Americans' obsession with vets

It does get a bit embarrassing, all right. I suspect there is something of the ever-increasing division between the military and the rest of the population. Pretty much most families have relatives who served in WW2 or Korea, but that connection is dropping. Currently about 10% of the population are veterans, and it continues to drop. Indeed, less than 30% of the population are even eligible for military service. So, they have family stories of how grand-dad froze fighting Koreans at Chosin, or was a part of the Bataan Death March, but few of them have raised their hand to follow on in their footsteps. The last few generations of servicemen have been heavily skewed towards family tradition. Dad was in, I go in, my son will probably go in sort of thing, so it reinforces the military/civilian segregation over time. This combined with the realization that the treatment of veterans from Vietnam was something of a national embarrassment.

The other part of it is that retired portion of the 10% who did go, and are happy to see folks who followed them through hell, as it were. They are very vocal about it. It is quite embarassing to receive effusive appreciation from an old-timer wearing a Korea or Vietnam veteran hat, they went through far more than I did, but they are absolutely honest and heartfelt about it.

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Currently it's mainly poor people who are typically poorly educated in the army.

Utterly incorrect.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/military-education-infographic_n_1873842.html
Part of the reason that 70% of the US population are not eligible to join the military is that too many people do not have the required education standards. It does not say well for the US education system, but that isn’t the military’s fault.

That's why the recruit in poorer neighborhoods, lie to them to get them to sign long contracts. If they ever come back, then maybe they'll follow through on their promise of college, but then they have PTSD and go off the rails.

I’m not sure where to start on this one, but I suspect you have gone with common myth and not the demographic reports which are publicly available. The military tends to recruit mainly from the middle class. Combat arms soldiers who generally join for adventure or tradition and not money also tend to come from better income families. We are getting much better at the post-return care.

Back in 2005 the Military were allowing recruiters to overlook those requirements, so if numbers get light on the ground they'll just ignore the rules again. They could recruit high school dropout and then give them a helping hand to get GED(i think that's what its called).

Mainly 2008-2010. Approximately 3,000 troops were enlisted under the two and a half year program. Given the Army needs about 60,000 a year, it's not a huge percentage. https://www.militaryhub.com/article?id=243 A maximum of 10% of the Army may have a GED (It's not considered as good as a high school diploma).
A related program still continues for National Guard units. Note that before being sent to Basic Training, the GED must be completed, it's part of the "GED Plus Enlistment" contract.

As of three years ago, about 1,200 soldiers in the Active Army had no GED. 75,000 had a Bachelor's, and 40,000 had a Masters' or Doctorate. (Out of just under a half-million, so, about 22%? If I find the relative Irish Army numbers, I'll come back and edit this. I can't seem to find it, but I'll wager the US compares favorably enough) The relative number should be telling. See demographics report: http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2015-Demographics-Report.pdf

In any case, the bottom line is that the Army requires educated soldiers. If they are educated before they sign the dotted line, or afterwards, they are still better educated than the general population. So, yes, standards were loosened for a while to get people in the door, but not in the field.

Another link worth looking at, granted, this is 2003 data, but I've not seen anything more recent which is as complete, is this one.
https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/who-bears-the-burden-demographic-characteristics-us-military-recruits-and-after-911

In summary, we found that, on average, 1999 recruits were more highly educated than the equiv­alent general population, more rural and less urban in origin, and of similar income status. We did not find evidence of minority racial exploitation (by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). We did find evidence of a Southern military tradition in that some states, notably in the South and West, provide a much higher proportion of enlisted troops by population.

The household income of recruits generally matches the income distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets. However, the proportion of high-income recruits rose to a disproportionately high level after the war on ter­rorism began, as did the proportion of highly edu­cated enlistees.

There may be an updated version, referenced in this one from 2008, but the source link is broken. http://freakonomics.com/2008/09/22/who-serves-in-the-military-today/ A more recent version of the racial casualty stats, if you are wondering about 'cannon fodder', mentioned on that site can be found here. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf