Logic! Whee!
Logically,
"I have three friends in the military who will never deploy,"
and
"new recruits are likely to be deployed,"
are not contradictory statements. Even if we take the second statement as a certainty (ie, "new recruits will always be deployed,") there's still no contradiction inherent
unless the three friends are new recruits. If we apply these two statements analytically to the recruiter's statement "you will not deploy," we still can't draw any firm conclusions although it does point to the probability that the recruiter was at the least stretching the truth a bit. Without knowing the context in which the recruiter made that statement, it's difficult or impossible to say with any certainty that he was lying. If, for example, the prospective recruit had asked "what if I get assigned to job X?" with job X being his job of choice and also being one of the jobs that is non-deployable, the recruiter could have made his statement without contradicting either of the two above.
Also, oversimplifying leads to heated arguments over nothing. 'Some recruiters lie some of the time' != 'all recruiters lie all the time.' Inversely, 'some recruiters are honest with all new recruits' != 'all recruiters are honest with all recruits.'
I am not American
and I have a permanent disability that disqualifies me from service, so the larger debate really has no bearing on me whatsoever. If anyone wants to accuse me of bias, however, I will be glad to facilitate it by pointing out that if I didn't have a permanent disability I'd probably be in the forces today.
EDIT -
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dc_dux
From the GAO report on Military Recruiting Irregularities in 2005, based on reporting by the DoD:
38 cases of coercion
74 cases of fall promises
38 cases of misconduct
also:
420 cases of recruiter concealing medical/criminal record of potential recruitee
110 cases of recruiter falsifying documents
47 cases of illegal testing
61 cases of "other" irregularities
Not included: the more than 6,000 "unsubstantiated cases" of recruiting irregularities when it was recruiters word against the recruitee.
|
Out of curiosity, do you know what the overall recruitment figures for 2005 were? It'd be interesting to see what those figures amount to in the context of total recruits.