Te Radar: Left, right ... join the US Army and get 'em both done

HUMOUR

"Help build a new Iraq in return for a new rack!" could well be the new United States military recruitment slogan.

In order to counter declining military recruitment figures in the US the powers that be have decided to make the military more attractive by making the military more attractive.

All members of the US military (and any members of their immediate families) are eligible to receive taxpayer-funded elective cosmetic alterations.

This includes facelifts, liposuction, and of course the one procedure that seems almost compulsory in the States: breast enlargements.

Intriguingly the candidates for this procedure are apparently required to supply their own implants. Given the ingenuity of military personnel I would love to know what has been proffered as potential space fillers.

Denying that the offer is simply a gratuitous incentive to "be all that you can be", the US military's rationale for this surgical largesse is that military surgeons need to have people to practise on.

Quite why they need to practise these particular procedures, which I wouldn't have thought were routinely encountered during combat, eludes me.

I mention all of this only because of the controversy that clambered from the trenches of dissent here this week.

It was revealed that our military is having trouble retaining and recruiting enough people to fill its hallowed (and now apparently hollowed) ranks.

The Army, however, has to accept a degree of accountability. Its on-line application form asks whether the applicant has ever had any problems with bed-wetting, or had a Sexually Transmitted Disease. I hadn't realised these were prerequisites.

It seems clear that we may need more innovative incentives.

It was mooted that changes in the immigration laws may enable immigrants into the military.

It strikes me that conscripting refugees from war-ravaged countries into our kinder, gentler military might not be the best way to help rehabilitate and integrate them.

There is no doubt that the NZ Defence Forces have equipped themselves excellently when performing peace-keeping.

However, when it comes to equipping themselves, they seem to have trouble keeping their pieces.

When they are given new equipment things don't necessarily seem a lot better. The Army's much-vaunted purchase of the new Light Armoured Vehicles is somewhat diminished by the unfortunate acronym used to describe them.

Referring to them simply as "LAVs" makes them sound like mobile toilets (which, in light of the controversy over them, might not be too far from the truth).

Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects have again called for compulsory military training for the young.

This political declaration is a lot like the Alliance - it appears every so often and is promptly ignored by all but a few diehards.

Still, maybe a year in the military would have made me a different man.

I may well have emerged fitter, and with better evasion and survival skills, the ability to perform rudimentary surgery with nothing more than some fishing line and a nail, and a basic knowledge of improvised explosives.

Somehow the thought of a generation armed with this knowledge doesn't make me sleep easier at night.

* Email Te Radar