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Originally Posted by Wraith601
Don't get me wrong the Marines are great if thats what you wanna do. One thing they have as a plus is that their recruiting emphasies that they want people want to be Marines, the Army recruiters I've met with tend to stress the benefits more than anything else.
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Its the same deal with the entire Defence Force here, they tend to stress how good the pay, health benefits and educational opportunities are. It gives people the illusion that just because they're understaffed and working hard for recruits that they'll take anyone they can get, my idiot friends can't understand why I'm doing fitness training before I enlist in the Army Reserve, they seem to think the Army will lower their standards simply because I'm willing to join.
Personally I figure the recruiting problem could be adressed simply by increasing the pay, since it is a job that people deserve to make good money for, and in the Reserves in particular the pay is abismal (I'm not joining for that). The other idea being tabled frequently by the right is for a re-introduction of national service for both men and women when they finish high school (as a gap year between school and training, work aprenticeships and university etc.), but I wouldn't support that unless people had the option to do community service of some other kind (police, emergency work, aged care etc.). Maybe they could attract more people to the ADF by making that term shorter while the other kinds of service take longer. Still its academic the ADF is underfunded right now regardless.