Ladakh Flash Point
- Thread starter Mt1701d
- Start date
- Status
No. In the US most soldiers are from well to do families. Even upper middle class. To have a military career is a sign of accomplishment.
There are also immigrants (usually from Latin America and other southern countries) who join the military to get the citizenship.
There are also many young people joining the military to pay off the college dues.
So, they aren't poor people in the traditional sense. The overall composition may be even quite affluent.
To add on, India actually shares rivers with Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh. And India has been damming their side of the river, leading to water diverted away from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh. And it has led to an outcry from these countries. Some of these rivers start from China, but on India's side, they just dam it up and the downstream countries get little. Whereas China hasn't diverted water away from India.
So when India gets scared of China potentially diverting water away, maybe it's a case of projection.
I disagree with that, and it really depends on the branch and role. For officers and the Airforce that can be relatively true but for regular infantry from any other branch people generally don't come from the best background. There's a reason many people consider joining the Army the male equivalent of becoming a stripper in the US lol. You also need still need a green card before you can serve in the US military so while it helps expedite the process of getting a citizenship once you have a path, it's not as beneficial as joining something like the French Foreign Legion.
Yes. Immigrants join the military for the acceleration of green card.
Also, my understanding came from a study published by the conservative 'Heritage Foundation'. It's also a dated study. The original seems to be a 404.
However, the military seems to be a solid state backed route for social mobility.
Those who serve in the military, presently in the US, aren't the lowest in the rung of society.
I think you confuse officers with soldiers. While there are a lot of middle class people in the U.S. military, a lot of them also join for green card or college tuition related reasons.
High snow levels at pinnacles and their vicinity pose multiple problems. I have risked authorizing a helicopter evacuation of a soldier suffering Acute Appendicitis from such a pinnacle in Uri with no helipad anywhere in its vicinity. The helicopter doors were removed and while it hovered the casualty was simply lifted and shoved into the rear and tied to the seat. At that height, the helicopter could not hover with the weight of another passenger who could have helped pull the casualty in and kept him secure. One of the worst incidents in my memory is of a soldier at a far forward isolated post who slipped on ice and fell headlong into 10 feet of freshly removed snow from a deep communication trench. He died since no one could locate him and he could not struggle out of the snow heap.
To be fair conditions at high altitude is very difficult. The Chinese soldier who ventured into the Indian side recently was disoriented after falling down a slope as well.
No, speaking as a 20 year field grade officer in the US Army.
Most troops come from lower to middle class.
Officers generally come from middle class. A rare few are kids of senior flag grade officers, see below.
While that kid's a 2LT, ain't no BC is going to tell a former SOF-D CDR with 4 stars that he can't take his kid to capital hill for a hearing, we will just chalk that off to professional development.
However, even flag grade officers are really just upper middle class until they retire and take a gig in industry, from an income perspective.
- Status