IRAQ: "The largest reenlistment ceremony ever held"!

[BT]

http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA295241

Title :   Matching Military Skills to Civilian Jobs: Does Military Training Enhance Veteran's Civilian Wage Rates?

Descriptive Note : Master's thesis,

Corporate Author : NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA

Personal Author(s) : Olsen, Karl R.

Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA295241             Check NTIS Availability...

Report Date : MAR 1995

Pagination or Media Count : 82

Abstract : This thesis statistically analyzes the transferability of military skills to civilian job markets and the relationship between acquired military training and civilian wages. It also assesses the extent to which military training is utilized by veterans currently employed in the civilian labor force and analyzes the process by which veterans assimilate into the civilian work force, including the role geographic migration plays in this process. The relationship between veteran status and post-service civilian wages is examined using linear regression methods. The models test the existence of either a veterans premium or penalty with respect to civilian earnings as a function of various military training, occupation, background, and other variables. Results show that veterans receive a significant wage premium over their civilian counterparts. Additionally, veterans who use their military training in their current civilian job receive higher wages than either non-veterans or veterans who do not use their military skills in civilian occupations.

[Plane]

No one disputes that one CAN learn useful stuff at some military jobs.

But the question is one of numbers. How many actually do learn a skill more useful outside the military?

Would Plane, for example, earn more if he worked for Southwest Airlines?
If so, why doesn't he work there?

I am a civillian.

I am not useing the skill I learned in the Navy (welding , pipefitting , firefighting).

I am makeing a liveing with a skill I learned on the "new" GI bill - electronics.

I like avation , but the airlines have little job security compared to my civil service job.

True that this same job might make me much more in an airline , I just can't stand layoffs.

In any case many avation workers learned the craft on military aircraft then moved to the airlines or civil employment by the military as they might wont.

As far as I know there isn't a bigger or better trainer for aircraft work than the US Military , I picked it up in tech school though , I was burned out on welding.

[Amianthus]

A good place to start would be by answering my question, which was very simple.  You attempted to prove how hard it was to operate an Abrams tank by showing a photo of some of the controls, and I asked you how long it took to learn to operate the thing.  So:  how long does it take?

Well, the gunner's school for the Abrams is 3 months, once you've met all the prerequisites. How long it takes to meet the prerequisites depends on whether or not you attended a college before enrolling - you must be a mid-grade NCO, minimum, before signing up for gunner's school. A friend of mine is in his 15th or so month of training after enlisting. The US military does a lot of training before sending anyone out.

[Michael Tee]

Interesting.  Obviously even a gunner in a tank represents a significant investment in time and training.  When one of these guys is killed or majorly fucked up, a lot of money goes down the drain with him starting with the cost of training all the way through to lifetime attendant care and medical/hospital/drug expenses.   And every year a new generation of Iraqis steps up to the plate.   

[Amianthus]

Interesting.  Obviously even a gunner in a tank represents a significant investment in time and training.

Of course; it's because they're starting with the low hanging fruit.

 

[Plane]

Interesting.  Obviously even a gunner in a tank represents a significant investment in time and training.  When one of these guys is killed or majorly fucked up, a lot of money goes down the drain with him starting with the cost of training all the way through to lifetime attendant care and medical/hospital/drug expenses.   And every year a new generation of Iraqis steps up to the plate.   

Of course , we love our guys , we don't think of them as disposable .

If your point is that our opposition sell them selves cheap, I am not gonna argue that.

But you really get what you pay for.

[Plane]

http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=48

[Michael Tee]

<<But you really get what you pay for.>>

In a war you want a guy who's not afraid to lay down his life for the cause.  They got a better product than you have and at a fraction of the cost.  In a war of attrition they win and you lose.

It reminds me of a discussion I just had with a friend about the Bren gun, a Canadian-made submachine gun of the Second World War.  The Nazi sub-machine guns were brilliantly polished, precision-made instruments, Schmeissers, IIRC, and the Brens were cheap, mass-produced, often jamming, rough-edged pieces of shit.  But the economics of production meant that the Nazis were producing relatively few of these exquisitely made weapons, and Bren guns were mass-produced in the millions.  If one of them malfunctioned, the Canadian could just toss it and grab another, plenty more where THAT one came from, they were cheap and lightweight and easy to pack. 

