Actually i've got a good use for 'Penal Battalions'...
Helping with labor intensive jobs. be it disaster cleanup, fire-fighting, and helping with farming. These three things are JUST three that we have convict labor being used for here in the US today.
the use of "Penal Battalions" in the Army would be to assign them to Combat Engineers and other Rear Areas (under the watchful eyes of Military Police & the Corps of Engineers) for the construction of fortifications and cantonments, with helping in the recovery efforts and the like. The only downside to this overseas, would be the bad PR if some of these criminal element falls back to their old ways and starts raping and killing the people we're trying to help. But that can be said of regular troopers as well (as we saw with Belgium's peacekeepers to a UN Mission to Africa).
Which brings me to this point... What would such a program be called? we already have a name for women in combat, but wwhat of the penal battalions? what would politicians call something like that?
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Fuck being a hero. Do you know what you get for being a hero? Nothing! You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah blah blah, attaboy! You get divorced... Your wife can't remember your last name, your kids don't want to talk to you... You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me kid, nobody wants to be that guy. I do this because there is nobody else to do it right now. Believe me if there was somebody else to do it, I would let them do it. There's not, so I'm doing it.
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