Seriously, middle-aged people underestimate how long ago the worldview-forming events of their youth are. The Boomers used to be the main culprits - Vietnam is about equidistant between WW1 and the present, let alone WW2 - but it is starting to hit Xers and Millenials like me. I work as a risk manager, and my number 1 piece of advice to noobs is "The next Great Crash will happen when the people who remember 2008 look like old fogies. And I am part of the youngest cohort who remember 2008, so be very careful if you think I am an old fogie."

AARGH. I have lived longer since 9/11 than I had lived before 9/11. I am OLD. I will DIE. NOOOOOO. Why did you have to point this out?

It's become a source of perverse joy that I can make people who would still like to consider themselves young accept that they aren't.

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