Let's face facts: our military is broken. It's just not destroying stuff at the rate it used to. Despite simultaneous, neverending wars, too many servicemembers are shuffling through their hitches, rarely or never firing a weapon after Basic Training, not blowing up a single village or killing a single person, never laying waste to so much as a goat pen.
What we need is REFORM! We've got to change the way the military does business, get rid of the entrenched interests, and send our lower enlisted personnel back to the job of helping other folks die for their countries.
REFORM OUR MILITARY NOW!!! We need MERIT PAY for soldiers! We need to GET RID OF SENIORITY so that our officers are always motivated to do their best! We need to STRIP THE PROFESSIONALS WHO SERVE US OF ANY AND ALL DIGNITY, because very important research has shown that they're the reason our armed forces have fallen so far behind!
Follow me over the cliff for even more MILITARY REFORM (that's not REALLY A METAPHOR for what's happening in EDUCATION)!
Back in the Great War, our boys were mowing down tens of thousands of Huns every month; by World War II, they could do hundreds of thousands. What's happened? Our technology is better, our ability to measure the impact of our devastation has improved, and we've certainly thrown plenty of money at the problem over the years. Add to this the fact that this generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines is the best-educated, best-equipped, and best-trained we've ever fielded, and the result is a real head-scratcher: Why aren't our soldiers killing like they used to?
Oh, sure, there are some places around the world where we're still killing people, but let's face it: the scale is entirely different from the wars of old. As a society, we've lowered the bar on just about everything related to obliterating our fellow man – we don't drop nearly as many bombs, burn as many acres, or mine as many harbors as back in the glory days. Maybe they're destined never to return, but shouldn't we at least try to resurrect what once was? Don't we owe it to our children to ensure that they have a military that kills at an astonishing rate, like militaries from technologically advanced countries with outrageous armaments budgets are supposed to do?
We need to motivate our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines to kill more people, more efficiently – and we should start with MERIT PAY!
They're Americans, right? So they must be motivated by greed, just like the rest of us. Hell, everybody knows that for the right price, you can get any American to do anything - all we have to do is find some way of measuring what servicemembers are supposed to do, arbitrarily set a few target numbers, then wave dollar bills in front of them. It makes perfect, unassailable sense that we should offer our servicemembers more money based on the number of people they kill, villages they destroy, etc. This will incentivize them just like the methods so often used by industry – which, of course, is exactly like the military, so any solutions that work on the assembly line or the corporate cubicle will definitely work in the armed services, as well.
The system should be simple to understand and implement, so I'm proposing we go with scalps. It's worked in the past – the scalping of Jane McCrea was one of the main reasons we won the Battle of Saratoga, and so got the French to jump into the Revolution on our behalf – and if it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, who are we to stray from the practice? Indeed, an editorial last year at GlossyNews.com made this same suggestion, and even included a few quotes from a guy we're told is a general and chief-of-staff at the Pentagon:
"Scalping our enemies would help us in several areas" said Cornwallis. "First, it is a return to our roots as soldiers. Second, there will be no more fudging of how many people we kill. Now, if we drop a 50-lb. bomb on a building where we think someone is doing insurgent stuff, we take a guess at the body count. With our new plan, I want to see the proof in our soldiers’ hands. Or, hanging from their belts."
Enemy Body Counts Out, Scalps Are In, says Army
Scalp-bonuses would separate the wheat from the chaff, and would be self-correcting for ambitious pilots, tankers, and artillerymen: the advantages presented by their circumstances (superior firepower, command of terrain, etc) would be offset by the need to physically go to the site and take their prizes. Besides, it'll do those lethargic gunship pilots some good to land their whirlybirds and walk around for a change. Finally, it would allow for a clear measurement of a soldier's growth over a period of time (pdf)– go scalp-less a few evaluation cycles in a row, and the Army may just decide to get rid of you in favor of someone who can actually accomplish the mission. I would suggest that we make the growth model no more complicated than the one suggested for measuring the "growth" of high school students in the preceding link:
Yti = (β00 + r0i) + (β10 + r1i)•t + εti = (β00 + β10•t) + (r0i + r1i•t + εti) = μt + δti
...which, of course, is so easy a frikkin' caveman could do it.
