This is odd. Of they need tech know-how, then they could have written up a contract for them to fill. Adding officers like this, especially out of wartime feels like an overreach. Maybe Trump needs some more loyal officers.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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This is how Russia works too, and a lot of other dictatorships. If you buy your way in, you too can have a commissioned rank, and the respect, security, and stipend it comes with.
I'm getting the vibe that this is going to be a prelude to privatization.
Politics aside, I imagine hiring a fat gamer or a wheel chair bound person to pilot drones is an interesting idea. War is becoming more mind than body.
It's super interesting, right? Are there any other armies around the world that have lowered their minimum health/boot camp requirements in order to recruit more people like drone pilots, software developers, and various other engineers?
Seems like a good idea to me. Ever since WW2 technology has been the most important factor in warfare. So much so that it now doesn't matter if you have a single soldier ready to deploy if you have nuclear ICBMs (not that it's a good thing we have those).
The difference today is that what you need are lots of people to "man" data/operations centers and just a few ready to deploy for actual combat. Also, a lot of people involved in manufacturing and with skills like CNC machining and 3D printing.
None of those skill sets are conducive to "being in shape". Rather than focus on troops being "ready for anything" it makes more sense to have them housed right next to the systems they work with so they can roll out of the bunk and into the operations center like a fireman rather than out of a barracks and on to a troop transport.
A good way to lower entry requirements is to be at war. There's no need to do that if you're at peace and (mostly) hit your recruitment targets. Keep in mind that people can get transferred from unit to unit depending on armed forces' needs, not necessarily your needs.
what you need are lots of people to "man" data/operations centers and just a few ready to deploy for actual combat.
Maybe in smaller countries and smaller wars. You still need a shitload of people to hold defensive positions for your pilots and other "remote" staff to have any effect. Would be true for insurgencies probably.
nuclear ICBMs (not that it's a good thing we have those)
Debatable. I'd rather have some rn, it's a good deterrent.
Just more shit officers to frag
For those who have read the Galaxy's Edge series, I can only think of the appointees (aka 'Points). Political appointed officer who often end up getting the legionaries killed and lack the combat prowess/skill to be in the officer position they exercise.
Realistically we have many other direct commission officers such as the medical, engineers, legal, etc. What's really different here is they are not requiring the full 5 week Direct commission officer basic course .
If they're bringing on "IT leadership" people then the only place where they're going to be bossing people around is cubicles, conference rooms, and operations centers.
They may get people killed but it will be because they underestimated the damages caused by their hackers. In fact, I highly suspect that there will be a huge "collateral damage" incident from US/Israel hackers using an undisclosed vulnerability to break into something that "the bad guys" then use to break into some important systems all over the world.
Imagine a major industrial control vulnerability that gets turned into a worm by Iran that then causes massive explosions and chemical fires all over the world. Even in countries that have nothing to do with their current conflict.
Put them in the front line on our war with Iran please.
The "front line" in that war is an operations center somewhere in the US where they control spy satellites and tell our allies, submarines, & other remote equipment what to do.
You don't have a front line there. Closest I can think of is a ship, or one of the random bases but considering they're in the army reserve they'll most likely never see those.
I can’t say I take issue with the idea of bringing technology innovators into the military in order to do technology innovation. These are not the assholes I would’ve chosen.