Pentagon to replace all-volunteer force with all-voluntold force
By Cat Astronaut
THE PENTAGON — The Department of Defense announced new plans today to replace the U.S. military’s longstanding “all-volunteer” recruiting model with an “all-voluntold” one.
“We took a look at the numbers and realized we needed a better model for attracting America’s best and brightest into the ranks,” said Matthew Donovan, the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. “The all-volunteer force successfully got us through the darkest days of the Cold War and the War on Terror. But looking to the future, we believe the all-voluntold force will help us acquire the best talent the country has to offer, whether they like it or not.”
Donovan says the change harkens back to the greatest days in American history, like the Civil War and both World Wars, where “any schmuck with arched feet and a pulse” could be “thrown into the meat grinder.”
The Pentagon has spent years researching and analyzing the best militaries from throughout the ages to gather insights that will prepare the services for the future fight.
“We’ve taken lessons from some of history’s finest recruiting models to develop the all-voluntold force,” Donovan said. “Feudal levies, Egyptian Mamluks, Ottoman Janissaries. When you’re forcibly taken from your village at a young age to be castrated and then shaped into a professional warrior, you really have no choice but to be good at it.”
“That’s the kind of selfless servitude we’re looking for.”
The impacts of the all-voluntold force extend beyond the battlefield, to the very core of what it means to serve. Marine Sgt. Maj. Mark Blockhedd says the practice of voluntellism within the military is what has led to such high rates of war-winning and morale among service members over the past two decades.
But the recruiting model has struggled to keep pace.
“The number of working parties and mandatory fun events has more than quadrupled since 2001,” said Blockhedd. “By some estimates, there are more cigarette butts in the parking lot now than at any point since the invasion of Afghanistan. I think we’ll reach a breaking point if we don’t start voluntelling more civilians into service to fix this.”
At press time, the Pentagon announced that rich people and the sons of politicians would continue to be exempt from voluntold service under the new law.
Addison Blu contributed to this report.
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Michael Flynn opens Center for Spies Who Can’t Tradecraft Good
By CharlieMike on Dec. 17, 2017
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former National Security Advisor and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has opened a new school to train the nation’s next generation of spies to send unencrypted emails, hold meetings with foreign adversaries in public places, and talk on phones that are almost certainly being tapped by the NSA, sources confirmed today.
The Michael Flynn Center For Spies Who Can’t Tradecraft Good, And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too will teach a variety of courses designed to assist intelligence professionals struggling with tradecraft disabilities.
The training includes coursework on how to lie on your security clearance forms, the art of extraordinary rendition inside the United States, and tips on the best non-secure methods for contacting Russian officials.
“I just get so focused when I’m spying on everyone’s phone calls. Sometimes I forget, maybe somebody’s spying on my phone calls too,” said NSA analyst Chris Galardi, who hopes to attend the training soon, although, like most signals intelligence analysts, he has no friends to call.
Flynn, the former Defense Intelligence Agency director, recently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about phone calls to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The charges came just months after he was fired as national security advisor because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the calls.
He was also later dismissed as Chairman of the Board of The Inept Intelligence Professionals of America, a professional organization started by former CIA Director George Tenet.
“Without question, Flynn is a slam dunk horrible intelligence professional among our ranks,” Tenet said. “But even we have to maintain at least some standards here.”
Still, Flynn hopes that maybe he can regain the respect of the intelligence community, by offering his training free-of-charge to the nation’s spies, due to generous sponsorship from Turkey and Russia.