Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
it doesnt say when they were mustered out
and I can see MilGov saying ok guys we brought you home, now you get to pay for the trip. You can leave with what you have - or you can do some work for us and when you are done we will provide whatever we can to get you home or close to home
Plus it would help put the US back on its feet at least locally
You still get mustered out its just that you use a shovel instead of a rifle for a while before you go hoome
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One of the premises in The Forever War (excellent book by the way - I recommend reading Starship Troopers and then TFW in that order) is that keeping veterans from mustering out of the military is a very easy thing: there is no FTL, only near-FTL and time dilation and relativistic travel means that soldiers who go out for a single campaign don't come home for potentially hundreds of earth-years, despite only six months to a years time passed.
What they come home to is so utterly alien, socially, that the only "old world" they know are the troopers they went in with in the early 21st century. So the military tells them "Well...you know, you've earned your contract, you can leave
any time you want but take a look at the world you're entering."
That, I think, is what retains a lot of the military after OpOrd Omega: docking at Norfolk, getting the real picture of what things are like and then being given the "option" to stay in the military. Three hots and a cot plus a gun to defend yourself, plus staying with the people you have fought and bled with for five years
or walk out into a post-war wasteland, into the hands of factional local "governments", and assuming you survive the various ongoing social upheavals you get home to a place that looks as bad as Warsaw. I'd tend to think soldiers, even those with dependents, would stay in and continue to serve.
I know I would.
04-11-2012, 08:22 AM
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