When my elder siblings got their licenses the motorcycle license was included “for free”.
This had changed when I turned 18 …
When I was 15 the only requirement for driving a moped (30 km/h but many of them were
tuned to make 45 km/h, easy correction since most of them had been tuned down by the manufacturer so it was just a matter of removing the restriction, some reached 80-90 km/h …)
Nowadays there is a short theory course (rules and stuff) and a test.
I think moped has been added to my car driving licence, nowadays we have two different classes of moped, one that is restricted to 25 km/h and one for 45 km/h. My car licence allows me to
drive/ride both of them but not motorcycles. The main part of the motorcycle license, I believe, is the handling skills.
I doubt that sh!thead was protesting anything except having to pay taxes. Protesting requires some sort of integrity and moral compass, even if wrong.
KL
That’s two weeks before my birthday
" The deeper story was privileged and elite college kids safely staying here and complaining about the war and the draft vs the working class kids who didn’t get draft deferments and had to go fight."
Until the mid-sixties the US gov’t was sending mostly white college kids to 'Nam. Then they realized they were sending their future generation to die in a foreign war, which would be detrimental to corporate America’s future. That’s when they decided to draft ethnics, low achievers, and “troublemakers” they didn’t care about; in short, “expendables”. Hence, low moral and lack of discipline.
Do you have any evidence to support these assertions?
Until the mid-sixties the US gov’t was sending mostly white college kids to 'Nam.
What document shows that 51% or more of the personnel sent to SEA were white college kids, in any period?
Then they realized they were sending their future generation to die in a foreign war, which would be detrimental to corporate America’s future.
What distinguished the “corporate” personnel needs at the time from the national needs as a whole?
That’s when they decided to draft ethnics, low achievers, and “troublemakers” they didn’t care about; in short, “expendables”.
Again, what were the demographics before and after?
Hence, low moral and lack of discipline.
Is there some study or analysis that shows that low morale and indiscipline were more prevalent in lower grade inductees, or as a result of their induction?
KL
I read it years ago in various histories of the Vietnam war when that was one of my interests.
On the driving front, I took my first test as a shiny new 16-yo on Long Island, New York. I ailed on poor clutch control, despite taking the test in a Ford Pinto with automatic transmission! That’s when I discovered there was an unofficial policy to fail 2/3rds of male 16-yos the first time, knowing it would take a good six months for them to book another test - it was just a ploy to delay their arrival on the roads while the hormones settled down.
Over here in the UK my license includes minibuses and similar van-based vehicles, but newer ones don’t have those on a car license - you need to take separate tests (and payments) for those categories.
Bone spurs….
I applied to join the RAAF. Passed all the tests. But when they offered me a position in administration I politely told them to f.. off.
Fast forward a year or two and my number came up for conscription. Rather than be in the army I high tailed it to the RAAF and said I wanted to take up their offer. It was their turn to say f.. off.
But before they gave me a uniform the Australian government stopped conscription and started to pull out of Vietnam. I got a deferment card. Still have it.
I was ok with going to Vietnam but I wanted to avoid being an obvious target. FWIW nearly all those I know who were called up got some sort of medical exemption. They carried that stigma to this day. I’m not judging, just saying.
I had those on my license until I became a coffin-dodger on my 70th birthday…
M
Do you have any evidence to support these assertions?
Short answer, No.
At least you didn’t reference a YouTube video or a Facebook post.
Considering that there were education and other deferments from 1940 on and that barely 15% of 25-29 year old Americans had completed college in 1965 (only about 70% completed high school at that point), your claims seem unlikely to be correct.
There was a program called “Project 100,000” that lowered induction standards, but this included not just “low-IQ” men but non-native English speakers and lower level physical classifications as well. However, an objective analysis found that they weren’t “The Problem” in Vietnam:
Note in particular the third paragraph. In 1945, of those aged 25-29 only about 5% had completed college and 45% had completed high school. If the military was able to deal with a much less educated draftee pool in WW II, why wouldn’t they be able to handle what they were given in 1965?
But I get where you are coming from. That paper is like 250 pages long, well-sourced, documented, and peer-reviewed. Why would we listen to that over some half-remembered, third or fourth-hand punchlines that sound much more exciting?
KL
The bureau of labor statistics did a report in 1995 I think, not sure that said 79% of US men serving in Vietnam were high school graduates compared to about 45% in WW2. Mostly middle class, 88# white, 12% minority which is in keeping with the general population breakdown. There’s more but I’m just skimming the surface.
I’d never heard of that project before, very interesting. I haven’t read much about it but sounds crazy, unsurprisingly.
I was in the last U.S. draft lottery they held. Fortunately, I got a high number and wasn’t drafted. If it had been low, I was going to run down to the Navy recruiting station.
I think some sort of conscription is good and I would like to see Canada implement it. I don’t see giving up two years of your of your life, for your country, that will support you for the rest of your life a big ask. The military gives life direction to people who really need it that don’t’ know they need it.
I don’t think modern Swedish or German conscripts were meant to be immediate front line troops or deployed, but as rear echelon until they were trained up to “volunteer status”? @Uncle-Heavy would you clarify?
If someone is a conscientious objector they could still perform a necessary role in the civilian medical field.
In the old conscript system we were indeed intended as frontline troops.
When the training was finished we received our war deployment orders containing travel info and where we shall go if the signal is given. We were trained to the level of being deployable.
All Swedish UN troops, except officers, were conscripts who signed up for the missions.
All, including officers, got training in the special tasks, requirements and restrictions that
apply to UN missions. The Nordic battalion in the Balkan areas got a reputation of being
“trigger happy”, they didn’t hesitate to shoot if needed.
I have minimal insight in the current system, we have contracted soldiers and conscripts.
They all start with the same training. The contract soldiers continue directly afterwards and the
conscripts go home. If the conscripts are called in for deployment they go to war.
One of the advantages with the conscription system is that you get units with all types of
competences in them aside from the military ones. Some professions are obviously set aside, a surgeon will not be called in to serve in his original role as infantry platoon leader, he will get
allocated to a hospital or field hospital. A cook could serve as vehicle mechanic and vice versa.
Plumbing problems. Ask if there is a plumber in the unit.
Carpentry? Ask if there is a carpenter.
Electrics? Sheet metal? Welders? Language skills?
Anecdotes:
An infantry company commander told me (fellow model builder) about a visit they had by officers from some US infantry unit. One of the exercises the visitors observed was a night time forest navigation. Conscripts sent out into the woods with a map and compass, no GPS.
The US officer asked how we dared to send grunts into the forest like that, won’t they get lost?
My friend answered: Nah, they will find their way, no worries.
Another acquaintance (another model builder) told me about the time in Bosnia when they were going out on patrol in their tracked APC, after some time they found a Bradley with crew parked by the road.
Wassup?
Broken roadwheel.
You OK?
Yes, waiting for mechanics/recovery.
Are you sure you are OK?
Yep.
On their way back from the patrol they come to that Bradley again. Hasn’t moved, roadwheel still not fixed.
Have you got a spare wheel?
Yes.
Do you have tools? Yes, but we need the mechanics.
Swedish vehicle commander looks at his crew and they say ‘How hard can it be?’ Basically the same as our own vehicle. They fix it and go on their merry way back to their camp.
With the F-35 it will be more like:
Have you got a spare?
No, the mechanics are bringing it with them sometime next week…
Cheers,
M
More like , once you have replaced a part, it is not recognised, by the computer, and you have entered, the entry code to many times, you are locked out for 48 hours, and you need a palm/ fingers code , reading from M/D chief engineer
…and ruined the Bradley crew’s crafty day off!