Sometimes you can overpay for quality.

[Amianthus]

In a war you want a guy who's not afraid to lay down his life for the cause.

In a war, you want someone who's willing to kill the enemy, and preferably one that will come home to tell the tale. Highly trained will kill more of the enemy than poorly trained and willing to die.

It reminds me of a discussion I just had with a friend about the Bren gun, a Canadian-made submachine gun of the Second World War.  The Nazi sub-machine guns were brilliantly polished, precision-made instruments, Schmeissers, IIRC, and the Brens were cheap, mass-produced, often jamming, rough-edged pieces of shit.  But the economics of production meant that the Nazis were producing relatively few of these exquisitely made weapons, and Bren guns were mass-produced in the millions.  If one of them malfunctioned, the Canadian could just toss it and grab another, plenty more where THAT one came from, they were cheap and lightweight and easy to pack. 

Nazis used more than Schmeissers (actually the MP-40, and Hugh Schmeisser was not involved in their design, so that's a nisnomer), and they out-produced the British and Canadians in the field of machine guns to boot.

Most people associate the MP-40 and the Luger 9mm Parabellum with the Nazis, when in reality, both of those were based on older designs and were in the process of being phased out early in the war. The MP-42 (nearly as cheap to mass produce as the Sten and the PPSh-41) and the Walther P-38 were already replacing those as standard issue. I happened to run across a Walther P-38 prototype (the guy didn't know what he had) and it's now a part of my collection. It's serial number 535 - the first 800 were delivered to the Wehrmacht for field testing before mass production. I think about 300 were subjected to "destructive tests" so apparently only about 500 remain.

[fatman]

I happened to run across a Walther P-38 prototype (the guy didn't know what he had) and it's now a part of my collection. It's serial number 535 - the first 800 were delivered to the Wehrmacht for field testing before mass production. I think about 300 were subjected to "destructive tests" so apparently only about 500 remain.

Lucky bastard!!  That's quite a find.

[Amianthus]

Lucky bastard!!  That's quite a find.

You're gonna hate me even more when I tell you that I only paid $450 for it. ;-) All serial numbers match, including the magazine.

Note: Actually went back and checked my records; it was $525, not $450. But a steal either way.

[fatman]

You're right.  I do hate you more now. 

[sirs]

 

WOW.....that's incredible Ami.  Congrats on the needle in the haystack find

[Michael Tee]

<<In a war, you want someone who's willing to kill the enemy, and preferably one that will come home to tell the tale. Highly trained will kill more of the enemy than poorly trained and willing to die.>>

"More" and "less" killed don't mean all that much in a war of attrition, where both sides can draw enough new blood to replace what's been lost, unless there is some huge exponential gap in the kill rates; the loss of untrained, three-for-a-dollar warriors on the one side won't matter as long as they are inflicting unsustainable (over the long term) losses on an enemy where the lives lost times the dollar value of those lives constitutes an exponentially larger loss for the rich man's side of the board.

I'm just guessing that a WWII vintage Luger Parabellum would probably fetch about $2500 to $7500 depending on condition and a prototype Walther PPK about $2000 to $5,000.

[Amianthus]

"More" and "less" killed don't mean all that much in a war of attrition, where both sides can draw enough new blood to replace what's been lost, unless there is some huge exponential gap in the kill rates; the loss of untrained, three-for-a-dollar warriors on the one side won't matter as long as they are inflicting unsustainable (over the long term) losses on an enemy where the lives lost times the dollar value of those lives constitutes an exponentially larger loss for the rich man's side of the board.

American losses in Iraq are about 0.44 per division per day. Compared to Vietnam and Korea (around 3.2/div/day) and WWII (20/div/day), it's trivial. There are frequent reports of battles where the kill ratios are 1:10 or 1:20 Americas to Iraqis.

I'm just guessing that a WWII vintage Luger Parabellum would probably fetch about $2500 to $7500 depending on condition and a prototype Walther PPK about $2000 to $5,000.

The P-38 is not a PPK. It is the direct ancestor of the P-1 and P-4.