William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[AmericanPride]

None of that applies to people who join an go into a combat arm like the infantry

So people who enlist into the infantry don't do so for the education benefits or the adventure?

So any of those who go to the sharp end voluntarily, at least now, are doing for something other than the GI bill and health care.

Not according to the enlistment data. Sure, I bet some do, and if you were to ask any servicemember if patriotism was important, they would answer in the affirmative; but on the whole, people enlist primarily for the 5 reasons I listed above. It is MOS immaterial.

So it seems to me that since the purpose of the military is to fight and win, the motivations of people who do that most directly are most important.

According to this thesis, that would be a soldier that fits this profile:

...a serviceman who is female, married, serving in the reserve forces, serving in a combat troop, between pay grades E1–E3, serving in Iraq, serving the first deployment is the serviceman with most potential to get injured or killed in the U.S. Army.

For the purposes of the linked thesis, "combat troop" includes infantry, armor, field artillery, combat engineers, and air defense artillery. Seeing how women cannot join combat arms (infantry, armor, artillery), it renders your point false.