[quote=joec]Not surprising that pay back then wasn’t bad since everyone had to serve to military mostly. I also find it interesting that the military makeup (I’m totally guessing here) back then was a much more diverse group of poor and wealthy families. Sorta like what you see at Jury duty.
So many top generals/ex-presidents served in the military and some of them came from wealthy means.
My comment about serving for citizens came about because I remember very clearly that my older brother didn’t want to be a US citizen because he didn’t care for the US at all and didn’t want to get drafted neither…
I don’t know the specifics back then or now, but I’ve read in numerous instances that the military now is mostly composed of people on the lower economic ladder, probably mostly immigrants.
That also puts into question that if I were a terrorist group, I’d “pay off” these families to start putting agents all over. I’m sure it’s done already as depicted in movies like Departed (which was a copy of Infernal Affairs starring Andy Lau which I thought was a better movie)…[/quote]
but when we talk of military service, we talk of “sacrifice”. I wouldve thought there were greater financial hardship back int he eold days. the sacrifice seems to be primarily in risk of mortality, but I think the stats nowadays show greater mortality risk for staying home in the inner city than in enlisting for poor minorities. so no sarifice there, really. actually safer to be in the military if that stat is true.
so what exactly is the sacrifice, if not monetary, or in putting one’s self in harms way, which most military don’t do, actually.
what might change if we called it military employment, v. military service…..
