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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In a 2017 report that went widely unnoticed, a female captain in the Australian Army recommended a novel solution to combat stress: sex. More specifically, she wondered whether making sexual options, potentially including prostitution, available to soldiers in combat would help troops deal with downrange stress. You can read the report yourself here.
My understanding is that the original source of the article was in the Australian Army's official blog, but was pulled after it became, for reasons that are clear if you read the piece, extremely controversial.
Here's the thing: the author is not wrong. Well, not entirely, anyway.
As the article states, science shows that "sex helps satisfy personal, social and physical needs, reduces stress and is inextricably linked to physical and mental wellbeing." The thing is, the military brass doesn't see it that way.
Capitalism, is there anything it can't solve?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:35PM (18 children)
Drugs will also help satisfy personal, social and physical needs, reduce stress and are inextricably linked to physical and mental wellbeing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:39PM
army acid test [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:48PM (15 children)
Yes, and in "ancient" days, no (sane) soldier would go into battle unless hammered from the alcohol provided by the leaders.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:51PM (7 children)
Reminds me of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker#Theories [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Thursday July 05 2018, @01:01PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVQHDF0L2tQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by deadstick on Thursday July 05 2018, @01:06PM
I had an uncle who was a Marine officer in WW2. He once told me that if he'd had to lead a bayonet charge, he would want a carefully-selected third of the men to be drunk.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
So it was extremely important (for males, females were exempt) in this old nordic culture to be 'drengr' - to be a man's man, whose word is true, who never backs down from a challenge. In fact this was so important that refusing to meet a challenge was a criminal offense, of the most serious order.
So there were plenty of opportunities for a professional duelist. He might challenge men himself, kill them, and take what they owned, all within the law if done cleverly. Or he might accept a fee to represent a man who was the target of just such a play, as well.
So understanding that, I wouldn't even expect for there to be a single 'right answer' regarding their use of drugs or other issues like that. It would make perfect sense that some used henbane and some used mushrooms and some had tricks of entirely different natures, this was not a unified group like a single cult or temple might raise and control, it was a social/professional class that existed over a large area for several centuries at least.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:17PM (2 children)
Originally a Berserker was someone who got so heated up before battle that he tore his shirt off before the start. I have heard a theory that the originals were some mushroom cultists, and others have made it part of bear worship, but in both cases the evidence is unconvincing. Or perhaps *some* of them got high on mushrooms.
Later on the meaning seems to have changed a bit to mean just anyone who got so excited that he bit his shield and frothed at the mouth a bit. It's not like words have fixed meanings over time. (N.B.: It's probable that often people imitated going berserk to intimidate their foes...and that would really act to spread the meaning.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 05 2018, @08:34PM
"Bare Sark", cf. "Cutty Sark". The etymology is not in dispute.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 06 2018, @01:02AM
Bear shirts, not bare shirts.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @10:57PM
Is this a "I Kill Giants" reference?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 05 2018, @01:22PM (6 children)
That's all fine and good if you're pointed at a mass of enemies and given an axe. Modern soldiers kind of need their wits about them if they want to do things like stay alive or be remotely useful though.
The Army doesn't allow you in if you have an ASVAB score under 36 (in laymans terms that works out on average to something like an 85 IQ). This isn't because they don't like retards. It's because they did studies trying to figure out something useful those below that line could do so they could swell their ranks. They didn't find anything. Zip, zilch, nada. Below that line you require supervision for even trivial tasks because you're simply not capable of properly following an order; you're mentally unable to understand it well enough to not fuck it up so often that you're a liability rather than an asset.
Being stoned out of your gourd brings the same liability with it, which is why you get in epic shit if you're caught drunk on duty even though drinking is allowed for those of age in the state they're stationed in.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Spook brat on Thursday July 05 2018, @03:44PM (5 children)
I've met soldiers who were given ASVAB waivers to allow their recruitment, some of them even in specialties categorized as "intelligence".
My favorite? field phone wiring installer. The job description is basically, "grab this 50lbs spool of wire, then walk backwards through contested territory so someone past the front line can call back to base and make reports". That takes a special kind of stupid, one that almost completely lacks self-preservation.
There are jobs that someone that dumb can do, and they're hard to fill - smart people don't want them. The waiver process is there for a reason.
I totally agree with everything else you said, though; stoned and otherwise slow-thinking soldiers are discipline and training challenges at the best of times. I'm not sure I'd want one holding a firearm next to me on the battlefield.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:31PM (4 children)
That's true but generally only done when they score particularly high in one category and shit the entire bed in the others. Pegging coding speed for instance would make sense to give a waiver for intelligence work, regardless of your other scores.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:11PM (3 children)
Coding speed isn't one of the abilities measured on the test, [goarmy.com] but I get the gist of what you're saying. If a recruit misses the composite score cutoff but still qualifies as fit for a needed job category I could see a recruiter make a good argument for a waiver.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:40PM (2 children)
It was when I took the ASVAB. It's the only thing I didn't break the needle off on. That was over twenty years ago though, so it doesn't surprise me that it's changed a bit.
Coding speed wasn't referring to computer coding, mind you. More along the lines of picking specific bits of data out of a pile of random data. See here [militaryspot.com]. It wasn't especially well named.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday July 05 2018, @07:56PM
Huh. I'm going to have to dig out my scores from back in the day, I took it about the same time as you. I honestly didn't bother studying my test results much, all I cared about was getting into the unit/specialty I was looking for. I'd be willing to believe that "coding speed" is one of the categories under "paragraph comprehension".
And, yep, I was mistaking "coding speed" for a programming thing when you said it :P
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @11:15PM
I took the ASVAB over 30 years ago. It was given in high school, and it was optional. I took it just to get out of my boring morning classes. You see, they didn't tell us that the test was used to recruit for the military. (My high school guidance counselors were particularly stupid.)
Taking the test proved to be a mistake.
Sure, I got another piece of paper saying, yes, I'm a smartie. I also got every branch of the military calling and calling and calling, begging to recruit me. Even the Coast Guard, which was surprising indeed in my corn-cursed state of residence. My parents, neither of whom wished to see me in the military, were quite cross with me.
The hectoring didn't end until one day I heard my mother in our front yard, screaming at the top of her lungs at two very large Marines who had come to talk to me without bothering to inquire if it were okay first. I headed out to explain to the gentlemen that I would not be joining their fine service... but explanations were not needed, as they saw at a glance that I am quite below the minimum required height to join any of the services. At least they went away.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Thursday July 05 2018, @01:03PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany#Drug_policy_and_use_within_the_Wehrmacht [wikipedia.org]