[Newsbot]

Title: Military a bastion for white men
Category: Military
Posted By: mtbr
Date: 2008-07-24 11:50:54
Canadian

[ridenrain]

It's a volunteer force. I guess we'll have to draft non-white people now.

[BartSimpson]

Good idea. It'll help make Canadians out of them.

[Freakinoldguy]

Why do they keep harping on this issue ad naseum. Successive governments have tried every thing they can think of to entice non male, non white people to join the military with absolutely no success.

Why can't they just face the reality that some people don't want to serve in the Military and no amount of social engineering is going to change that attitude.

So in the end what do you end up with?

Patriotic white males who likely have relatives who served or are serving and alot of bored journalists writing stories that make the Military look like the last all white bastion of a socially elite gentlemens Club.

Just another typical slow newsday. If there isn't a story make one.

[CanAm1]

We had a few Natives back in our unit in the 80's good guys good soldiers but drank too much and got kicked out.
It really was an all white mans world now that you mention it. I didn't even think of that at the time.

[commanderkai]

Awesome? If women/minorities don't want to enlist...should they be forced or something?

[Freakinoldguy]

CanAm1 CanAm1:

We had a few Natives back in our unit in the 80's good guys good soldiers but drank too much and got kicked out.
It really was an all white mans world now that you mention it. I didn't even think of that at the time.

I sailed with alot of Natives to, some drank to much, like the rest of us, and some didn't. The interesting thing is that they were never treated any different than anyone else and served with honour and distiction.

I never considered it a white mans world though. As a young OD one of my first PO's was a very large native chap who used to whack us with a stick if we went off course as the helmsman. But he had a special treat for me, every time I took over the helm I had to call the bridge and ask permission, but before I could do that he used to make me sing Jesus loves me to the Officer of the watch. It was very embarrasing, but kind of funny in a perverse sort of way. Like they say "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and I survived that and some things even worse.

He retired not long after that and the thing is after I got to know him a little better we became friends and had a good laugh over the whole thing.

I've still got quite a few native friends I sailed with who are retired to. We keep in touch and reminisce about our time in, yet I've never heard one of them say that it was a white mans navy, even though they were a definate minority.

[Fitter660]

You can't say that the military hasn't tried in the past. I joined as an Air trade in 78. My trade course was six girls and five guys. Five years later, there was one girl left and all five guys.

One other interesting little note. One of the girls got top of the course with me second. One of the instructors took me aside to let me know that I had actually had higher marks but they needed the PR for the females. Frankly, I didn't give shit as she had worked her ass off while I had found it pretty easy. I thought she deserved it no matter what the marks.

They were also pushing francophones back then as well. I remember when I got to my first base there was a young french corporal who had been blatently promoted to MCpl before his time (So I was told - I was a one hook private so what did I know?). He made the mistake of buying beer only for his francophone buddies and ignoring the rest of the crew. Lets just say that that didn't go over very well.

Unfortunately, when an organization like the military is required to engage in social engineering it invariably causes problems for the troops and for the groups being "engineered".

[sandorski]

It's worth pursuing Diversity, as long as everyone is still qualified to do the Job. Simple pursuit may not result in greater Diversity though. So if it doesn't happen I don't think it should be considered failure or some other negative thing.