Perhaps you're wondering about the vast numbers of military members who never see frontline combat, or whose chosen professions result in them being assigned to bases far from the fighting. How will they be able to avail themselves of the new scalp-bonus system if they never get close to the enemy? Well, that's something for professional military people to figure out, not me – but I might start by suggesting that anybody who wants the bonuses ought to get off their lazy, taxpayer-coddled, rear-echelon asses and switch careers to the infantry or the Green Berets or something.
How else are we going to attract the best and the brightest to do the most dangerous, most rewarding work? If their pay was based in part on the number of scalps they collect, our boys and girls in uniform would be clamoring for spots in the frontline trenches, eager to show that they're willing to rise above the mediocrity...not like those slugs we've got in the foxholes now, forever seeking "cover and concealment" instead of nutting up, affixing the bayonet, and showing the enemy what old-school American killing is all about.
Next, we need to ELIMINATE SENIORITY!
It doesn't make any sense: if I can kill more people than the general, then why don't I get to be the general? Where's the merit-based promotion in the way things currently stand? Why aren't my killing skills being recognized?
This stupid seniority structure – the status quo for God-knows-how-long – stifles initiative and prevents promising young leaders from assuming leadership roles. It's a product of the Industrial Age, of a bygone era in management and human relations. It protects incompetence and promotes groupthink: the higher one gets in rank, the fewer people get to criticize you or question your decisions.
That ain't right. What if some shavetail private is smarter than the people a few steps above him? Such "leaders" may not make the decisions needed to get the private to a place where he can kill some people and take some scalps, so how fair is that? He's been denied not only the chance to prove himself and show off his skills, but now it's costing him economically, as well.
Every member of the military should compete on a level playing field. Those who hold seniority right now should relish the opportunity to be relieved of the burdens of command – really, this move would be doing the majors, colonels, and generals the biggest favor of all. Now they'll have the chance to show their true worthiness over their underlings! Their subordinates will no longer have that "you're an officer" excuse for not taking a swing at them, so they'll get a lot of chances to prove their worth.
Besides, the seniority structure is based on an archaic set of patriarchal, hierarchy-driven values, and is humiliating on a very personal level for those at the bottom of the scale. Low-ranking military members wear their shame quite literally on their sleeves, their pay grade displayed for any member of the public to see and discuss. As enlisted scum who volunteered for the miserable plight about which they now complain, their worthiness is debated by people who have no stake at all in what they do, which is yet another reason for the institution of scalp-bonuses. Without the guarantee of yearly raises via a "salary schedule," every member of the armed forces would be only as good as the number of scalps hanging from his or her belt – a prime application of the Free Market (peace and blessing be upon it) principles upon which our great nation was founded.
One of the most troubling things about the state of our military is that it's too hard to fire or imprison soldiers who don't kill enough, or who do it improperly. Do you realize that the military has its own judicial code?! They are literally a law unto themselves! WTF?! What other group in our society HAS ITS OWN COURT SYSTEM, the doors of which can be slammed shut from public scrutiny at any time? As things now stand, servicemembers who we want to get rid of are entitled to a lengthy process of due process rights, hearings, and court proceedings.
As everybody knows, "due process" is an unpatriotic code word for "status quo" – what we really need to do is eliminate the BS and place the power to terminate lives and careers in the hands of judges that we trust. They can hop from place to place, like kangaroos, and can make all sorts of objective rulings because they'll have read a lot of books about the Army.
Finally, the seniority system fosters an "old-boy" mentality, in which incompetence is protected and apathy shielded. Can you believe that there are active-duty members of our military who have taken part in failed operations – or what might be spoken of in some treasonous circles as "tactical retreats"? Seriously! These are "guards" who "mistakenly" let bad guys through check points, ship captains who "didn't know" an enemy sub had slipped through their pickets, pilots who allowed enemy fighters to escape home while they still had missiles under their own wings – serving in our armed forces today! Right now! Who's protecting these people's jobs?! They're just like union thugs!
Lastly, we need to DEVALUE THE MEMBERS OF OUR ARMED FORCES!
If they can't get the killing done, let's kick 'em in the teeth, fire 'em, and get somebody new in there. Since the end goal is the highest one possible – World Peace – and since Einstein said that you can't simultaneously prepare for peace and war, it stands to reason that eventually we'll want to get rid of the military altogether – at least at some point in the future. We can hasten the arrival of a time in which our once-mighty armies, navies, and air forces are finally decommissioned by doing our part to erode the professionalism of the armed services today.
