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U.S. Plans Targeted Draft for Computer Personnel
waytoomuchcoffee writes "The US Selective Service System is drawing up plans for a 'special skills draft'. There is already a system in place to draft health care personnel, and this system would be expanded in order to 'rapidly register and draft' computer specialists."
It's about a MILITARY DRAFT. One of the exemptions from draft is type 1 diabetes.
Just say you don't know how to use Microsoft products.
While this has been the case with large IT groups within large governmental organizations in the past, this is starting to change within certain groups like subsets of the Department of Homeland Security and groups within the FBI and CIA. A number of those folks are going to other platforms like OS X for security reasons, convenience, management and hardware infrastructure like Altivec which can speed up cryptography significantly. Of course some of the older guys know Nextstep quite well and were fans of the NeXT boxes when they were de-rigeur at the NSA and places in the CIA and are quite happy with OS X.
Linux has also made big strides in places, particularly the TRUSTED flavors.
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If you have a bachelor's degree, then you should start out as an officer. A 2nd lieutenant makes about $27,000. If you have a degree in computer science and don't suck, you will get promoted very quickly.
Best Slashdot comment ever
That's right.
Nobody's going to revive the draft.
Just like nobody's going support Patriot II.
I mean, this is America. That can't happen here
- - - Patent applied for and deliver us from evil
I was in the AF 5 or 6 years ago. I joined up as a programmer. You could be a programmer or an operator. Programmers could only go to England, Australia, Hawaii and certain (nice) bases in the continental US. Operators could end up anywhere there was a computer, possibly in forward positions, definitely in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia.
I thought I had made out great but shortly after my training was complete they changed all the rules and any programmer not actually programming day to day was instantly an operator. Since at that time the policy was to buy all new software off the shelf I wasn't programming (shell scripts don't count).
The point is that you can't count on anything once you are in. The rules change day to day and moment to moment. Also a lot of people in the "safe" Saudi cities away from the front died in the first Gulf war due to Scuds.
Finally, considering the amount of hi-tech equipment becoming standard, a programmer might find himself in a tent in Syria doing maintenance on a Tank or in the jungle in the Philipines fixing a soldiers heads up display.
Yes, below market, but it depends on your definition of "far." They won't be paying you any less than those of equivalent rank--for a university graduate level specialty it's going to mean at least a warrant officer's billet--looking at the military pay scale (at least for 2002) that's around $25k/yr, a lot more than minimum wage. A general draft for E-1s pays them (again in 2002) $13272/yr, again more than minimum wage. You aren't going to starve.
You mean because you can't opt out of it? I don't think this is equivalent to slavery. As citizens, there are several obligations we have to the government, some of them onerous: like taxes. This is just one of them--a particularly onerous one--but since it's temporary and reasonably humane I don't think you can compare it to slavery.
demi
I wanted to write a slashdot story about this, but the Selective Service is dead serious about a draft and so is the president. I have in my posession an application to be on the draft board in my county, mailed to me by the Selective Service. YES, THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IS RESTAFFING DRAFT BOARDS. If thats not a wakeup call I dont know what the fuck is.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
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don't exactly involve having to do real combat. I imagine you'll be operating things from proxy.
Yeah, that's what they told Shoshana Johnson, who thought all she would do was cook in the mess hall.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Yeah, I was a comm geek. Didn't stop me from spending time in the hospital recuperating from a firefight. Trust me, it doesn't matter what level of geek you are -- you'll still learn to run-n-staff for every one combat arms soldier. You think that the Army will let you sit on your ass in an air-conditioned bunker because you know how gun just like the rest of the grunts, and you'll still be put in that situation, regardless of your MOS? Why? Because there are 11 support to bust out mad C++? Think again. Jessica Lynch was a supply clerk, after all...
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That's not necessarily true.
