11-11-2009, 05:36 PM
Grieve Wrote:Thanks to all for serving!
Jakensama Wrote:http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CA..._Rates.pdf
Wow, the number of accidental deaths in the 80s is staggering. I wonder what the story behind that is? Larger military? More live fire training during the cold war? More troops stationed overseas? Worse medical care than now?
I think it is a combination of size, technology and enlistment requirements. In the 80's (Cold War Period) we had twice the military we do today which one can easily conclude means a lower standard for enlistments.
The requirements to re-enlist today make mine in the 80's look like a complete joke. They really do keep the best of the best in todays military. That generally means more idiots where in the military in my day and hence more stupidity that causes accidents.
The other thing is the technology of today for heavy equipment (where most accidents occur) is far superior. I fell out of the sky twice in a Huey in my time in the military. One time I was the only survivor the other time we had 4 deaths. Had I been in a Blackhawk during that period it is possible we would have suffered no deaths.
When trying to keep a military up and running that is twice the size of today on a smaller budget means you are working with Tin cans and String to help kill Russians who are working with Sea shells and Llama tails.
Put in laymens terms when you built a piece of heavy equipment it stayed in the field for way to long because you needed quantity not quality.
Today we can spend our money on more safety protocols to employ a leaner and meaner military machine. We no longer need to maintain a 2 to 4 million manned army ready to fight WWIII.
Granted having a small military has created some havoc with our ability to close Iraq out but the numbers do say smaller, safer and smarter is better even if that translates to longer deployements.
In other words if Iraq would have happened in the 1980's we would have been much further along in securing Iraq then our current military was able to accomplish just simply by the deployment size we could throw at it.
The trade off would have been we would have suffered far more deaths and casulties to accomplish it.
In this case I think the new way is far better.
The final piece is during the cold war the military was on constant alert and running massive live drills (Corp size) which was getting us ready to fight Russians which is just plain dangerous. In todays military they do smaller deployment drills so unless you are in Iraq or Afgan they can control things far better then they could during the cold war.
Vllad