IDF news today
The cute:
It was decided to lower the beginning age for battalion commanders from mid-30s to early-30s, because the demandingness of battalion command is too damaging to the typical home life of mid-30s people (married with multiple children). (A typical IDF role rotation is 2-4yr, so that's one 1-2 job rotations.) Early 30s was also chosen as a compromise between "full proper adult, not likely to be tempted to do crazy shit" and "daring younger adult with good communication with more-teenager-than-not officers". (When your company commanders are 24yr old, maybe, having >32yr old battalion commanders is apparently enough of a communication problem as to be a safety concern.)
The IDF: where having children of your own is a job requirement for looking after enough of other people's children, but when you have enough of your own you should move to a job less likely to wrack your sanity by wracking your home life. And this, folks, is a discussion had over infantry men.
The really not okay, via
lovechilde: three Giv'aati combat-role soldiers committed suicide in the past few weeks. For a military that only has 10-20 suicides a year (depending on how you count your numbers, what with "undetermined") this is really fucking exceptional.
That Giv'aati took particularly heavy loses shouldn't be a factor. The protocols are different for units that took an exceptional trauma and units that took "ordinary" combat trauma, and those protocols are tried and tested and true. (Soldiers in combat roles in infantry units in the IDF get excellent early response and follow-up. If you're non-combat or from a non-front unit - well.) So either it's a freak accident (which nobody's going to believe unless everything else has been thoroughly ruled out), or it's a command problem in Giv'aati (<- my theory), or recent changes to the protocols compromised their efficacy (which will have to be ruled out first).
This entry was originally posted at http://hagar-972.dreamwidth.org/2608038.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
It was decided to lower the beginning age for battalion commanders from mid-30s to early-30s, because the demandingness of battalion command is too damaging to the typical home life of mid-30s people (married with multiple children). (A typical IDF role rotation is 2-4yr, so that's one 1-2 job rotations.) Early 30s was also chosen as a compromise between "full proper adult, not likely to be tempted to do crazy shit" and "daring younger adult with good communication with more-teenager-than-not officers". (When your company commanders are 24yr old, maybe, having >32yr old battalion commanders is apparently enough of a communication problem as to be a safety concern.)
The IDF: where having children of your own is a job requirement for looking after enough of other people's children, but when you have enough of your own you should move to a job less likely to wrack your sanity by wracking your home life. And this, folks, is a discussion had over infantry men.
The really not okay, via
lovechilde: three Giv'aati combat-role soldiers committed suicide in the past few weeks. For a military that only has 10-20 suicides a year (depending on how you count your numbers, what with "undetermined") this is really fucking exceptional.
That Giv'aati took particularly heavy loses shouldn't be a factor. The protocols are different for units that took an exceptional trauma and units that took "ordinary" combat trauma, and those protocols are tried and tested and true. (Soldiers in combat roles in infantry units in the IDF get excellent early response and follow-up. If you're non-combat or from a non-front unit - well.) So either it's a freak accident (which nobody's going to believe unless everything else has been thoroughly ruled out), or it's a command problem in Giv'aati (<- my theory), or recent changes to the protocols compromised their efficacy (which will have to be ruled out first).
This entry was originally posted at http://hagar-972.dreamwidth.org/2608038.html. Please comment there using OpenID.