If you'll take a look at fine sites like this one, this one or possibly this one, you will see that there is little doubt that should Bush get re-elected, we will have, at least, a limited draft instated by early 2005. If you don't follow the other links, I suggest this one. especially if you have a 17-18 year old son OR daughter.
As to the obvious reason that this is going to happen, well you might start looking here; even though the military is basically not letting ANYONE out these days, time up or not, they aren't in my opinion going to be able to meet the numbers due to missed targets.
My word of advice (and I volunteered, was in Gulf War lite, so screw anyone who says I'm not a patriot) is that if you have a boy or girl who are in high school, and they do NOT fully support the policies of the current administration, have them drop out if Bush gets reelected; the current system doesn't take people without high school diplomas, and it'll take them awhile to change the rules.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
You, Sir, Are on crack.
I'm currently a member of the US Air Force. There's currently a program in place not only to let people out, but to let us out AHEAD of schedule. Aparently, for some odd reason, about 2-3 years ago, recruiting went through the roof, and now the Air Force is manned above what it's currently authorized by law. This Force Shaping program is the first stage in getting down to the target manning levels.
They are allowing personel out in almost all career fields, Including computer oriented ones. If this doesn't reduce down to the needed levels, they'll start refusing re-enlistments and forcing retirements. I don't know about the other branches, but round here, people are most definately able to leave.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
like this?
The Air Force doesn't take draftees. The draft is only for the purpose of bolstering the ranks of the Army. So the question is, did the Army experience the same overrecruitment? Given how much I see them trying to recruit on campus, I doubt it.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Saying that "I don't have an obligation to my country" (like many of the people in this discussion have) and comparing the draft to slavery is disgusting.
I was in the military and I'm 100% against the draft. The only point of a draft in this day and age is to avoid paying a fair market value for the labor. The whole point of this nonsence is to avoid increasing taxes. Here's some food for thought, quoted from a statement by congressman Ron Paul (Republican):
Mr. Speaker, the most important reason to oppose reinstatement of a military draft is that conscription violates the very principles upon which this country was founded. The basic premise underlying conscription is that the individual belongs to the state, individual rights are granted by the state, and therefore politicians can abridge individual rights at will. In contrast, the philosophy which inspired America's founders, expressed in the Declaration of Independence, is that individuals possess natural, God-given rights which cannot be abridged by the government. Forcing people into military service against their will thus directly contradicts the philosophy of the Founding Fathers. A military draft also appears to contradict the constitutional prohibition of involuntary servitude.
During the War of 1812, Daniel Webster eloquently made the case that a military draft was unconstitutional: " Where is it written in the Constitution , in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of Government may engage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty? Sir, I almost disdain to go to quotations and references to prove that such an abominable doctrine had no foundation in the Constitution of the country. It is enough to know that the instrument was intended as the basis of a free government, and that the power contended for is incompatible with any notion of personal liberty. An attempt to maintain this doctrine upon the provisions of the Constitution is an exercise of perverse ingenuity to extract slavery from the substance of a free government. It is an attempt to show, by proof and argument, that we ourselves are subjects of despotism, and that we have a right to chains and bondage, firmly secured to us and our children, by the provisions of our government."
Another eloquent opponent of the draft was former President Ronald Reagan who in a 1979 column on conscription said: "...it rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that assumption then it is for the state -- not for parents, the community, the religious institutions or teachers -- to decide who shall have what values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. That assumption isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea."
President Reagan and Daniel Webster are not the only prominent Americans to oppose conscription. In fact, throughout American history the draft has been opposed by Americans from across the political spectrum, from Henry David Thoreau to Barry Goldwater to Bill Bradley to Jesse Ventura. Organizations opposed to conscription range from the American Civil Liberties Union to the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, and from the National Taxpayers Union to the Conservative Caucus. Other major figures opposing conscription include current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to stand up for the long-term military interests of the United States, individual liberty, and values of the Declaration of Independence by cosponsoring my sense of Congress resolution opposing reinstatement of the military draft.