Another recent thread discussed the merits of conscription.
Napoleon had this view:
Well its all about selection isn't it. If you sit in a static recruiting office waiting for strays to walk in off the street then that is what you get.Conscription forms citizen armies. Voluntary enlistment forms armies of vagrants and good-for-nothings. The former are guided by honour; mere discipline controls the latter. - Napoleon
Both conscripts and volunteers need to be selected for. No army seems to do that well... they just take what they get and the system for selection never improves because of the insane belief that the military make-up must reflect society. If that is good for the military then why does it not apply to NASA, atomic energy, academia and all other specialist occupations? You select the right person for the job right? Wrong, when it comes to the military it seems.
Lord Moran in his seminal work 'The Anatomy of Courage' (in the chapter on selection) says at the time six-months after WW1:
Well this is what happens (seemingly) all the time... armies do not learn through experience. Once the particular war is over they clear away all the wartime clutter and get back to real soldiering. Everytime a coconut.The clear, war-given insight into the essence of a man has already grown dim. With the coming of peace we have gone back to those comfortable doctrines that some had thought war had killed. Cleverness has come into its own again. The men who won the war never left England.; that was where the really clever people were most useful.
PS: I thank Fuchs for the heads-up on this article:
Why Is Getting Out of the U.S. Army So Tough?
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