We've got to allow for innovative new structures in our military forces – plenty of highly-paid, unprofessional mercenaries to light fires under some lazy jarhead asses, that sort of thing. The government – the taxpayer – should have a choice about who does the killing on their behalf, and the Army should have to compete like any other well-armed group for the privilege. We need to open up our killing to the marketplace of ideas, and permit private industry to help defer the costs of fielding our armies – privatized, greed-based medicine has worked out so well for us, why shouldn't we allow for "Contract Battalions" of people who want to run their own units with taxpayer dollars, but not have to comport to a whole bunch of rules while doing so?
The current cadre of military men and women are old and burned-out. Not that there's anything wrong with that – we know they've spent years working for low pay under trying conditions, and we honor and love and fall down on our knees in really, really sincere gratitude for their service – but the plain truth is that the armed forces are about killing people, and the people that are in there now just aren't killing at an acceptable rate any more. It's getting bad: our enemies are catching up to our once-difficult-to-assail numbers.
Things have got to change. We've tried honoring our troops, supporting them with care packages, and letting them know how much we respect them (so long as they don't ask us for money). That hasn't worked, so now it's time to take away the carrots and go with the all-stick approach – let's tell the worthless, non-killing bastards among them that it's time to make room for people who still believe that violence is why the military exists.
They don't need to be well-trained, these newbies, so long as they have enthusiasm for the job, and an earnest belief that all people can kill. Killing's not all that hard, really, if you have the right tools and the proper motivation – and that's where our focus needs to lie. We need to place powerful weaponry in the hands of people who aren't encumbered by a bunch of preconceived notions (or stodgy old traditions) on how to use it, and allow anyone with a minimum of qualifications beyond a desire to hold a job to give thing soldiering thing a shot. It's not like it's a real profession, anyway – how much skill does it take to pull a trigger backwards a half an inch?
EPILOGUE: I'M AN EXPERT
I was in the service for four years back at the end of the Cold War, and I never killed anybody. That's right: despite spending 40% of an entire decade as one of Ronald Reagan's (and a few months of GHWB's) soulless legions, I was never afforded the opportunity to rid the planet of even a single Communist Pig. It gets worse: I didn't know anybody who'd killed anybody, and some of the people I knew had been in the Army or the Air Force for years before me. I mean, there were 4 million Americans under arms back in those days, and only a few thousand had actually killed a Commie, for Christ or otherwise.
It's because we as a nation just don't have the testicular fortitude to fight the big fights anymore, and like so many other blights upon our once-blessed land, it traces back to the dark days of the Reagan Administration. Just as Truman, Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon lowered our expectations, enemies-wise, from the days of Wilson and FDR, Reagan couldn't even bother with decent-sized developing nations – he went straight for the Caribbean islands and small Middle Eastern paradises-turned-hellhole.
Subsequent presidents have tried to fashion petty Asian rogue countries and lawless tribal areas into mighty foes, supposedly somehow reminiscent of the days when a rival nation-state spanning a dozen time zones had literally thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at our cities. This amounts to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Look at what's happened to the word "Axis": once applied to an enemy that had conquered nearly all the land from the outskirts of Moscow to the Atlantic Ocean, we're now reduced to appending the word with "of Evil" and using it to describe a handful of diplomatic basket cases that have no alliance, means of presenting a united front, or coherent driving philosophy.
This needs to end, here and now. This is our imperial legacy we're talking about! It isn't a time for half-measures or incremental change – we need to take radical steps to get our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines back to doing what they joined the profession to do. We need our to get our people killing again, and the only way to do that is by implementing wholly untested theories based on arrogant, inductive reasoning.
And if you don't agree, you can keep it to yourself, unless you have in hand a fully-formed counter-proposal ready to be introduced in Congress tomorrow. I (and the millions upon millions who research shows agree with me) have declared there to be a crisis, and have made bold proposals that must now serve as the starting point for any discussion of the issue. Any resistance to my plan has to be attributable to an old-boy network that doesn't want to see any change in the status quo, and will be discounted outright, so don't even think of trying that route.
The clear and present nature of this crisis compels us to action – we've got to do some out-of-the-box thinking, stat! We've got to figure out a way to motivate our boys and girls in uniform to kill more people, more often. We've got to devise a system of measuring the most effective killers, and rewarding them in a manner consistent with the principles of the Free Market (p.b.u.i.). It's the American Way.
And if you don't agree with me, it's because you hate the teachers troops.